BUSINESS STRUCTURE

Business Structure

Business Structure

Introduction

Many people have trouble pricing their work at first. If you are new and unknown in the marketplace, then you will have to go through a disciplined process to determine fair pricing. Start out by figuring your costs. What do you want to earn per hour? How long does it take you to create your products? What do your raw materials cost? With those numbers calculated, you can determine the minimum price. On top of this, you have the choice of adding in a premium for other merits and reputation (value added). All this may take time to build.

Pricing

Another way to look at pricing is to consider two factors. 1) charging enough to make some money and run the business and 2) what the public will pay for your work. Unfortunately, what the public will pay or what the work is worth are often a lot less than what it takes to run a business. S Here is pricing model to help your thinking.

If you are an artist or craftsperson, I strongly suggest you research what comparable art items are selling for. Go to galleries, stores and especially craft fairs. And go to web sites because many craft people show their work on the Internet. Start out with www.craftersnet. This is sort of a crafters mall type site and you can learn a lot just by browsing. Do use search engines such as www.google.com and www.hotbot.com to find other craft sites. And, quite aside from pricing info, they are good for market research.

Pricing services

It can be difficult to price services because there are so many regional differences. Here is a similar logic flow model so that you can figure it out for yourself.

Estimate how much time it will take to do the variety of errands or other services you propose to offer. That will give you a starting off point for what you should charge. And maybe it will be too much or even too little based on what you know about the area and the people who will be using your services. Craft shopping or dog walking could be one part of your personal services. Obviously, the time it takes is pretty much dependent on how much money is to be spent on groceries and/or travel time You could make up a price sheet with all the various types of errands you will run. When it comes to Craft shopping you could have one price for shopping totals of $25 and under, another for $26 to $50, another for $51 to $75, etc. With Craft shopping, this means that your customers will have to trust you with their money up front. Start with someone you know and get a letter of recommendation from them or at least a phone referral as to your trustworthyness. You could also have a standard form that you sign off on that acknowledges how much money you accepted for your errands and then have the client ...