I was at a local clothing store with my youngest, looking at clothes over the summer. She was trying to find a good pair of jeans, so we ended up at the Levis store, which isn't cheap.

She found a very nice pair that were $95, which seemed a bit high but she's in college now and I suppose that's when you start thinking about buying nicer things. She's extremely thrifty, unlike me, so she suggested:

I asked her if she liked the jeans she had and she did, to which I replied "I'll lose twice the amount we'll save during the drive there, not to mention the time spent browsing. If we buy these now, we'll save money".

The logic is a bit twisted, I'll admit, but it's also true.

Your Time Has a Value

Have you ever thought about what your hourly value rate is? Most of us, if we work full time, are paid a salary and benefits that comes out to some number. We don't punch a clock, so thinking in terms of an hourly rate doesn't make much sense.

Then again, you can actually calculate what you're getting paid per hour, which is what your value is to your employer. I know my number, and I like to think it's a good measure of the value of my time.

I am, of course, speaking specifically about time vs. money situations. You can't work every hour, and if you did, a check won't appear in your mailbox, so this is a mental exercise at best.

The Million Dollar Idea

It reminds me of Noah Kagan's book, The Million Dollar Weekend, which I binged while in London last year. It's a straightforward approach to creating a 7-figure business and I loved his down-to-earth approach.

One of his strategies is to ask if the idea you have is a "Million Dollar Idea", in which you make $1M in revenue over the course of a year. To figure that out, you come up with a price and then figure out how many sales it would take to get there. From there, you gauge the marketing and advertising, as well as costs associated with production, and finally your time and effort. Does this add up to $1M? If so - do it!

I bought Kagan's book to help me get a side business off the ground that I thought would take off. I bought the domain, started with some simple branding and assets, and was hunting for a cofounder when I sat down and did this exercise. It took me 15 minutes to realize I didn't have a monetization plan and probably never would... so there went that.

Value Billing

Many years ago, when I was contracting, I would be asked familiar questions to any freelancer: "how long will this take and what's your rate?" My answer to this was always the same:

Some people hated that, feeling I was just going to offshore my work (I didn't). Others loved the idea of not having to quibble over my hours.

This is called value billing, when you charge based on the value to the client as opposed to an hourly rate.

For digital products, however, this gets a bit more complicated.

You're Charging Far Too Little

This is something I hear constantly, and I think it's true. I should probably change that, but then we bump into some super exciting psychological issues about how much you think a thing you made is worth.

For instance, my flagship course is Computer Science Fundamentals and, if you click that link, you'll see a pretty sparse checkout page with 0 sales copy. I used to have a better one, but last year I got vapor-locked trying to figure out what to do with the course.

It's 34 videos long, and when I made them, the idea was as an "add-on" for The Imposter's Handbook. They never had a focus of their own, where you could round out a course and charge money. Then I kept adding videos to it... and boom, it became it's own course.

Anyway: I was discussing this with my friend John just yesterday and he, once again, told me I charge too little and that there's an interesting opportunity here:

This, of course, sounded ludicrous. In fact I think I laughed out loud and said "yeah ... I don't know if anyone would actually pay that" to which he replied that "most people won't. But some will... you need to change your perception of what you're worth."

Your Self Worth

I struggle with this, and I know it has a lot to do with self-confidence and so on. Charging someone for a thing you made ... wow what an exercise.

To be clear: I'm not feeling sorry for myself here, and it's incredibly nice of John to tell me he thinks my stuff is worth that much. I'm lucky to have a friend like that and also that I can put together these things and sell them.

But $10K? Could you ever charge someone that for a course you put together? It's funny, I've invoiced contracts at 10 times that amount, and put in far less effort than I would for this.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this and, moreover, would love to know if you think this kind of thing would be worth the money. If not, what could I add? I must admit I'm very intrigued.

If you have a success story, would love to hear that too!