Comment by aequitas
7 years ago
A valuable lesson I learned at a young age from one of my first 'customers' when doing computer repair jobs for friends and neighbours was is that you don't get paid for what you can or do but for the value you add or time (money) you save someone.
Most of the time the problems I had to solve where easy ones. Install printer, update software, remove toolbars, email settings, etc. All 5 minute work jobs, seldom totalling to more than an hour or 2 an evening. Not even worth asking money for in my opinion, because it was so easy en quick for me to do. But my neighbour always insisted I accept his money. Because for him, having to solve these issues himself would cost him multiple evenings. So the money he was giving me, which felt like too much to me, was stil a bargain for him. Also in his words it was easy for me because I had spend years in training to acquire this knowledge, or as others might call it: wasting your time behind that computer playing video games.
The (probably apocryphal) Picasso napkin story:
Picasso is sitting in a Paris cafe when a fan approaches the artist and asks that he make a quick sketch on a paper napkin. Picasso acquiesces, draws his dove and promptly hands it back to his admirer along with an ask for a rather large sum of money. The fan is flummoxed. “How can you ask for so much? It took you only a minute to draw this.” To which Picasso replies, "No, it took me 40 years."
> “How can you ask for so much? It took you only a minute to draw this.”
translation: I expected to pay $5 for this napkin drawing, and later sell it for $10,000. Then you asked me $1000 for the drawing. That means you just tried to steal $995 from me. Outrageous! You are a thief, Mr. Picasso!
When I first read the story many years ago, Picasso's ask was $10,000.
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Likely apocryphal [1], possibly inspired by a true story from 1878 about a court case involving well-known painter James McNeill Whistler [2]:
> "Oh, two days! The labour of two days, then, is that for which you ask two hundred guineas!"
> "No;-I ask it for the knowledge of a lifetime."
[1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/01/14/time-art/
[2] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/01/12/lifetime/
> it was easy for me because I had spend years in training to acquire this knowledge
"knowing where to tap":
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/03/06/tap/
Not sure I quite understand the mechanics behind it as well, but I've been through a similar training program and it appears to be effective.
That's lucky. When I sas 19, around the height of IE and 'every Windows box with malware,' I tried to start a similar business.
Probably my most wealthy client, with an oversized SUV in the driveway, had a home computer rendered unusable by malware--something I had fixed before. But she ended up asking me to leave. She decided she wanted "real professionals" working on her computer. She told me I didn't know what I was doing, saying 'are you really going to fix it for this much or do you actually need to just start searching the web for what you are doing? (she saw that I had performed a google search...).'
It took me way, way too long in life to learn most of it is just perception and learning how to manage dealing with less-than-ideal people.
This attitude to googling is poisonous. I once helped an elderly relative in my teens with his router and I got the same treatment after I googled the answer. Later we watched a court drama the entire family, with the same relative present, and there was a scene where the lawyers crack the books and review the legal paper work. Being the obnoxious teen I was I couldn't help myself from blurting out "Wow, what terrible lawyers, look at them doing research for their cases before they solve the problems. Wow, I figured they could recite every law and ruling ever by heart since they supposedly know what they're doing, now I question why the defendant doesn't just represent himself, I mean everyone can read a book, right? This movie is so unrealistic!"
I got scolded by my parents but at the end of the day: worth it.
Goosh.org
"You're not paying me to search Google, you're paying me to know what to search for and how the results apply or don't to your particular situation."
They should put a black background on this with green text to make it more realistic.
Right, you should have charged her more. If you pick a rate that seems reasonable for the amount of work involved then she'll wonder why she couldn't just do it herself. You also need to price in all the learning and experience you needed up to that point, otherwise the client will think you're doing a cheap/half-assed job.