“I’ve been able to triple my rates without losing clients.”

PAIGE, COVER PAIGE DESIGNS  | MASTER FREELANCER GRADUATE

P: Oh God, I was such a push over. A total people pleaser. I thought I just had to be grateful for anyone willing to pay me anything, even if it was like $30 an hour. I ended up so burnt out and felt incredibly taken for granted. I just didn’t think that I was worth anything and couldn’t see any real value in what I was bringing to the table.

Now, I AM the whole table lol.

P: Oh it was a dead easy choice to make. You’re so authentic, a real person, there’s no script or BS. I felt completely understood and never felt like I was actually doing it “wrong”. I just needed to learn a better way of doing things and that’s exactly what you taught me. Oh no no no, don’t cry!!!

P: So when I started The Master Freelancer, I had a graphic design agency and I was hoping to gain enough confidence to actually employ some staff. At the time, I thought I had to serve anyone and everyone who was just willing to pay me, I had no actual target audience. The further into the course I got, the more I realised how misplaced that mentality was and that it was something that needed to change.

The most unexpected change was when I realised that being a designer didn’t bring me as much joy as being an educator. I was a perfectionist and, as a designer, that sucks! I felt like nothing I created was ever good enough, even though I had a whole string of happy clients, and nobody had ever complained or made me do a million revisions or anything like that. So, my main goal actually shifted once I got into The Master Freelancer a bit more.

P: I was making money from my creative genius, but it wasn’t the right money. It wasn’t feel-good money. It wasn’t being earned because people actually respected me, it was just…. Transactional money. Whereas now, the money I earn feels respected because I have confidence and understand my value. I can look at the people I’ve coached and see how they’ve been able to go from selling on marketplace to having a fully-fledged ecommerce business.

The Master Freelancer taught me that not everyone’s going to pay you what you’re worth, and just because they can’t afford it or see the value in it, doesn’t mean you’re not worth it. That’s a ‘them’ problem, not a ‘you’ problem, and I just love that mindset.

P: Yep, so when I first started out freelancing, I had this client who paid me $30 an hour, because that’s what I told her my rates were. That was before I did The Master Freelancer and learned about value-based pricing and how ditching the hourly rates would make me SO much more money. Anyway, I was working on some of her stuff while doing The Master Freelancer and, with some new-found confidence, I bumped my rates up to $80 per hour…which she did NOT like. At first, I took it really personally and felt like she just didn’t think I was good enough or providing enough value to be worth a higher price, yet what I had created for her had significantly scaled her business.

The Master Freelancer ended up teaching me that it’s not personal and that she just isn’t my ideal client.

She was one of those people who only cared about getting the cheapest rates and I ended up letting her go. Now, I see it in a completely different light. If someone doesn’t want to pay me for the value I’m providing them, I’m fine with it. It just opens up space for the ones who do. Within 12 months, I have tripled the prices of my packages and if people don’t like it, I don’t care. I used to worry that if people thought I was too expensive, I wouldn’t have any work, but I’ve since realised how that just isn’t true. The right people now pay me thousands to brand and/or build their websites, and they also pay me to teach them how to run it and make it a success.

P: The confidence I now have in my future. I can now, unapologetically, say to people that if they don’t need or want what I bring to the table, that’s absolutely fine! Since tripling my prices, I’ve only had one client turn around and say ‘no’, and it didn’t bother me at all because I now know he wasn’t the right client for me. I don’t even market my business, I barely post on social media, I even won an award and didn’t use that to market myself either. I just don’t need to.

My biggest win since The Master Freelancer is this entirely new world of success that I’ve created. I get to educate as well as design and I’m so excited about the future.

P: Seeing you every week lol. My favourite part was probably knowing that every week I could debrief and not feel alone or scared or like I was going to be scolded for doing something wrong. I was never made to feel as though I was doing something wrong!

Doing The Master Freelancer is like going to the gym. You go each week, and your muscles get stronger, and the weights feel lighter. Before I did The Master Freelancer, everything seemed blurry to me, like I was in this tunnel that had no light poking through. I was overwhelmed and being treated like a door mat, but I was allowing it to happen. The Master Freelancer gave me nothing but incremental clarity.

P: Does it sound too ambiguous for me to say it was only a week? After week one, I was implementing positive changes in my business. Every week I’d learn all this new stuff and then go away and start applying it. Even though I graduated a while ago, I’m still going back over the things I learned and I’m using that to continue to grow my business.

12 months later, The Master Freelancer is still serving me, so I’m STILL getting a return on my investment.

P: Yep, I’ve now shifted my focus to what really matters the most. I used to think that I had to work 14-16 hour days and just accept any money that was on offer, even if my child was sitting there hungry. There was no work/life balance and more important things were suffering because my mindset wasn’t right.

But now, this morning, I was able to take my daughter out to TimeZone and get a babycino, and I haven’t worked myself to death to make it happen. With a focus on what really matters and a good understanding of pricing and all of that, you can actually earn more money while creating more freedom to enjoy your life.

The biggest change has been the confidence and knowledge to actually make that all happen. I trust my talents and my abilities and use that to make money.

P: Oooff. No lol. I don’t even know how to begin to quantify it. It’s ten-fold, twenty-fold, it’s as infinite as you want to make it. It just opens so many doors for you then and there, but also into the future.

When you start The Master Freelancer, your business probably won’t even be ready for everything that you’re going to learn, but The Master Freelancer future-proofs things. What I learned wasn’t just about making freelance “work”, it was about realising my worth and how to use that to make money.

P: People can find me at @coverpaigedesigns on Instagram or visit my website at coverpaigedesigns.com.au