Don’t Let the Economy Destroy Your Common (Business) Sense
February 17, 2009 by Jenny Cromie
Filed under Jobs
Are you putting yourself out of business?
During my interview with longtime freelancer Robert McGarvey yesterday, he passed along a lot of great advice from his 30 years in the business. But one thing that really struck a chord with me was this observation: “Right now, in this economy, it is very easy to be so hungry that the hunger devours good sense.”
Like all freelancers, I certainly understand the pull that any kind of work has right now. But I also think there’s something to be said for exercising discernment and common sense when you’re accepting assignments, negotiating pay, and signing off on contracts.
One of my close friends recently told me that one of her clients halved her pay (for economic reasons, of course). We didn’t discuss what happened in too much detail, but I’m hoping that she did not agree to doing the same amount of work for half the pay. I think it’s okay to work with clients—particularly right now. But only to a point. If a client halves your pay rate, be sure to renegotiate the amount of work you’re doing for them.
Because here’s the deal: Eventually the economy will improve. And when it does, don’t kid yourself into thinking that the client who halved your pay will suddenly increase your rate back to the pre-recession amount. Unfortunately, I don’t think most clients operate that way. If you accept a lower pay rate for the same amount of work you’ve been doing all along, you have to understand that you’re setting a new standard that likely will continue to live on past the current economic conditions. And more than likely, that new standard that you’re accepting will not be beneficial to you or other freelancers.
I’m sure you’ve heard this before: You train people how to treat you. The same rule applies to clients.
Even when times are tough and money is tight, you still have to consider the long-term impact of the terms and rates that you’re agreeing to right now. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up training your clients to expect the same amount of work for less pay. And you’ll pay for the decisions you make long after this recession has passed into the history books.
So as Robert pointed out yesterday, don’t let the current economic conditions destroy your good business sense.
No matter how panicky you might feel about current economic conditions, keep your head on straight. Don’t automatically accept any assignment, contract, or rate that lands in your lap without careful consideration and negotiation.
Be flexible if you can afford to do that, but don’t put yourself out of business in the process.
So have you recently let current economic conditions get in the way of your good business sense? Drop me a line and tell me about it.
-Jenny
Photo credit: Rob Hogeslag (Flickr)
Good point, and something I really needed to hear right now. I cut my rates for one client and ended up poor and miserable through the whole experience. Just say no to rate cuts!
It’s hard, though. I’ve been so eager to find new work that I’ve actually found myself considering gigs that truly would not pay me anywhere close to what I should earn for that amount of work.
Rates got so low on some work I was offered in the past year, that I opted out.
The last assignment I got offered by one client who was great in 2007 was a last-minute, cut-rate advertorial (I tried to sound a bit regretful as I told them I couldn’t do the assignment because of time and the fact the I couldn’t afford to take time off from my day job right that instant to do it for the offered rate). Next thing I knew, I read about some serious money problems for the client in the local newspaper. I was best off following my instinct to politely decline the extremely low-rate work that time at least.
I decided that the best thing I might be able to do for myself at this point was to go ahead and make a transition to the kind of writing I wanted to do…regional travel writing…with a blog and hopefully develop enough traffic to monetize it and create some visibility for my work so I can spin it off into other opportunities.
I still work a non-writing related job, saved my money…and kept my expenses low over the past few years anticipating things would get worse before they got better. I’m hopeful those strategies will afford me the time to get where I need to go with my writing and generate some decent income down the road.