The fifth installment in this series of posts is about pricing yourself right. Doing business and sales, you will experience people wanting to bargain, wanting to squeeze as much as possible out of their pennies, potentially leaving you with deals that barely make ends meet.

The fifth word of advice is: if you really want to be successful, you have to price yourself right.

Allow me to put forward a bit of a bold disposition: clients can be divided into two categories, they can either be eagles or vultures. Eagles soar high in the sky, they see the big picture and know exactly when to strike. On the other hand, vultures aim low, preying at whatever easy target they can find.

If you work as a consulant in some form, be it as a web developer, designer, programmer or whatever, you will run into people who’ll ask for your services and expect for your assistance to be free of charge because, hey, fiddling with graphics or coding stuff is your hobby, right? I mean, it’s your thing, so answering calls and helping out inserting clipart icons into a Microsoft Word document in the middle of the night is no problem, right? Come on, it’ll only take 5 minutes. Okay, maybe 30 minutes, because there’s this virus that keeps making popups appear, and you’re into the whole computers thing, right, so you’ll get it done, right? Free of charge, of course, I mean, it’ll only take 30, well, 45 minutes perhaps, but hey, come on, it’s your hobby, you’ll get it done easily.

These people are vultures, and what you want is to avoid these people at all costs in order to attract the eagles, the clients that see the big picture and acknowledge the value that your work constitutes — and thus, clients who’ll pay what it costs to reap the benefits of your work.

As a new-comer to business, pricing yourself right is an important step to take, because it will seem to hinder you in your endeavors at first. Pricing yourself right means saying goodbye to a good deal of potential business here and now, because you say no to developing a full-blown web site for $200 and because you say no to creating a shiny new logo for $50. As you turn this type of business down, always remember that what you’re really doing is refusing to be treated like dirt, because you refuse to price yourself like dirt.

Pricing yourself right should be a balance between 1) the extent of the actual job needed to get done and 2) the scope of the business relation between you and the client. If the client has a limited budget, but more work for you once the job is done, find a price that matches this relation. And always make sure to price yourself in a way that allows for your full ambition on behalf of the client to be realized.

Pricing yourself right means saying yes to the right type of clients. If you price yourself like quality, you will be treated like quality and you will produce quality. Everybody wins!

Be dedicated, find the right people to work with, think like a winner, stick to your agenda, price yourself right, and you will be a success.

During your career, you will shake hands with a lot of people. It’s great to expand your network, exchange know-how and just staying up to date on popular topics, business ventures etc. — but you will also find yourself spending massive amounts of time on meetings.

The fourth word of advice is: if you really want to be successful, you have to stick to your agenda.

For each meeting you attend, make sure there is an agenda. You must either ask for an agenda or establish one yourself, so that both you and the party you’re meeting with agree on the purpose of the meeting. It’s a simple tip, yet so few people practice it — trust me, you want to be one of those people.

I send out agendas all the time, as it saves me heaps of time because people come prepared and ready for business. Here’s an example:

You don’t have to explicitly list the things you wish to discuss like I do in the above example, just drop two lines about what you expect and you’re good to go.

Meetings are great, but you don’t want to find yourself thinking “just what did I accomplish?” at the end of the day, all because you attended a bunch of meetings that lead to no results. Coffee meetings are great, but let’s get to the point already.

Be dedicated, find the right people to work with, think like a winner, stick to your agenda, and you will be a success.

You probably already know this one. You’ve experienced it thousands of times, as it seems to be something closely connected to the way we act as human beings: we think defensivly.

The third word of advice is: if you really want to be successful, you have to think like a winner.

Allow me to exemplify the defensive thinking problem: fancy yourself attending a meeting where you present your idea to a bunch of people. It might be something techy, a web site you’ve created with some functionality that you think will change the world. The dialogue goes something like this:

You: "… so my idea is that this functionality will bring together people and give them some possibilities of reaching out to each other in this specific context. I believe this to be quite the problem solver."

The defensive thinker: "Uhm, yeah… But for this to even happen, you’ll need a lot of users."

You: "Yeah, well…"

The defensive thinker: "And how are you going to market this?"

You: "This will be done primarily through…"

The defensive thinker: "And the ROI, will this ever make money?"

You: "Uhm, the idea is for the site to…"

The defensive thinker: "I don’t really know about this. It really requires a lot of users. This needs to be thought through."

Well, of course the site needs lots of users! Of course the site needs to be marketed! Of course the site needs to pay for itself! These things really go without saying, so don’t let yourself be set aback by people asking showstopping questions. Just because they don’t see (or don’t want to see) the potential, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t there.

Winners think in posibilites, not in limitations. Nothing great is ever created without irrational exuberance, as the saying goes. Don’t ever expect for yourself to completely clarify and justify your every action, but follow your intuition based on a qualified impression of the situation you’re in. You will never be completely aware of the world surrounding you, so think like a winner and act on what you know — and not on what you don’t know.

Be dedicated, find the right people to work with, think like a winner, and you will be a success.

I went to the movies yesterday and watched The Social Network. I couldn’t hide a smile during parts of the movie, because I was reminded about a thing or two I’ve experienced myself. This next post in the series deals with finding the right people.

The second word of advice is: if you really want to be successful, you have to find the right people to work with.

If you’ve got a great idea and you pitch it to people in your network, you’ll get a lof of initial enthusiasm, which is great. I mean, everybody wants in on a great idea, right? But trust me, you don’t want to wake up a year later and have the same people who were all shits and giggles about your idea not meeting deadlines, not responding to your e-mails etc.

It kind of goes without saying, yet by far is not always the case: at all times, you need to work with people who are as enthusiastic as you, people who are willing to risk what you risk, and people who are into your company and your idea as much as you are.

So, when do you know that you’ve got the wrong people on your team? Well, here’s a few key pointers to look out for:

1) If the deadlines you’ve delegated are not met
2) If you only get responses to a minimum of your e-mails *
3) If people don’t answer their phones and never have time for Skype etc. *
4) If the work they’ve done turn out to be not as good as you trusted it to be
5) If they don’t actually use your application or whatever you’ve developed *
6) If they don’t ever ask about how the company is doing

* indicates points that resemble parts of The Social Network

If you experience any of the above, pull the emergency brake and confront the people in your team who are not living up to the expectations of your startup. It’s better for everyone to get things settled as quickly as possible in relation to the whole staying-focused methodology.

And remember: you must never sacrifice yourself for people who will not do the same for you. Be dedicated, find the right people to work with, and you will be a success.