Improving Graphics and Lead Generation: A Developer's Perspective

As a developer, improving graphics or giving them nicer graphics is effectively helping businesses get a lead. When you create a website with attractive graphics, you're not just making it visually appealing; you're also increasing its chances of attracting potential customers. This can be seen in the example of someone who sells a $3,000 product and gets one lead out of every hundred people. By giving their website nicer graphics, you're effectively worth $30 to them, as each new lead is now worth $30.

By building a nicer website, you can help businesses increase their lead generation. If they go from getting 100 leads to 1,000 leads per month, you've effectively increased their business by 10 times. This means they'll make three times more revenue than before. For example, if each lead was worth $30 in terms of revenue, with 100 leads, the business would make $3,000 per month. With 1,000 leads, they'd now make $90,000 per month, a significant increase.

The impact of your work can be seen over time. In the first year alone, you've added an additional $36,000 to their revenue by improving their website's graphics and increasing lead generation. This is a substantial amount, especially considering that you're not just building a website; you're helping them increase their revenue.

When communicating with business owners, it's essential to understand their needs and how your work can help them. Instead of focusing on technical skills like coding languages or frameworks, emphasize the value you can bring to their business. Explain how your expertise in creating websites that attract leads and increase revenue can help them grow.

By taking a more business-focused approach, you'll stand out from other developers who might not understand the importance of lead generation. You'll be seen as a valuable partner who can help businesses succeed, rather than just a commodity to be hired for a project. This shift in mindset allows you to charge higher prices for your services, as you're delivering tangible results that benefit the business.

To further develop your skills and understanding of business, consider attending local meetups or events where you can network with entrepreneurs and learn about their challenges. Brandon Dunn's book "Soft Skills" is an excellent resource for gaining a deeper understanding of how to communicate effectively with business owners and help them achieve their goals.

By combining technical expertise with a solid understanding of business principles, you'll become a highly sought-after developer who can deliver real results for clients. This will enable you to charge premium prices for your services, while still delivering high-quality work that meets the needs of your clients.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey what's up this is Kazi from clever programmer not calm in this video I'm gonna talk about how to charge premium prices for your services as a freelancer as a developer so without any further ado let's jump right into it pricing your services is a very loaded question so I like to go at it I'm gonna tackle it from a little different angle which if you've been following me for a while you're gonna be like hey I already know this but this is gonna be a reminder to you if you're new to this channel hopefully this is gonna provide you with a different perspective now as a developer you know I'm a programmer I'm a developer I love the bells and whistles that I can provide with my with my software features that I build into a product so if I'm trying to build something for a client it makes me really happy or when I was just getting started I could do I'm like hey I'll take on a client for their website I would be like hey I can use Python and Django here you know what I realize is and now I'll start this off with a story so you can actually get up get the point in the order to be able to charge premium pricing but one of the most important things you need to be able to understand and do is you need to understand that you're solving a problem you are less focused on your coding and your bells and whistles you're more focused on solving a problem so here's a story I was one of the students from our course profitable programmer he joined this course and he landed a client who he was trying to build websites for him this tuna reaches out to me and you know a few days later and he said I've been putting in a lot of work and I'm you know building this this girl's website with Python and I'm using Django and I'm really going all-in so he's like what's your best advice for me you know he's like I've already spent like 15 or 20 hours and I asked him I said why are you trying to coat it with Python and Django and he said well you know that's what the course taught me it taught me Python and Django and then it said like going freelance and I said well what does she need said well she needs like contact page and she needs an about me page and she needs a home page and so I said I asked him I said what do you need Python and Django for and she said you know I was just building the website with it so I said why I'm like just use Squarespace just use WordPress why aren't you using score space for WordPress and then he got into argument with me and he's like well this course was about teaching me Python and Django and freelancing with it and now you're telling me that I should have just used Squarespace and I said yeah because nobody gives a about my course nobody gives a about your skillset people hear about their end result so why wouldn't you just use a tool that's designed for the problem that she has it has a very simple solution use the platform like Squarespace or WordPress build her a website it would have taken you an hour or two hours or three hours instead of going and spending 40 hour 30 hours or 40 hours trying to custom build something on your own and you would have gotten paid and that would have been it I hope that this story kind of shows you that you have to focus on the actual problem that you're dealing with sometimes it might not even rely on a specific programming language for example I was speaking with Brennan done today I'm at craft and commerce marketing conference and Brennan Dunn is the founder of double your freelancing calm and he helps freelancers be able to charge premium prices and I was talking to him and he said people need to spend more time actually learning the business side of things and and keep their eyes open to more local businesses and then go there and then if this seed there's a flaw in somebody's process they're doing too many things manually and they're like handing off sheets to each other or doing something with Excel and it's actually like a lot of work and then there's a manual process and if there's a workflow and you can come in you can update it and you can use tools that already exist like Google sheets you can use zapier that already exists you good news then like something is automatically emailed when this is done if you don't have to build a custom thing just start off by coating with things and leveraging things that already exist too many developers are all about have to build something from scratch and they get this like high off of building something from scratch it's really good good job little buddy for your little ego but nobody cares people care about the end result as a business owner who's gonna be giving you the money to help them you know prepare a freelancing or if you're working for a company or whatever the case may be you have to understand that the person is investing 5,000 10,000 20,000 40,000 60,000 dollars in you they have to get their return on investment somehow there has to be an actual ROI on you so you have to be thinking in terms of what is the value that I'm bringing and how can somebody investing in me how can I solve their problem they can actually give them a higher return so for example if you're building somebody's website you are not just improving their graphics or giving them nicer graphics you're effectively helping them get a lead a lead as somebody who comes in and gives them the email or call and if they are telling you that out of every hundred people one person buys their $3,000 thing well effectively that's like each person is worth $30 to them okay so each new lead that you're getting for them is worth $30 if you build a nicer website and you design it to get them more leads and they go from getting a hundred leads to maybe thousand leads a month you have effectively 10x their business which means they're now going to get ten times the revenue meaning that so we're getting hundred leads now that and make it a niche lead was $30 right you know out of 100 leads that would make $3,000 well out of a thousand leads they're going to make three times ten because if 10x they're gonna make $30,000 a month right so you're effectively really helping them increase something out the gross that you might add with your little website design is not realistically gonna be not that insane but like you might take it from then getting hundred leads two hundred and fifty leads or two hundred at least and in even in that case you're effectively adding an additional three thousand dollars a month to their revenue and over the course of 12 months a year you're adding or roughly thirty six thousand dollars to their revenue and that's just in year one and then they get to reap the benefits of it in year two and year three right now if you are sharing this with a business owner and you're telling them exactly what you're going to be able to do and how you're gonna be able to provide them with a design like that that would help them get more leads and you can tell them my goal is not to get you better design is to help you get more leads and more revenue for your business now you're not speaking like this little nerdy developer you're speaking more like somebody who that business owner and can understand and you're not a commodity anymore so they're not thinking oh I'm just gonna outsource this to somebody in you know Bangladesh or Sri Lanka who's charging five bucks an hour because now they're not just they're not comparing you on your skill sets they're actually comparing you on who's bringing you more value the other developer is not talking about any value doesn't have any idea so now you stand out as a very clear choice of the right type of person to work with and now what you can do is you can charge how much higher price to you can charge ten grand for that same website somebody else might do for $300 okay but it's tied to a result and you're helping your client actually get that result to so this rabbit hole goes really deep but my advice to you would be really start paying attention to business if you want to start improving your income understand business understand like build more skills in your life regarding business understand like why somebody it will pay a developer like do most developers even know that I don't think so they're just like oh I'm gonna work for this company I'm gonna make epic games or I'm gonna work for this company we're gonna build a cool software but what's the return on investment for each of the software developers how much is the company profiting per software developer that they have what are they profiting for why are people hiring a freelancer to build them an app like for example somebody who has no prototype and is building an app they don't have a business model around it of course they're gonna pay you a hundred bucks or two hundred bucks and that's about it but then you go to somebody who's already making money from it and maybe they're making five thousand or ten thousand dollars a month but with your help now you can help them make thirteen thousand or fifteen thousand dollars a month you're moving the needle for them right and so then you can charge a much more premium price so understand more of the business side of things I love Brandon Dunn's advice like go to local business meetups like you can go to meetup.com and find them but really get in there with how you think understand you are a business my friend John Saunders book call soft skills is really really incredible on this as well but that's what I'm gonna leave you with I hope this was helpful if this was helpful drop it in the comments below please subscribe to the channel but drop something in the comments below that's usually you know I like going in there and and jumping in there from time to time drop something in the comments like the video subscribe to the channel if you haven't already but with that said that's it thank you so much for watching this is Kazi I love your face holy I need a coffee and as always I'll see you in the next videohey what's up this is Kazi from clever programmer not calm in this video I'm gonna talk about how to charge premium prices for your services as a freelancer as a developer so without any further ado let's jump right into it pricing your services is a very loaded question so I like to go at it I'm gonna tackle it from a little different angle which if you've been following me for a while you're gonna be like hey I already know this but this is gonna be a reminder to you if you're new to this channel hopefully this is gonna provide you with a different perspective now as a developer you know I'm a programmer I'm a developer I love the bells and whistles that I can provide with my with my software features that I build into a product so if I'm trying to build something for a client it makes me really happy or when I was just getting started I could do I'm like hey I'll take on a client for their website I would be like hey I can use Python and Django here you know what I realize is and now I'll start this off with a story so you can actually get up get the point in the order to be able to charge premium pricing but one of the most important things you need to be able to understand and do is you need to understand that you're solving a problem you are less focused on your coding and your bells and whistles you're more focused on solving a problem so here's a story I was one of the students from our course profitable programmer he joined this course and he landed a client who he was trying to build websites for him this tuna reaches out to me and you know a few days later and he said I've been putting in a lot of work and I'm you know building this this girl's website with Python and I'm using Django and I'm really going all-in so he's like what's your best advice for me you know he's like I've already spent like 15 or 20 hours and I asked him I said why are you trying to coat it with Python and Django and he said well you know that's what the course taught me it taught me Python and Django and then it said like going freelance and I said well what does she need said well she needs like contact page and she needs an about me page and she needs a home page and so I said I asked him I said what do you need Python and Django for and she said you know I was just building the website with it so I said why I'm like just use Squarespace just use WordPress why aren't you using score space for WordPress and then he got into argument with me and he's like well this course was about teaching me Python and Django and freelancing with it and now you're telling me that I should have just used Squarespace and I said yeah because nobody gives a about my course nobody gives a about your skillset people hear about their end result so why wouldn't you just use a tool that's designed for the problem that she has it has a very simple solution use the platform like Squarespace or WordPress build her a website it would have taken you an hour or two hours or three hours instead of going and spending 40 hour 30 hours or 40 hours trying to custom build something on your own and you would have gotten paid and that would have been it I hope that this story kind of shows you that you have to focus on the actual problem that you're dealing with sometimes it might not even rely on a specific programming language for example I was speaking with Brennan done today I'm at craft and commerce marketing conference and Brennan Dunn is the founder of double your freelancing calm and he helps freelancers be able to charge premium prices and I was talking to him and he said people need to spend more time actually learning the business side of things and and keep their eyes open to more local businesses and then go there and then if this seed there's a flaw in somebody's process they're doing too many things manually and they're like handing off sheets to each other or doing something with Excel and it's actually like a lot of work and then there's a manual process and if there's a workflow and you can come in you can update it and you can use tools that already exist like Google sheets you can use zapier that already exists you good news then like something is automatically emailed when this is done if you don't have to build a custom thing just start off by coating with things and leveraging things that already exist too many developers are all about have to build something from scratch and they get this like high off of building something from scratch it's really good good job little buddy for your little ego but nobody cares people care about the end result as a business owner who's gonna be giving you the money to help them you know prepare a freelancing or if you're working for a company or whatever the case may be you have to understand that the person is investing 5,000 10,000 20,000 40,000 60,000 dollars in you they have to get their return on investment somehow there has to be an actual ROI on you so you have to be thinking in terms of what is the value that I'm bringing and how can somebody investing in me how can I solve their problem they can actually give them a higher return so for example if you're building somebody's website you are not just improving their graphics or giving them nicer graphics you're effectively helping them get a lead a lead as somebody who comes in and gives them the email or call and if they are telling you that out of every hundred people one person buys their $3,000 thing well effectively that's like each person is worth $30 to them okay so each new lead that you're getting for them is worth $30 if you build a nicer website and you design it to get them more leads and they go from getting a hundred leads to maybe thousand leads a month you have effectively 10x their business which means they're now going to get ten times the revenue meaning that so we're getting hundred leads now that and make it a niche lead was $30 right you know out of 100 leads that would make $3,000 well out of a thousand leads they're going to make three times ten because if 10x they're gonna make $30,000 a month right so you're effectively really helping them increase something out the gross that you might add with your little website design is not realistically gonna be not that insane but like you might take it from then getting hundred leads two hundred and fifty leads or two hundred at least and in even in that case you're effectively adding an additional three thousand dollars a month to their revenue and over the course of 12 months a year you're adding or roughly thirty six thousand dollars to their revenue and that's just in year one and then they get to reap the benefits of it in year two and year three right now if you are sharing this with a business owner and you're telling them exactly what you're going to be able to do and how you're gonna be able to provide them with a design like that that would help them get more leads and you can tell them my goal is not to get you better design is to help you get more leads and more revenue for your business now you're not speaking like this little nerdy developer you're speaking more like somebody who that business owner and can understand and you're not a commodity anymore so they're not thinking oh I'm just gonna outsource this to somebody in you know Bangladesh or Sri Lanka who's charging five bucks an hour because now they're not just they're not comparing you on your skill sets they're actually comparing you on who's bringing you more value the other developer is not talking about any value doesn't have any idea so now you stand out as a very clear choice of the right type of person to work with and now what you can do is you can charge how much higher price to you can charge ten grand for that same website somebody else might do for $300 okay but it's tied to a result and you're helping your client actually get that result to so this rabbit hole goes really deep but my advice to you would be really start paying attention to business if you want to start improving your income understand business understand like build more skills in your life regarding business understand like why somebody it will pay a developer like do most developers even know that I don't think so they're just like oh I'm gonna work for this company I'm gonna make epic games or I'm gonna work for this company we're gonna build a cool software but what's the return on investment for each of the software developers how much is the company profiting per software developer that they have what are they profiting for why are people hiring a freelancer to build them an app like for example somebody who has no prototype and is building an app they don't have a business model around it of course they're gonna pay you a hundred bucks or two hundred bucks and that's about it but then you go to somebody who's already making money from it and maybe they're making five thousand or ten thousand dollars a month but with your help now you can help them make thirteen thousand or fifteen thousand dollars a month you're moving the needle for them right and so then you can charge a much more premium price so understand more of the business side of things I love Brandon Dunn's advice like go to local business meetups like you can go to meetup.com and find them but really get in there with how you think understand you are a business my friend John Saunders book call soft skills is really really incredible on this as well but that's what I'm gonna leave you with I hope this was helpful if this was helpful drop it in the comments below please subscribe to the channel but drop something in the comments below that's usually you know I like going in there and and jumping in there from time to time drop something in the comments like the video subscribe to the channel if you haven't already but with that said that's it thank you so much for watching this is Kazi I love your face holy I need a coffee and as always I'll see you in the next video\n"