This week I had a great conversation with a friend who does freelancing consulting. She was facing the challenge of hitting her income potential. She’s a one-person operation and has a fixed number of hours that she can work. So say she has 40 hours a week available and, accounting for other non-billable activities, can bill 25 of those. Let’s say she currently bills at $50/hr. She has 2 choices: work more billable hours, or raise her rates. Working more billable hours is simple. Raising rates is more complex.