How to set a day rate and INCREASE it!

What is your day rate? How do you decide what your day rate is?

How do you set a day rate? And how can you increase your day rate? Or at least not fall into a situation where you take a job and then realize you're not being paid enough for the work you're delivering... In this video I walk you through 8 easy questions to ask BEFORE you give your day rate. This is mainly for content creators, or producers, people working in TV, radio, podcasting or YouTube... but guess this might help in any industry. Have I missed any good questions you would ask before giving your day rate? Leave them in the comments below, I'd love to see them!

BOOST your day rate with these 8 easy questions...



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!

Hello, welcome back to the Happy Hut. My name is Neil Mossey, and this is a bit of a forward question, but what is your day rate? 

If you are a freelancer or a contractor, or just someone doing work for someone else, the question that always comes up when I'm approached for work is, "What is your day rate?" 

It usually comes up just at the end of the conversation. 

"Oh, can I just take your day rate?" 

And I have no idea how to answer that question. And you might be in this position as well, so I want to share these questions that will help you feel good about the day rate that you charge. 

I think it also might help you to increase your day rates. 

It's really difficult setting a day rate because obviously you want it to be in the right ballpark so that they give the job to you, and you also don't want the day rate to be too low so that you undercut yourself. Naturally, I want my day rate to be 
one million dollars! 

But what it's really about, I think, is when you accept the job, not getting to the point where you're in the middle of the job, realising that you're being paid too little. 

And there's a problem with the question, "What is your day rate?" because it implies you should know how much you charge, Mr. or Mrs. Professional. 

And your rate should be in line with the norm of what this job usually pays. 

It makes no sense to have a fixed figure that's just the same for all circumstances and all clients and all companies. And that's why I'm sharing these eight questions that you can ask before answering the question, "What is your day rate?" 

We need to know the full scope of work and what is expected of us. So, these are the questions on screen now. Let's go through them one by one, and I will explain how and why they would affect our day rate. 

These questions aren't in any particular order, but the first question is: How many days of the day rate do you think this might be? 

Now, this might put the person you're asking in a difficult position because, on their end, they may have a budget and might want to change the number of days so that you fit their budgets. 

They won't want to tell you the budget because they actually want to move things around. But I would suggest we should at least get an idea of: Is it a two-day contract? Or 30 days or more or less? Because the number of days will affect our day rate. 

If it's, say, 30 days, I can apply a discount in reward for the block booking, and that's a nicer way than saying “if it's two days, it's more expensive because I've got to protect those days because I can't take on any bigger contracts. Plus, I've got to find work either side of those two days.” 

None of that is the problem of the person hiring you, so let's not burden them with it. The reason more days is better for your clients hiring you is because you can apply a discount, and that needs to be reflected in the day rate.

The second question is: What is the schedule? 

Will delivery need to happen tomorrow, or over the course of a couple of months? 

Urgent jobs will cost you and me more to deliver because we have no resilience, no margin for error. The schedule affects the day rate because if it's urgent, I need to make sure those days are protected and that the delivery is protected. And you can join in with the catchphrase: that needs to be reflected in the day rate.

Question number three is: are the days consecutive? 

Do they expect the days of work to be done together in a row? 

Or do they expect the work for Monday to Friday? Or is it three days per week for three weeks? Or is it completely flexible? 

This kind of ties in with the earlier schedule question. 

I think three days of doing work on working up the actual idea for an overall project, for example, is different than 20 days of working on the project. And say it with me, this needs to be reflected in the day rate. 

We're plowing through these, we're halfway already. 

This is question four, is any work needed before the project? You and I will be expected to invest our time in getting up to speed with the project that the day rate is for. Let me give you a personal example. 

If I'm writing on three episodes for a TV series, I will need to know how that series works, so that's time spent on the background of the project. I'll also need to know what episodes have been done already. So that's time being spent getting up to speed on the current status of the project. I'm spending my time doing that. And let's say this together: that needs to be reflected in the day rate. 

I'm going to be talking about holidays and IP next, but thank you for the thumbs up or hitting the Subscribe button if any of this is useful so far, and if you want more of this. 

Question five is, will there be anti-social hours? 

So will there be work during evenings, weekends, and national holidays? 

For me, I've worked on projects here in the UK that are co-produced in the United States, so there's a time difference which means causing the evening questions and emails at night. 

And some of the delivery dates have been on bank holidays, national holidays here in the UK, which I can do. I'm more than happy to do that, but it needs to be reflected in the day rate. 

Does the schedule mean that you'll have to work at the weekend to deliver the projects on time? 

Guess what, that needs to be reflected in the day rate. 

Question six that we can ask before for giving our day rates is, will people be working to me? Which is a nicer way of saying, will the job put me in a position where I'm have the ability to fire someone? That responsibility needs to be acknowledged and paid for. It reflects seniority, but it also reflects stress for me, because you're not just responsible for your work, but you're also responsible for the work of others. 

And if, for any reason, any of those people fall down, that work will need to be done by me or I'll need to do work to fix that. 

And that needs to be reflected in the day rate. 

Question seven is, will I need to create any IP or intellectual property? 

So, will I need to make something that will have a life after the job that I've been paid for? The contract usually the person paying for your days will want to own everything that you do, which is fair enough. 

That is why they're paying the day rate. But we need to acknowledge that that work, the work that we deliver, has a worth beyond those days where we've done the work. 

And that needs to be reflected in the day rate. 

I'm going to walk us through what these questions actually mean for us, but the final question before that is, what actually needs to be delivered? What are the deliverables? 

This doesn't affect our day rate, but you and the clients need to know what these days are expected to deliver. 

For instance, um, for me, having to write three scripts in three days is different than writing 16 scripts in three days. 

For those scripts to be two pages long is different than me writing scripts that are 40 pages long in three days. 

That needs to be reflected in the day rate. 

After all of these questions, we might feel better about giving our day rates, but you don't have to give the day rate here and now. 

We can take all of this information from these questions and then send over a quote for our day rate with a proposed scope of work, or “plan for the job ahead”. 

That means when they are comparing your day rate with someone else, they don't know if the other person who's cheaper has included any of this. 

We look like we're good value because they know what our day rate covers. 

For me, that works much better than blurting out a figure on the phone and hoping that I'm right when they ask the very innocent question, 'what is your day rate?' 

It also defends me against cheaper quotes, and if the client wants to reduce your day rate or negotiate you down, at least we have a list of things now that they can change to bring that day rate down. 

Are there any questions that you would add? Is there anything specific to your industry? 

Leave it down in the comments below. And thank you for being awesome and hitting the thumbs up button or the subscribe button. And right here is what YouTube thinks you should be watching next.

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