How to Charge Per Hour When Providing Multiple Services

It's common for social media professionals to provide multiple search and social media marketing services as part of their freelance business, such as:If you charge per hour -- which we recommend -- it can be difficult to bill the same rate social media marketing blogs for all of these services, because each one involves varying expertise and therefore should be valued differently.A rate card is a document that states and breaks down what you charge per social media marketing applicationsservice, per hour -- varying from service to service.This document is made available to clients, so they understand what rate they're paying for each of your services.We write in our service agreements that our hourly rates as written in the agreement are valid for the following six months, subject to increase with 30 days advanced social media marketing chicago written notice thereafter. (Whether you want to increase your rates after six months is up to you.)While marketing using social media we believe that freelance rates should be determined by your total monthly expenses (TME) it's also important to take into account the service(s) that you're providing. For instance, it social media brand marketing may be difficult to find clients who will pay $75 an hour for community management, even though an hourly rate of $75 may be the number you come to after how to start a social media marketing business using your TME to calculate an hourly rate. In our experiences, we've found this range to be most effective for social media freelancers, and most acceptable by clients: * Most advertising professionals take a percentage of what's called "ad spend" -- the amount of money a client gives someone to spend los angeles social media marketing on advertising on the client's behalf. That number usually hovers around 10 percent.Josh Hoffman (better known as Social Media Josh) is an international cost of social media marketingconsultant, instructor and speaker, as well as the creator of The Social Media Freelancer. For high-level content about social media, marketing, freelancing, entrepreneurship and other random thoughts, connect with social media marketing university review Josh on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. You can also sign up to receive his weekly column about social media, marketing and doing business in the digital age. Your local market conditions matter mainly becausebest social media marketing they reflect what the general client will regard as "in the ballpark"—or not. For instance, an SEOmoz survey on specialized SEO services indicated that rates in the US are concentrated in the $101-$150 per-hour range, whereas in the UK they are slightly lower, in the $76-$100 range. Comparedfacebook social media marketing with that specialty services strategy, a rate for general digital marketing services would be more in the $60-100 per hour range. In any event, you must know which strategy you are pursuing to have a general idea of what the market define social media marketing will bear for that strategy. If your business is relatively new—say, you launched within the past 2-3 years and have a roster of 15-20 clients—I recommend having "market prices" for your region (in either strategy) that don't feel "too premium" to a prospect. The point disadvantages of social media marketing of this exercise is to verify that market prices actually provide good business for you. Step 3. Financial Objectives: At What Rate Should the Partner Bill Out? In your digital marketing agency, the only partner may be you. Or perhaps there are two or three key principals. A good place to start on your internal cost structure is to determine two hotel social media marketing financial objectives for the partners for at least the current year and the following year: What is the minimum income each of the partners needs to live on for the current year and the following year? What is the desired (but reasonable) income social media marketing plan pdf for each of the partners during the year? If your firm has two or more partners, I highly recommend that you have the hard conversations early so that everyone has the same atlanta social media marketing expectations regarding No. 1 and No. 2 above. It's simpler to manage the business and manage internal expectations if that's the case. It also becomes much more difficult to develop consistent rates otherwise. However, perhaps there is a senior and junior partner based on experience (i.e., one can bill out a lot more how to do social media marketing in the marketplace), contacts (one can bring in a lot more business than the other), areas of expertise, etc. Those two folks can (and should) bill at differenthow to start a social media marketing business rates.

Billable Hours: How Much of the Partner's Time Is Billable?

Start with the services billing rule of the mythical number social media marketing trends of billable hours in a year: 40 hours per week * 50 weeks = 2,000 hours. I say "mythical" because anyone who has been a consultant for long knows a minimum of 30% of his/her time gets sucked social media marketing best practices into non-billable time, primarily business development activities as well as other administrative activities and overhead. Starting from a baseline of 70% of a partner's time at your firm is billable social media marketing new york (best-case scenario), you can figure that percentage degrades if your agency is growing. Why? Because you are likely hiring some junior employees or contractors to fulfill client services needs. In that scenario, recruiting, training, and management activities how to start a social media marketing business start to significantly affect a partner's billable hours. She can achieve her desired (but reasonable) income if 50% of her available hours are actually billed in a year: 1,000 * YY/hr = desired social media marketing pdf financial income goal. Billable Hours: Determining Employee Bill Rates In a digital marketing agency or any services firm, the first 8-10 employees must all be billable. You might pay an accounting firm or part-time accounting clerk for standard accounting, billings and how to social media marketing collections, accounts payable, etc.—or you may do that yourself. But, otherwise, everyone needs to be billable. Assume that each of your employees is billable 70% of the time, or 1,400 hours how to social media marketing in a year. If you aren't confident they can be 70% billable, I advise not hiring them or bringing on a part-timer until you are confident of getting him over the 70% billable bar. Assume that you need to bill employees out at 2x what you pay them at a bare social marketing media minimum, and your baseline internal rate (list price) for your staff should be 3x what you pay them. So if you have a $20/hour entry-level digital marketer—you know, that communications major right out of the local university—your list price should be to bill them at $60 per social media marketing 2014 hour, and your bare minimum billable rate for them, even after protracted negotiations with a client, should be $40 per hour (2x their cost should NOT be the norm for their billable rate). That social media for marketing way, even if you bill them out at only 70% of billable hours at 2x what you pay them, they are still contributing something back to the business from their billable time. Simple Math for an Overall Blended Rate for Your Business We have developed the partners' billable rates from Steps 3 and 4, and we have an idea of billable rates best social media marketingof employees from Step 5. Now, simply average them out to get a baseline rate for your business. For a small agency, I have generally observed a ratio of 2-4 junior employees social media marketing course per partner. So a one-owner/partner agency may often have 3-6 total employees early on, and a two-partner agency may have 8-10 total employees. If you want to get fancy, you can do a weighted average based on the partners' billable social media marketing blog time vs. the junior employees' billable time, but I think that is splitting hairs and will give you a lower baseline rate. You will have enough pressure to reduce rates due to many factors in business development, so start with a healthy blended rate that is good for your b2b social media marketing business. Bring It Full Circle for a Blended Billable Rate Reality-Check. Now let's go all the way back to Step 2 and see whether your blended rate developed in Steps 3-6 seems reasonable given your specialist/generalist strategy from social media marketing experts Step 1 and your associated local market conditions from Step 2. If not, you have to adjust somewhere. What should you "adjust" in your baseline rate? Note that the most common answer I hear is, "Well, I need to adjust my rates down." I would urge exactly social media marketing plans the opposite—strive to defend your rates. You are better off spending time developing a strategy and associated tactics of how to defend a blended rate that may be a little above market but works for you and your business.

An Aside on Defending Your Rates

Besides obvious reasons based on the exercise above social media marketing podcast I also urge you defend your rate because once you start at some standard billable rate with a client, it is very hard to real estate social media marketing increase that rate over time with that client. Since each early client is gold to a new agency and you really want to expand services and billing for those clients, changing the expectation of that client later is VERY social media marketing articlesdifficult (hard experience talking here). If that scenario occurs, you end up stuck with some unprofitable clients, which ultimately affects each partner's desired income (in Step 3, above). This article isn't about defending your rates; rather, it is about developing a standard blended rate that social media marketing blogs works for your business. But you can do some simple things to defend your newly developed blended rate—specifically, things that increase the perception of your firm's value in the eyes of the new client: Do you have reference clients? Do you have some written quotes from them on your website or LinkedIn profile? You will need to besocial media marketing chicago very scrappy and possibly discount your rates more than you want for a few of these early and referenceable clients, but don't make Do you have an up-to-date and professional website? Do you have not only your personal LinkedIn profile social media marketing dallas but also your firm's LinkedIn profile updated? Do you have some marketing collateral—maybe a one-pager on services your firm offers and a backgrounder on your own experience? Can you provide examples of deliverables—insightful reports or social media brand marketing metrics your firm offers for various types of digital marketing services?Can you point to specific partnerships, standard processes, qualifications, or systems that establish your firm as having well-developed and consistent services compared to your cost of social media marketing competition You now should have a baseline to bid a project once you make an assumption on number of hours involved. The more clients you work with and the more digital learn social media marketing services you provide, the better you can dial in the assumptions above to develop a solid blended rate that helps you build a great business. Keep after it! Freelancers: What's your work worth?Whether you are an independent consultant or freelancer who charges by the define social media marketing hour, day, week, or project, you are trading time for money. A few tips on giving your work a proper price.FORTUNE — For many, being self-employed offers a promise of importance of social media marketing doing fulfilling work on your own terms. But along with that independence comes a dizzying array of decisions. One of the toughest of these is how to price your time. Whether you are an independent consultant or freelancer who charges by the hour, day, social media marketing plan pdf week, or project, you are trading time for money. So the question of how you value that time is central to how you negotiate with clients. “If you don’t value your time, no one else is going to,” says Ben Gran, a freelance writer based in Des Moines, Iowa. “You have to make sure every hour you spend in social media marketing best practices the chair working is profitable, to make up for all the hours you’re not in the chair working because you’re marketing yourself or doing your taxes.”