Getting paid on your own is not as easy as it appears but your Personal branding can make it a lot easier. Two basic things here are a) using the Industry standard and b) using your personal brand value. We won't be talking about the Industry standard here as that's basic. Now, the question is how do you make money off your Personal Brand? 1. Fees. Being paid on job to job basis. Calculate how much the job would cost you: phone bills, transportation, 3rd party suppliers, Internet bill [ yes] etc. Mark it up by 15% . That's part A. Now calculate how much you should be earning monthly if you were working for someone. Divide that by 25 days. So you know your daily rate. Also divide your daily rate by 9 hours. That's your hourly rate. Calculate how many days you may spend on the job. So use daily rates. That's part B. Now, A + B + 15% markup of the total of A + B [ depending on how strong your personal brand is, you may want to do as low as 7% ] = your chargeable fee. For instance, if you were in the business of giving bridal tips. Your part A cost includes phone bills, magazines you read, subscriptions online, transportation, Internet bills. Since these things are better calculated monthly, you use the monthly total. So, let's assume we have a bill of 30,000. Mark that up by 15 % because of exchange rates and unstable currencies. That gives you 34,500 If you have up to 5 years after graduation experience, your mates should be earning about 300,000 monthly [ check with various industries ] Your daily rate should be 12,000. Your charges therefore = 34,500 + 12,000 = 46,500 [ + 7% of 46,500= 3,255 ] Total of 49,755 Approximately, you should be charging your client about 6,000 per hour. Remember to add applicable taxes. Now, depending on your Personal Brand, the 7% can go as high as 15 % How about negotiations? If you are doing more than 5 hours of job with a client, you give discounts based on your markups not on your basic fees. You may want to bring that 7% down as low as 5% or even 3%. Next week, we shall be looking at retainer-ship, another form of renumeration.

 

12 Jun 2009   INTRODUCTION TO BRAND INNOVATION