Developing software is something I really love. To be more precise I love developing Windows Store apps (Windows Phone and Windows 8). I didn't want to develop only apps for myself but rather help other people bring their apps to these platforms.
If I can earn money in the process, even better :)
I started freelancing on many different sites (maybe about that in another post) and soon realized that people are just racing to the bottom with their prices. Their proposal had to be as cheap as possible.
I thought that this was the norm so I took the same approach (I also wanted to get a clients as soon as possible so I was ready to get paid less).
After a while I started raising my rates and saw that people still hire me despite being on the more expensive side but I still tried to find a way to get even more clients. That was about the time when I stumbled up on a book.
I started reading and immediately love it. The guy was telling me that I can charge ten times or even more of my normal rate and still find customers who are happy to hire you. It all seemed a bit "fishy" but I kept reading and realized that the things written there make a lot of sense. On one side, I know my stuff and don't really think I should sell my knowledge for to little. On the other hand the value the companies receive in the end is always greater then what I get paid so they are happy to close a deal.
Many things written in the book are things falling into the common sense category but many people (me included) fail to implement them. Writing proposals, talking to clients, offering them value even after the project is done and many other things are aggregated in this book.
You will also find some more advanced concepts which I loved immediately and am trying to implement into my next projects.
For me this was a nudge in the right direction and I already see benefits from it. I am talking currently to more clients and discussing more projects which are just awesome to work on.
I can only recommend the book Brennan Dunn has written because you can see he knows his stuff!
I'll continue making more money and I hope you will too :)