Imagine walking into a Ferrari dealership.
Stunning vehicles dot the showroom floor.
The Enzo.
The California.
You set your eyes on an F430.
The price tag: $300,000 smackers.
This is a fabulous machine. One of the finest sports cars on earth. Of course it costs $300,000 because why would it cost any less? The car was carefully built and engineered painstakingly. Top speed: 196 MPH. 0-60 in 3.7 seconds.
Super car perfection.
Now imagine if you looked at this brilliant super car priced at $300,000 and you told the sales person on the showroom floor:
“I can only offer $20,000 for the car because I am on a tight budget.”
In a best case scenario, you will be laughed out of the dealership.
In a worst case scenario, the sales person calls security and you are forcibly evicted from the dealership because everybody there believes you are insane. Rightfully so.
This is a Ferrari we are talking about. Not a Kia. If you wanted to buy an average, run of the mill Kia, maybe $20,000 covers it. I know not. I am too busy island hopping these days to know much of cars.
Bloggers and Sponsored Post Prices
Imagine someone approaching you to place a sponsored post on your blog.
You have built your blog up over years, creating helpful content, establishing friendships with top bloggers, guest posting and building up the Ferrari of blogging real estate.
Someone asks for your sponsored post rates.
You share your fixed rate of $500.
The individual wants to place a sponsored post on your Ferrari of a blog for only $20 because they have no money. Tight budget.
I hope to goodness you ignore the email, or politely decline, or if you are in a playful mood, laugh the individual off of your email thread. Or maybe if you are particularly clever, you will bookmark this post and send it to the individual as a response.
In any case, if someone walks into your cyber dealership and wants to buy a sponsored post on your Ferrari of a blog for Kia prices, let them go. Instantly. The $20 plea because someone is on a budget is as asinine as somebody walking into a Ferrari dealership and explaining that they only have 20 g’s to spend on the car, and that “they hope you can work with their price range because money is tight.”
Just like the Kia shopper is out of their league by trying to buy a Ferrari, the $15 guest post budget individual is out of the league of your blog.
You are both in different Universes.
It’d be like if I walked into Tao here in NYC – one of the most pricey and trendy restaurants in the city – and asked for a reduced price on my meal because times were tight, and I was on a budget.
It costs you $96 for a few thin slices of Kobe beef there. But imagine if I tried to explain that I was on a budget, and that I could only afford to spend $5 on the normally $96 Kobe beef?
This is Kobe beef folks!
Fixed Price
Minus a tiny bit of wiggle room – if you choose to go this route – make all service prices for your blog fixed.
Sponsored post rates, freelance writing rates and advertising rates should be fixed, non-negotiable, set prices.
This helps you avoid tire kickers and also weeds out folks who are simply too mired in fear to be on your energetic wavelength.
I do have compassion for these individuals but I am not in the business of doling out charity. Just like the salesperson on the floor of the Ferrari dealership does not change the pricing of one of the world’s finest vehicles for “somebody on a budget”, neither should you.
Remember; you have a blogging Ferrari.
Treat it as such.
Video
What the video from NYC as I explain this concept: