Perception is formed through questions, not follower counts
Most clients who contact you do not know who you are and will not research your background before the meeting. What decides whether they trust you is how you ask the right questions about their problem, far more than any online audience you may have built.
In the class, I am direct about this: whether a deal closes, and at a higher or lower price, has nothing to do with the number of followers on Instagram or the size of my email list. The vast majority of clients who hire me have no idea how many people follow me or read my emails. What matters is the perception created in that first conversation: if you walk into the meeting, ask the right questions and show that you understand the business dynamics, you become irresistible in the client's eyes.
This applies whether you are starting out or have years of experience. Do not assume the client knows who you are, and do not assume they will research your history before the call. Assume the opposite: the first impression forms right there, in that conversation, through the questions you ask and how you ask them.
Working on perception before any number
If the client walks into the meeting thinking you are only there to sell a service, any price will feel expensive. If they leave thinking you understood their business better than they expected, price stops being the main decision criterion and becomes just one more detail to confirm at the end of the conversation.
The reasoning I follow is simple: people do not buy out of sympathy or charity. They buy because they believe they will be better off after the transaction. That means your communication, before and during discovery, needs to show what the client gains, not just what you do. Asking about processes, friction points and where money is leaking demonstrates more competence than a detailed description of the service itself.
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Never send a price without knowing exactly what you will deliver
If you do not yet know what you are going to do, you cannot calculate a fair price. Defining the deliverable, the scope and the responsibility you are taking on is the first step before any number, and it is the step most often skipped in rushed proposals.
I am categorical about this in the class: sending a price, saying you will do the work, without understanding what the actual need is on the other side, is amateurism. A lack of clarity about the work itself makes a fair price impossible, because you cannot price something that is not yet defined. That is why there is an onboarding phase before any quote: questions about the client's context, the responsibility you will take on, and the exact boundaries of what you deliver.
The greater that responsibility, the higher the price should be. If your work will manage a significant part of a company's marketing budget, or if your mistake could directly affect their revenue, that counts in the final number. Responsibility is one of the central variables of the price, as much as time or expected results.
Avoid the comparison market
Comparing your price to another professional's attracts short-term clients fixated on the lowest number available on the market. Your value depends on how you communicate the concrete benefit of your work to that specific client, not on a comparison table.
In the class, I use the example of another, better-known professional who charged a company 500 euros: that does not mean you have to stay below that number. The client decides based on the perception of what they will gain, not with a market price list in their head. Entering the comparison game attracts clients who only look at the lowest number, and those rarely stay with you for more than a few months.
The business's risk belongs in the price
An unvalidated business, with no track record and no revenue predictability, represents more risk for you than a mature, stable business. That risk has a price, and ignoring it is what leads many freelancers to systematically undercharge, hoping that if it works out, everyone benefits down the line.
The idea I defend in the class is direct: risk has a price, and if there is risk in you entering the business, you are trading time from your life for a short-term project, and that should be well paid. This does not mean penalizing someone for being new; it means recognizing that charging less for an unstable business, hoping to bill well in the future, is a cycle that rarely breaks on its own. On the other hand, a stable client, with expected recurrence and a solid track record, justifies more flexibility in negotiation, because the risk of losing that invested time is much lower.
Warning signs before you even reach the quote
Some discovery conversations already carry signs that a project is not worth pursuing, regardless of the price eventually set. Recognizing this before sending the proposal saves time, energy and emotional strain for anyone working independently, without a safety net behind them.
In the class, I flag two concrete examples as warning signs: a client who places the entire expectation of saving the business on a single strategy, with no room to fail, and a client who takes a one-sided authority stance in the negotiation, deciding everything with no room for dialogue. Neither scenario forces an automatic refusal, but it should weigh on the final proposal, either by raising the price to compensate for the risk or simply by deciding not to proceed. Working only with those aligned in values and expectations means working for a chosen minority, not for whoever pays at any cost.
The trust that supports a quote comes from asking the right questions in discovery, from a well-defined deliverable before any number, from refusing to compare yourself to the market, and from knowing how to recognize the real risk of each project. That combination is what makes a client realize they are dealing with someone who understands their business, and that, more than any closing argument, is what supports the price on the table in the end.
Source note
This article is based on my Sextas Ímpares #92 class, "How to price freelance work without devaluation." You can watch the full class from minute 11:00, where I develop the idea that perception forms before the price, and also around 16:00, on avoiding the comparison market, and around 32:00, on pricing risk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=op8b_Q-8P_g