Could you lower your rates?

Just off the phone with a potential client. He said that others in my industry (WordPress development and design) charged less than half ($40) of what I charged ($100). He did mention that he’d been through “4 or 5” WordPress developers recently and he’s desperately looking for someone who can stick with the job. The last one he worked with just didn’t have the time anymore and some of the custom coding for the shopping cart he was using was over her head. Another, who did the coding, wasn’t reliable.

He didn’t ask me directly–and I didn’t offer–but he was curious if I would lower my rates because I was so much higher than the others who had worked for him. Well, gee, the others also didn’t work out very well, did they? The others weren’t reliable and didn’t have the knowledge to do the work.

A guy goes into a BMW dealer and asks if he can pay the same price for the BMW as the Volkswagen down the street.

We cordially parted ways and he said maybe his company would be able to afford me later in the year when the cash flow was coming in. I sent him some links to some colleagues who might charge less. I also sent him links to oDesk and another to Code Poet and finally to WOO Workers. Hopefully he finds a good match.