Overpricing yourself to avoid work

Here’s a cheeky hack to avoid certain projects: Overprice yourself.

I’ve only done this a few times myself, as it sometimes feels a little dirty. Necessary, but nevertheless dirty.

For example, let’s say a potential client has unreasonable expectations of what Salesforce can actually do. They believe it’s a magic bullet that will solve all their technical and non-technical issues. Sure, we’d all love for that to be true, but we also know it’s not.

So you have three options:

1. Stand your ground and tell them what Salesforce can do and not do. Mention the points that are unrealistic and try to guide them to a more feasible approach. Note: I usually start with this option before moving to option 2 or 3.
2. Refuse the project outright. Clients with unreasonable expectations are most likely unreasonable themselves. You may have dodged a bullet here and will thank yourself in the end.
3. Calculate your price for the project and then add 50%. The result should almost be a ridiculous amount. Some might say this is a bad idea, since the client’s expectations are always going to be unrealistic, but more often than not the client will simply look for another provider.

The takeaway
One way to approach a “crazy” project is to offer a “crazy” price. This approach is definitely risky, but with big risks comes big rewards.

PS. If you ever have a vendor that provides YOU with a crazy price, maybe they are applying option 3 🙂