How a Mindset Shift Increased my Prices Dramatically by 425% (Part 1)
Today I want to share part one of a very important story with you. My mindset shift journey. It is a remarkable one. An unbelievable one that, as a custom wedding invitation designer, is almost beyond belief and inconceivable to me at the time. Revealing my experience to you, I hope, will help you perhaps in some areas that you might be having trouble with, or if you are a creative or a professional, this will help you to up level your game and change your perception fo what is possible and what you can aim for.
Also for good measure I’ve sprinkled in a few of my latest pieces of work, to liven things up a little.
Within one month I went from increasing my price for working on custom wedding invitations from £2,800 to a whopping upgrade of £8,800 for my next client.
Now I don’t believe in doing any woo-woo stuff, such as going to the top of a hill, splattering myself with honey and egg yolks and prancing about naked under a half moon and chanting £8K, I want £8K. No, not at all. I had to vastly change and address my mindset and learn a few truths the hard way.
Making a mindset shift:
Was it that easy to make this mindset shift? It most certainly was not. It came after a three month struggle of working all the hours that I could, including the weekends. It came after I knew that what I was doing and what I was charging was not commercially viable in anyway shape or form. It came because I knew that with the current time I was ploughing into client work for the amount the client was paying me, I was earning less than minimum wage.
I was tired.
I had enough.
It was time for a change.
But that is not the whole story and it’s not how it happened at all. It started from the first seed that someone sowed in my mind.
Make sure your design skills are up to scratch
Before I start this epic story below I have to clearly state that my design skills were at a level were they needed to be. I had finally clasped the entrance of great design. I have always know that I have great design skills and artistic ability. Yet it took me a few years before I had refined my skills to the point that I was ready to raise my rates.
Here (below) is a protea watercolour painting and calligraphy from 5 years ago, sharing my horrendous design and pathetic calligraphy, I was so terrible but I didn’t know it! So for context I have added some photos below.
Allowing others to set limitations
Naively, I believed with conviction what a photographer from Italy had told me. I had been discussing my lack of having any clients to this Italian photographer who I had connected with, via Instagram. I respected her and her opinion. I was after all a baby in the wedding industry and even though I was developing a good aesthetic and certainly was creating my own unique style – I still wasn’t quite there with my portfolio, or confidence.
What she said to me, left quite a mark
She remarked that I would never make more than £1-2K with stationery. My heart sunk.
Very stupidly, I accepted her business death sentence and didn’t think anything more of it.
After that conversation, I allowed that to put a limit upon me. I gave permission for her to set my limitations and that was my first big mistake. It took so much hard work and learning the hard way for me to ponder over what she had said and realise that NO. NO. No and No, that cannot possibly be true.
I cannot possibly work as hard as I do and only earn £1-2K? Again, for some context, I was not creating mass produced stationery. I was creating custom designed invitations where I spent at least 2-4 months on one client.
How much do you think I would earn if I worked for 3-4 months as a teacher, nurse, social media manager or any other professional position? As a teacher I earned far more, maybe 2X-3X that over the course of three months and I would enjoy paid holidays as well.
Yet here I was earning far less than I would actually earn if I were to work at Starbucks. Either something had to change or it was the end for me.
That type of business was neither sustainable or scaleable ( I’m still working on the scaleability of my business and over my next year I hope to set lots of new revenue streams up).
Next week I will continue this story, it gets much better!
Don’t shy away and comment if you’d like to. I always read every comment.
Visit my shop to buy my artwork and take joy from it in your own home.
