The economy’s crashing, so you better slash your rates, right?

Sure, if you want to project fear and a lack of confidence. I don’t care what you’ve heard about the economy, etc. If you treat your contribution as worth less, so will others. You do NOT want to be the person people hire because you’re cheap!

There’s an underlying contempt for money when you encourage people to hire you because you’re cheap. You’re telling your customers that being paid well isn’t important to you. Even worse, you’re telling your customer and yourself that you don’t deserve to be paid well. How attractive is that?

It’s a downward spiral: your clients will invest less, get less back, see you as less valuable, and you’ll find yourself struggling for less and less. You lose all credibility. A better strategy is to charge more and make sure the value you give is even better.