Northwest
Saying the number out loud
in Notes
There is a specific failure that happens to people who have priced their work correctly on paper. They say the number in the room, hear how it sounds, and keep talking. The next sentence undoes the price. "But I could probably do it for," or "that includes everything, obviously, and I am flexible."
The quote was right. The delivery gave it away.
Why the sentence after the number matters most
A price is a claim about value and it is received as one. Silence after a number reads as confidence in the claim. Words after a number read as an apology for it, whatever the words actually say. Most people cannot hold the silence the first fifty times, because three seconds of nothing feels like thirty when you are the one who just asked for money.
The fix is mechanical. Decide in advance what the last word of the quote is and stop there. Then wait. If the wait is unbearable, prepare one neutral sentence to fill it, ideally a question that puts the next move on the other side. "Does that fit what you had budgeted?" works, because it is an honest question with a useful answer either way.
Rehearsal, specifically
Rehearsal here means saying the actual sentence aloud, at full volume, to another person, several times. Reading it silently does nothing, because the thing being trained is the voice and the pause.
- Write the quote as one sentence with one number in it. "The project is forty-two hundred dollars." A range is two numbers and the listener only hears the lower one.
- Say it to somebody who will push back. A peer group is good for this, because the pushback is free and the stakes are zero.
- Have the other person ask for a discount, and practice the refusal separately. The refusal is its own sentence and it needs its own rehearsal.
- Repeat until the pause after the number is boring.
Business groups that run this as an exercise get more out of it than almost anything else on their program, and it takes twenty minutes. It is rarely on the program, because it is uncomfortable to run and it makes for a bad photograph.
The discount conversation is a separate conversation
When somebody asks for a lower price they are asking one of three questions, and it helps to know which. Can I afford this. Is this worth this. Will you move if I push. The three have different answers.
If the question is affordability, the honest response changes the scope rather than the rate. A smaller version of the job at a smaller price keeps the hourly value intact and keeps the relationship. If the question is value, the answer is a specific description of what the work includes that they had not accounted for. If the question is whether you will move, any movement answers it permanently, for that client and for anyone they talk to.
That last one is why experienced people hold the line on a first job with a new client even when the money would be welcome. The first price sets the ceiling for every job after it.
Put the number in writing the same day, in a short message that repeats the sentence you said out loud, word for word. People misremember prices in their own favour without meaning to, and a written repetition of the exact phrase removes the argument before it happens. It also forces you to commit, which is the point.
A note on written quotes, since more of this happens by email now. The same rule survives the move. One number, one sentence, then the scope, then nothing. A closing line offering flexibility in advance does exactly what the spoken version does, which is price the job twice and let the reader pick. People read a quote in ten seconds and remember the last thing they read, so the last line should be the next step.
When the number has to change
Prices go up. The awkward part is that they go up on people who have been paying the old one for three years, and those are usually the clients you like. The version that works is boring and early. A short note, six to eight weeks ahead, stating the new rate and the date it starts. No justification paragraph. A justification invites a negotiation about whether the justification is good enough.
Expect to lose a small number of clients, and price the increase on the assumption that you will. An increase that keeps every single client was probably too small. That is an uncomfortable sentence and it is also the arithmetic.