4 Things I Wish I’d Been Told at the Start of My Freelance Career

I’ve been freelancing for around 5 years now... full time for the last 3. I enjoy the freedom, the high pay I’ve been able to achieve, and perhaps most importantly, the diversity of activities.

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Of course, you can’t do something for 5 years without learning a few things, so I wanted to take a moment today to share a few of the things I wish I’d known back at the beginning. I’ll also mention a few things I managed to avoid that seem to be common tripping points for many freelancers.

I hope that’s enough intro for you, because we’re diving right in.

1. Pricing Has Nothing to Do with Service Quality

A lot of people tend to think that price is directly related to quality. Sure, you know of some exceptions, but on average, people to tend to earn what they’re worth, right?

No. Not with freelancing. In fact, you need to completely get out of that mentality if you want to make real money as a freelancer.

The reality of capitalism is that pricing has nothing to do with quality. Pricing is 100% determined by what people are willing to pay. As a freelancer, my service cost is based entirely on what I can negotiate from a client as opposed to the actual value of my work.

If you want to make more money as a freelancer, you don’t need a better service, you need better negotiating skills. Here’s the cliffnotes for making that happen:

Quality is important, of course, and we’ll talk about that next, but it has virtually nothing to do with your pricing. I’ve made $12 and $800 for essentially the exact same article. If you can change your mentality and understand that price is a matter of how much your client is willing to pay, you can immediately begin making more money for the exact same amount of work.

2. Your Long-term Success Will Depend Entirely on Quality

While the quality of your work will not determine how much you earn on any given project, it WILL determine how many projects you get from repeat and referred clients, which tend to make up the bulk of a successful freelancer’s income.

Don’t let this detract from my previous point. You can do $800 quality work and get paid $12 the rest of your life if you fail to grasp point #1.

If, however, you are successfully charging $800 for $12 quality work, you will typically find yourself failing to attract recurring business. There are always exceptions, of course, and if you are in a market where clients tend to have limited understanding of the service provided, you might be able to get away with scamming. But honestly, if your goal is simply to rob people, becoming a freelance service provider is a horribly inefficient way to accomplish that.

The best way to succeed over the long haul is to provide consistent value to everyone you work with. When a client comes away thrilled with your work, there’s a fantastic chance that will turn into additional work and a referral or two down the road. When this happens with EVERY client you work with, you are essentially building a passive lead-generation network.

Focus on doing quality work and continue to improve as your career progresses. This is THE best way to achieve long-term success as a freelancer.

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by Jacob McMillen via SitePoint