Stop doing unpaid writing and editing work
Sticking to the terms of your agreement doesn't make you a bad freelancer. It makes you someone who does their job.
Hi Friend,
A tendency freelancers have is to do extra work on top of what they’re being paid by their clients for. This comes from a variety of places:
They think “If I do enough work for the client, they’ll keep coming back to me, so I can earn more money.”
It’s ingrained in them that they have to be people pleasers no matter what, and that means never saying no to clients (or always “going the extra mile”).
We’re surrounded by people who put in extra work for free so they can be seen as team players or considered for promotions, so we do it, too.
In the moment, it often doesn’t feel like a lot of extra work. An additional page here, keyword optimizing there, sourcing images for an article or two. So why not do it to make them happy?
There are many problems with always going the extra mile.
A client who is happy with you for the free work you do might come back to you, but they’ll likely expect you to keep doing that free work for free. Like a judge in a courtroom in the 1950s, you’ve set a precedent.
Being a people pleaser might get you liked by your clients, but it won’t get you a lot of respect, and it won’t help you build your authority.
Those “team players” are usually employees, not freelancers. So they are more likely paid for their time and have benefits as well. (To be clear, I despise the “team player” framing specifically because it manipulates people into doing unpaid labour.)
If you’re always going the extra mile, eventually the finish line gets pushed back too far and you’re going an extra 10 miles without being paid for any of them. (I also despise the phrase “going the extra mile” for the same reason I hate “team player.”)
Doing unpaid work hurts you much more than it helps you. In fact, by doing work for free, you’re denying yourself the opportunity to make additional money. And, you’re taking time away from other activities, such as marketing yourself or building your expertise, which will also lead to you making more money.
There are ways for you to add value for your clients, without doing work for free.
“But Heidi, we need to add value to our work. That’s what sets us apart from the competition,” is the sort of thing you might be thinking right now.
Gentle freelancer, you can still be valuable without working for free.
How?
By pointing out issues and offering to address them (for an additional cost).
Value is not about being the cheapest
Thanks to many societal factors (ahem, capitalism) we tend to think of value as obtaining the most work for the cheapest price. But of course, there’s no linear line to follow there. You might get a lot of something for cheap, but it won’t be high quality. Or it won’t be on time. Or it won’t be exactly what you wanted.
Price is just one of many factors that go into a determination of value.
Which means you can add value without working for free.
Take my lawn person as an example
I hire someone to mow my lawn twice a month. I do it for a variety of reasons, but mostly because I can’t stand the thought of gassing up a lawn mower and working up a sweat in the heat, all so I can have temporarily shorter grass that I then need to cut again a few days later.
And since I don’t know how to take care of a (real) goat, I pay a human to manage my lawn.
Every 14 days, he mows my lawn. He does nothing more or less unless I ask him to. If I ask him to do something else, such as cutting back a tree or removing yard debris, he sends me a quote for the work so I can pay him accordingly. And here’s the thing: I don’t think he’s a bad person for that. He does exactly what he’s paid to do.
Do I have weeds in my driveway? Yes. Could he pull them for me to “add value” to his work? Sure. But he doesn’t have to, and that doesn’t change that I’m generally happy with the work he does. I keep hiring him because he does what I pay him to do.
If he were to message me to say, “Hey, I’ve noticed some weeds growing in your front lawn. You’ll want to pull them before they make the cracks in your concrete any wider. We can do that next time we’re here for $60,” I’d likely write back, “Yes please, that would be unbeleafably helpful!” (you’re welcome for that chuckle).
And just like that, he’s created an opportunity for himself.
His asking me to pay more for that service, which isn’t included in our agreement, won’t stop me from working with him. I could say, “No thanks, I’ll weed out the problem myself” (I’m on a roll today) and it would be no loss to him.
I’ll still pay him to take care of my lawn. But if he messaged me about those weeds, there’s a chance I’ll say yes. (A very good chance. I despise gardening like I hate going to the dentist or watching Michael Bay movies.)
Create opportunities for yourself
You don’t have to do unpaid labour to make your clients happy. Sticking to your agreement or contract doesn’t make you a bad freelancer, it makes you someone who does the job as agreed. There’s nothing wrong with this.
We’ve been programmed to think that everything is about going the extra mile, but that’s just a race to exhaustion. There’s no end in sight to it.
If you notice an issue with a client’s content, point it out and offer to assist them with it for an additional fee. Don’t offer to do it for free. Create an opportunity, instead.
In the best-case scenario, they’ll say yes and pay you for that work. Even if they say no, they’ll likely appreciate that you took the time to point out an issue to them. So either way, you’ve provided some value without working for nothing.
Often, I’ll reach out with, “I noticed you have X issue. This could be a problem because Y. I’d be happy to take care of that for you for $, here’s the timeline for getting it done. Let me know if you’d like me to proceed.”
Sometimes they tell me to go ahead, other times they don’t. But no matter what, I’m not doing the work for free.
If they come to me with an issue
Sometimes during a project, the client will notice an issue they want me to take care of. They might message me, “Can you take care of [insert issue here] for us?” If I can do the work, I’ll let them know what the new charge is.
There’s a lot of pressure to continually offer more value, but that doesn’t mean you constantly have to do more and more work for free. That’s not the way to build a sustainable business.
If you want to keep your clients happy, do what you said you would do, in the timeline you said you would do it, and do it well. Be polite, friendly, and approachable. But don’t be someone who gives away a lot for free.
Set boundaries around your work and stick to them.
Here’s to your ongoing freelance success,
Heidi