How to secretly find your competitors pricing

If you’ve looked around online to find out what exact prices are that people charge for the work you do and haven’t found solid figures, there’s a couple of ways you can find out. The first way is to check out Freelance Switch’s Freelance Statistic’s Report. It cost $19.99 and has a ton of information inside of it.

But what if you’ve looked that over and you want a more real-world approach (ie: knowing what the person does for a living, their quality of work and the exact prices they charge for the same work you’d be doing)? It’s as easy as sending an email.

Here’s what you do

The first thing you’ll need to do is set up a personal email account – one that isn’t attached to your business. Do not reference your business in the email name or anywhere in the email (signature).

After you’ve set the email address up, think of a project that you’d like to find out pricing on. For web designers, get a few links together to websites you like and put together an email requesting something that looks similar to those in style. For logo designers and print designers, adjust your emails according to your profession.

Make sure your email is as close to what you’d be doing as possible, this way you can find out exactly what other people are charging for the same work.

Now, find 10-15 of the top people in your industry and send them the emails; then you wait. Once you get responses from them, you can go over their emails, read their quotes and find out what they charge. At this point, you’ve got a solid base as to what the others in your industry charge for the work you will be doing.

An example email you can send

Below is a sample email that you can tailor to fit your needs.

Hey (insert name),

I was just checking out your site and I love your work. I’ve been thinking of starting a website recently and I wanted to know what the pricing would be for something like this:

I am in need of a blog design that looks similar to the following websites

• Website Name
• Another website
• Third website name

The main idea behind my site is that I want to discuss (insert topic here) and would like to have some social media integration (insert other options here).

A price quote for something like this would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
(insert name)

And that’s all there is to it. Within a week or so, you could get anywhere from 10-50 quotes, depending on how many people you actually contact.

What do you think – is this a clever idea or too ‘sneaky’?

Let us know in the comments what you think. Some might think the idea is a bit too ‘sneaky’ while others look at it like a clever opportunity to find out real world pricing for their projects.

How to secretly find out what your competitors charge is a post from Guerrilla Freelancing For our regular subscribers, we've got a relaunch in order in the next week or two. Keep your eyes peeled :)

Raise your damn rates!

It’s the easiest way to make more money per client while working less. Lets look at the above example and adjust your rate to $50.00 per hour. In order to make that same $2,000 per month, you’ll only need 40 billable hours – 60% less time than you would need to work at $20.00 per hour!

But what if people don’t think your work is worth the $50.00 per hour? What if you don’t think it’s worth the $50.00 per hour? Have you ever hear of the power of perception? People will see a $50.00 per hour price tag and gladly pay it if it’s something they need – and you’re able to show them that you believe you’re worth that amount of money. Do not haggle the price, do not budge – stick to the price and people will pay you what you believe you’re worth.

Closed mouths don’t get fed, right? So open your mouth and ask for more. Hell, you can even test it out on a few clients (without publically discussing your rate raising) and see how it works. Test the water for a month or two and see how things go. I think you’ll enjoy the free time you find by doing this

Get paid more (per client) and work less hours is a post from Guerrilla Freelancing For our regular subscribers, we've got a relaunch in order in the next week or two. Keep your eyes peeled :)

Below you will find a loosly guided outline on what you need to do in order to turn your passion into profits. Your steps may be a bit different depending on what it is that you love to do, but the overall process will be the same – state what it is you love, define the money making opportunities within that field, and (as Gary Vaynerchuk will tell you) CRUSH IT!

What do you LOVE to do?

This is the first question you need to ask yourself. Can you play sports for hours a day without even thinking about food, rest or water? Could you write about politics without getting up from your seat for 6-7 hours at a time? Would you be able to draw sketches for the entire day without looking up from your notepad once?

No matter what it is that you love, you need to find what it is, because without a true love for what it is you will be building your business off of, you will, without a doubt, hit roadblocks and find times where you are discouraged. You’ll want to quit – and just might – if you do not truly love what it is you’re going to be doing.

How can you make money from your passion?

Now that you’ve figured out what you truly love to do more than anything, the fun part begins; how do you make money from it? Is it possible to make money by directly doing it (ie: sketching and drawing illustrations) or would you have to form a business venture based on it (ie: if you love playing sports, you could start a sports website). I’d recommend sitting down with pen and paper and pounding out as many business oriented ideas as possible. Do not worry about neatness, or order of biggest to smallest – just get them out on paper until your brain hurts. You’ll notice that once you hit a flow, you’ll start to see ideas on the paper you never even thought of before.

Now take that list after you have exhausted your brain and find the one or two that interest you the most. Remember, you NEED to be interested in what you’re doing, so make sure it’s definitely something you could see yourself doing (or are already doing) for 12-16 hours a day. Once you’ve got them together, you’re ready for the next step.

Formatting your business

At this point, you’ve figured out what it is that you love and you’ve got your one or two business ideas on how you can make money by doing what it is you love – so now, you’ve got to start doing it! If you’ve got the opportunity to already be working from home, make sure you’re devoting as much time as possible to the passion you’ve got. If you’re working a 9-5, come home from that job and get to work. Hard work and hustle is what will pay off in the end. You might hear success stories of people who sit around and work 1-2 hours a day while making $1,000+ per day – odds are they are full of shit. You’ve got to get off your ass and make things happen. Success isn’t going to just fall into your lap.

If you’re truly comfortable spending time doing things you hate, then disregard this article entirely. But if you’ve got a passion burning inside of you, one that you know you need to focus more time and energy on, you need to get up, get out and get it! You’ve got the ideas on how to make money from your passion, so get out there and make things happen – you’re going to enjoy ever minute of it.

Profitable Passion: Getting paid to do what you love is a post from Guerrilla Freelancing For our regular subscribers, we've got a relaunch in order in the next week or two. Keep your eyes peeled :)

But back to our regularly scheduled program, we all want to make (some extra) money online right? Well, below I’ve put together a nice list of 50 niches that will definitely bring you in some serious cash. However, without the passion for the niches, you might get bored quickly and forget the projects, so my one word of advice would be to choose wisely. Some of these niches are perfect to build a strong solid readership, while others I have personally tested and do really well with Google Adsense clicks (I’m talking .75-1.00 per click or better)

And with that said, lets get the list going.

1. Quit Smoking Cigarettes
2. Trendy Furniture
3. Surgery and Doctors
4. Graffiti and Street Art
5. Acne Skin Care
6. Home theater systems
7. Mortgage and Real Estate
8. Bathroom Lighting
9. Breast Cancer
10. Car Donation Information
11. Carpet Installers
12. Christian Singles
13. Criminal Record Search
14. Fast Payday Loans
15. Free Mortgage Calculators
16. Ice Fishing Shelters
17. Indoor Thermometers
18. Kitchen Cookware
19. Mixed Drinks
20. Recycling Information
21. Yoga
22. Anxiety
23. Investing and the Stock Market
24. Health Care
25. Adult (yes, like porn – grow up  )
26. Fashion Trends
27. Celebrity Gossip
28. Green Living
29. Religion
30. Healthy Eating
31. Organization (home, body and mind)
32. Psychology
33. Suicide Prevention
34. Music
35. Traveling
36. Aviation
37. Home Repairs
38. Car repairs
39. Electronics
40. Relationship Advice
41. Movie Reviews
42. Video Games
43. Diet and Exercise
44. Marketing (offline and online)
45. Photography
46. Animal Rights
47. Guerrilla Marketing
48. Mixed Martial Arts
49. Global Warming
50. Blogging about Blogging (yeah, I had to include it in this list too  )

Got any you could add to the list? Or maybe you’re trying one of these out now?

Let me know in the comments or through the contact page.

Disclaimer: These blogs will take some time to build up and gain search engine rankings for and/or a steady reader base. This list is not meant to be a “get rich quick” type of scheme. But with some hard work up front, you can put together 1-2 months worth of articles, have them post on auto pilot and literally FORGET about it while you continue working on your freelance business.

50 money filled blog niches YOU should be dominating is a post from Guerrilla Freelancing For our regular subscribers, we've got a relaunch in order in the next week or two. Keep your eyes peeled :)