I believe in value-based pricing, as has been discussed often on this blog and in my other writings.I also believe PITA clients should be charged more. I’m not alone in this thinking.Actually, I think that it is important to walk away from bad clients. At the very least, they have to pay a significantly higher rate to compensate you for the mental health damage they cause. Here’s a great list of 10 bad client types and how to dump them.

There’s an old saying about choosing to curse the darkness rather than turn on a light which I think applies to lots of creatives today. Seth Godin talks about this idea in a recent blog post, where he discusses an old business that is stuck in status quo mode and the new start-up which takes risks and tries anything because, well, it pretty much has to to get market attention and traction.

What particularly struck me was when he wrote that the older business’ employees felt “helpless.” I see this every day in my work. Creatives seem to fall into three main camps when it comes to their businesses: the “it was this way before and though it might not be this way now it should be, damn it” group, the “it’s not like it was before and there is nothing we can do” one, and the “well, things change, what should we do now?” one.

The first group are the curmudgeons, even when they are 20 years old. I hear the cranky old man voice when I read their posts: In my day, being a generalist was your ticket to success. I shouldn’t have to specialize! and/or I shouldn’t have to market and sell–people should just find me and hire me.

The second evoke the voice of the martyr: So Getty is charging $50 an image to post our work now and paying us less and less–they’re too big to fight and it’s better than nothing, anyway. and/or The clients won’t hire me if I don’t give them all rights so I do because I have to feed my family.

The third, however, are the future. Young, old, in the business forever or just starting out, these are the people who ask questions and reach beyond the expected: What can I do to make my business more successful? and I had this crazy idea for a marketing piece… and Getty won’t make a dime off me–I’ll license my own stock! and I’ll get a second job waiting tables if I have to to make this work.

This last group are the successful ones. They are thinking about the possible and reaching out for their own success. They are happier in the process as well. They remind me of the spirit I’ve been seeing in the people in Ken Burns’ fabulous documentary, The War. The people then did more with less, got inventive with what was available, innovated constantly, and changed the world (both at home and abroad). They didn’t sit and complain that things weren’t fair (even groups like the Japanese-American soldiers whose families were interned, or the segregated African-Americans), they worked to make things better.

Which category are you in? Are you ready to stop cursing the darkness?