My 3 Most Expensive Freelance Mistakes (and how you can avoid them)
Not increasing my rates
The most expensive mistake I made at many points throughout my freelance career was not increasing my rates. At first, I didn’t increase my rates because I was afraid. I was afraid clients would get offended, call me a quack, and drop me. So I just kept working hard, hoping they would be overcome by benevolence and offer me a rate increase on their own. This didn’t happen. What happened instead was I didn’t make enough to run a sustainable business. So I was overworking myself, and underdelivering for my clients. That’s why they dropped me.
When I finally mustered up the courage to ask for a rate increase, it was always met with positivity. Most of the time my clients were able to accommodate a higher rate for me, and when they weren’t, they expressed gratitude and offered some other benefit (like a simpler workflow).
Increased rates and increased salaries are usually one-time conversations that have compounding effects over time, because after the rate increase, every job is more profitable from that moment forward. It also sets a new standard for you and your work, increasing your confidence moving forward.
If a new client contacts you, try quoting them a higher rate and see what happens. You can always offer a discount if they scoff. If you’ve been working with a client for a year, you’re due for a rate increase. A simple message you can send goes something like this:
Hey client,
Most of the other work I’ve been booking recently has been at $800 / day. I’m wondering if at the beginning of this next quarter you’d be able to accommodate this rate for me? I want to continue to prioritize your projects, and this helps me do that.
Appreciate you!
Not optimizing my workflow
When I graduated college, I worked from my kitchen counter for about nine months. Then, I borrowed a wobbly card table from my parents as a desk for another four months. Eventually, I received a real desk as a Christmas gift from a friend, and I immediately noticed the difference. Having a clean, professional, dedicated workspace was a huge motivator for me. My productivity skyrocketed. As time went on, I got a keyboard, a mouse, a monitor, speakers, planners, sticky notes, candles, and all sorts of productivity tools.
Each item had a small impact on my overall productivity, and again, those effects compounded over the following months and years. I hate to think back to the early days when I thought the investment in these little things was selfish. I can only imagine how much more I could have accomplished, and how much better I would have felt if I had just spent the money earlier.
I’m a writer and producer, so the gear I need is minimal. I basically have base-level gear, because most of my skills are soft skills that don’t require totally modern hardware or software. But many freelancers use hard skills and have to keep their equipment current. The compounding effects of productivity for those disciplines is far greater than what I experienced. If you’re wondering if the productivity tool you’re considering buying will be worth it: it will. It may not always be the most strategic purchase, or the right time to invest, but any increase in productivity will eventually pay for itself.
Going out of my lane
Running a successful freelance business requires you to do dozens of things beyond the service you provide. Accounting, marketing, pitching, speaking, teamwork, and brainstorming are all essential practices for the freelancer. Early in my career, I was resistant to spending money to outsource these things, because I didn’t want to fork over a piece of the pie.
I wish you could see the look on my face as I submitted my own taxes my first year as a freelancer. I was sure I would be audited and go to jail. Luckily, that didn’t happen, but the next year I knew I needed to get help. Now, I happily pay my CPA to do my taxes because the stress relief is worth ten times what I pay him.
It’s not just added stress that was costly to me early on–it was wasted time, too. Editing my own videos and doing my own graphic design has been a huge time suck for me over the years, and once I started outsourcing those things, I stopped losing entire afternoons to things I’m not good at.
Every freelancer needs to learn a few extra skills to make things work, and there isn’t always extra cash to hire for these things. But you know how much better your work is than the layperson who hires you, even if they don’t. And it’s the same for you. You might be able to make passable assets and get by on your own. But you’ll save time and produce better work if you outsource your pain points. And this will help you make more money in the long run.
