Tag: mindset

Raising Your Rates Isn’t Selfish. It’s A Signal For Quality.

Most freelancers fear it. They whisper it. Delay it. Apologise for it.

But here’s the truth: Raising your rates isn’t a risk. It’s a signal.

  • It tells the market you’ve grown.
  • That your work creates more value.
  • That you take your craft—and your clients—seriously.

Undercharging isn’t noble. It’s noisy.

It attracts the wrong clients. It creates the wrong expectations. It makes you resentful, rushed, replaceable.

Your best clients don’t want cheap. They want confidence. They want results. And they expect to pay for both.

When you raise your rates, you create space:

  • For deeper work.
  • For fewer clients, better served.
  • For clarity about what really matters.

And yes, someone will flinch. That’s okay. You’re not for everyone. But the ones who stay? They’ll respect the shift. Because they’re levelling up, too.

Here’s a simple script:

“As my services have evolved and the results have grown, I’m updating my pricing to better reflect the value I deliver. Starting [date], my new rate will be [new rate].

I’m proud of what we’ve built together and would love to continue—let me know if you’d like to move forward under the new terms.”

No drama. No apology. Just clarity. This isn’t about greed. It’s about alignment.

If you want to be seen as an expert, act like one: Lead the conversation and raise the bar.

Because pricing isn’t just math. It’s identity.

And every rate change is a declaration of who you’re becoming.

Stop Chasing Clients. Start Building Systems.

Feast or famine isn’t a business model.

It’s what happens when your only plan is hope.

  • Hope that someone refers you.
  • Hope that your inbox magically fills itself.
  • Hope that the marketplace sends the right match.

But hope isn’t strategy.

And you don’t get consistent clients from inconsistent habits.

The consultants who don’t worry where their next client comes from?

They’ve built a system.

One that works quietly in the background—daily, weekly, relentlessly.

Not relying on a marketplace.

Relying on a a pipeline.

They show up on LinkedIn with clarity, not noise.

They engage in communities where their clients hang out—not just peers.

They turn one happy client into three by asking better questions:

“Who else in your world would value this?”

They don’t pitch cold—they earn warm attention.

Not by selling, but by signaling:

“I understand your problem. I’ve solved it before. I can help.”

And here’s the kicker:

They do it before they need the next client.

Because if you only market when you’re desperate, it shows.

And clients don’t hire panic—they hire calm expertise.

Referrals are great. LinkedIn works. Niche communities? Gold.

But none of them matter if you’re invisible.

You don’t need 10 channels. You need 1 that compounds.

One where you show up with a voice, not a pitch.

One where you become known—not just found.

So stop waiting for the algorithm or the platform to save you.

Start building a system that earns trust before the sales call.

Consistency gets you visibility.

Visibility gets you clients.

And that’s how you end scrambling for clients.

You Weren’t Meant to Wear Every Hat

You started freelancing or consulting for freedom.

Now you’re the CEO, the marketing team, the assistant, the IT department, and—somewhere in the chaos—the expert your clients hired.

It’s not freedom. It’s a costume party where you never get to take the hats off.

We glorify “doing it all” like it’s a badge of honor.

As if juggling sales calls, admin tasks, tax prep, and delivery work means you’re winning.

But wearing all the hats doesn’t make you a better business owner.

It just makes you tired.

The truth?

Your business doesn’t need you to do everything.

It needs you to do the right things.

  • The high-leverage stuff.
  • The work only you can do.
  • The ideas, the relationships, the positioning.
  • Not the formatting, the scheduling, the bookkeeping.

Delegating isn’t a luxury. It’s a strategy.

Saying no isn’t selfish. It’s survival.

And hiring help—before you feel ready—is often the only way to grow without burning out.

Because the goal isn’t to prove you can do it all.

The goal is to build something that doesn’t collapse the moment you take a day off.

Consulting is personal.

But that doesn’t mean it has to be lonely, fragile, or unsustainable.

So take a hard look at the hats you’re still wearing.

Which ones fit?

Which ones could someone else wear better?

You don’t need to be a superhero.

You just need to be the strategist who designs the system—

instead of being trapped inside it.

Half of something is still nothing overall

If you come across an idea you are half-way there. But if you don’t do anything with your ideas nothing will happen, ever.

Even if it’s a really great idea, zero action means nothing will happen. One times zero is still zero.

Get your ideas out

Bring them out and do something with it! Pull out your notebook, dust off your notepad, find your notes. Then test them, try something out, talk to people, simulate stuff.

Anything is better than nothing.

Sometimes life is like Tetris

Do you know the feeling when you played something for a while and then stop. You go back to the real world but your mind still applies the same thinking patters like in the game? You brain still recognises shapes everywhere and tries to stack objects?

Since games often consist of obstacles and problems thrown at the player, you can be stuck in that problem-solving mode. Your brain might take a while to transition back.

Recently, when I finished a session of rapidly falling blocks, I still had the visuals in my head when I switched from the game to a conversation. My inner eye could still see the shapes and patterns in front of me. Until my brain finally ended up back in reality.

That’s when this metaphor came to my mind:

Sometimes life is like Tetris

You go through life and collect non tangible things sich as experience and connections. Let’s envision them as blocks for now.

Then you move through life and collect more and more; education, training, certificates, jobs. All make up building blocks of your life. And you build layer by layer.

Sometimes it fits perfectly and your CV is perfect and you land that new job. You align a full row (called Tetris in the very same game) and it’s great.

Other times it doesn’t fit as nicely; you don’t land the job you wanted or a project derails. Its like you’ve built a stack with gaps and can’t complete the row. Things seem to go haywire.

As you go along more blocks are thrown your way. More opportunities come along. And quite often there comes a series of blocks that just match wonderfully! This one goes here, that one over there. Boom, Tetris!

Building blocks of your life

In my mind I see the blocks as your achievements, jobs you had, people you met, a business you build, networks you create.

Sometimes things don’t seem to add up or don’t see to go the right way; the new role you got doesn’t fit into your career as expected, that Side-project you started doesn’t seem to lead anywhere.

And then there it is, the 1×4 block that will save the day! It all makes sense now; you met someone through the job you started and later you start working on that side-project of yours together and it’s great!

I’ve seen that in my life too: did something here, then there, worked on this then that. Years later I got to use it all again in my own business. The blocks fell into the right places. Tetris!

What am I getting at?

  • Blocks coming at you are new opportunities
  • Don’t wait for the one piece forever, use the blocks you have
  • You have to keep playing to find opportunities