Don’t Undervalue Your Work

Every freelancer understands the temptation:  Desperate to pay bills, you need work, any work, and you need it now.  A big job that comes the week after the rent’s due won’t cut it.  You need positive cash flow.  To land that job, that new client, you offer a discount.  The client counters with an offer less than half your usual rate.  It’s low.  It’s so low that it’s insulting.

You agree anyway, because the low amount is still enough to keep the lights on.

Here’s the problem:  You’re now obligated to do your best work for a client who has paid you less than half of what you’re worth.  The knowledge that you’re essentially working for free will stick in your craw long after you’ve spent that money.  Tell me you can go the extra mile, bend over backwards to please your client, when you know you weren’t properly compensated for your effort.  You’ll resent the work, and because you resent it, you’ll be miserable doing it.

We’ve all made those calls.  It would be easy for me simply to counsel you to refuse underpaid work, to say no to cut rates.  Reality, though, is seldom that simple.  To stay solvent you may well have to whore yourself a little, get paid less than what you deserve.  What you’ve got to remember, however, is not to take such calls lightly.  Weigh them carefully.  Accept deep discounts only when you’re most desperate, and then only because you must.  Once your immediate cash flow problems are solved and your budget is sustainable, don’t be afraid to ask for concessions.

Here’s an example:  If I accept a deeply discounted job, it must be with the understanding that the client give me a little leeway on the deadline.  If he won’t budge, then I’d rather refund his money than take his abuse.  Every client is different and most of them are great — especially the ones who become your repeat customers.  Once in a while, though, you’ll run up against someone who wants the world.  He wants you to work for a pittance, and he wants you to adhere to a tight schedule with no flexibility.

You deserve better than to work for that guy.  There may be times you have no choice, but in all but the most dire situations, I urge you to value yourself properly and to enforce your boundaries with self-respect and dignity.  You may need work — we all do — but you don’t need slave wages, and you don’t need abuse.  There isn’t a freelance writer in the world who, of necessity, hasn’t suffered for what he does.  Don’t volunteer for more if you can help it.