How to Discuss Freelance Pricing During a Cold Call

For many freelance writers, marketing is the “hot topic” of the day. Not only are these people looking for a marketing strategy that works, but they want to rely on something that doesn’t take up all their time.

If this sounds familiar, you have probably given cold calling a second thought at some point in time. This is something we have discussed before. For example, we have talked about everything from cold calling nightmares to questions you may be asked and many topics in between.

This time around, let’s consider this: you are on the phone with a prospect, after making a cold call, and the person wants to discuss pricing.

On one side of things, you should be excited as this means the person is at least considering your service. On the other side, you are now in a position where you have no choice but to discuss your rates. What are you going to do?

Here are three tips that should help:

  1. Don’t give a quote until you know the details of the project. Some people will ask about rates without really having a project in mind. As you can imagine, this makes life much more difficult on you. Before you give a solid quote, ask for more details related to the project such as the type of writing, length, turnaround time, etc.
  2. Keep it open ended. The last thing you want to do is give a firm number, just to find that you need to make an adjustment to the quote in the near future. While there is nothing wrong with discussing your basic pricing structure, keep it as open ended as possible for the time being.
  3. Don’t be shy. It is common for freelance writers to underbid the project because they are worried about what the prospect will think of their quote. You know your rates and you shouldn’t “low ball your bid” for any reason.

Pricing doesn’t always come up during a cold call, but from time to time you will find this to be the case. With the above tips, you are in better position to handle any questions regarding this detail.

Profile image for Chris Bibey
Chris is a full-time freelance writer based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He specializes in web content, sales copy, and many other forms of writing. Chris has two books in print, as well as hundreds of articles in local and nationwide publications.

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1 thought on “How to Discuss Freelance Pricing During a Cold Call”

  1. “Don’t give a quote until you know the details of the project.” –Yep. When I was starting out, I made the mistake of providing a quote for some web content without ironing out all of the specifics first.

    Result? I ended up doing a ton of work that I didn’t anticipate, including interviewing several people and writing about 5+ more pages. The company sure got a huge bargain.

    Lesson learned.

    Reply

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