“He’s nuts!”

That’s what Cathy Orfall later told me she thought when I suggested she nearly double her rates.

No way, the Hood River, OR. designer said. No way that her clients would agree to an hourly fee above her rate of $75.

“I was kicking and screaming against your idea all the way,” she recalls. “That’s how stubborn I was.”

That was then. This is now.

“Not an eyelash has been batted,” she told me this week, since she finally agreed to raise her rate to $125 per hour.

No one has even questioned the fee. Not even her current clients, one of whom actually sent a congratulatory note.

Cathy’s is one of many success stories I’ve heard from designers who substantially boosted their hourly fees.

After 16 years, I’ve yet to hear from one coaching client– not one — whose business decreased after they raised their rates.

Can’t say I’m surprised.

Repeat after me, then memorize … and then never, ever forget these two prosperity principles:

1/ You can set and get ANY fee as long as you differentiate yourself from competitors who charge less.

— and –

2/ It doesn’t matter what you say about your price. What matters is what you say about yourself.