The time on the wall is important to a freelance writer
When you are in the business of freelancing, your time is especially valuable because no one is paying you for: 1) not working, 2) your benefits, 3) your vacation time, 4) your sick time, and 5) the extra time you may spend trying to make them look good.
Irritated And Disrespected
When precious time is not respected, a freelance writer may begin to feel irritated and disrespected. That’s the case here. I’m not suggesting that this interviewee, a manager, went out of his way to annoy me. He was nice enough and his business is interesting enough for me to feature. But he is young and he obviously spoke out of turn. He didn’t say anything inappropriate or defamatory. But he did say things that, as it turns out, his boss (the business owner) would not have wanted to show off in a feature story that could be read by many potential customers.
Plus, he had already given the final version of my story the go-ahead, before showing it to his boss. It was all ready to be published to the World Wide Web.
The story is good, very good if you ask me, and could garner him plenty of new business, and make him look good. But that’s beside the point. I had to do extra work for his benefit, revising parts of the story that his boss wanted edited or omitted.
Focus On Time Management
In the short period of time that I have been a freelance writer, and have been aggressively pursuing freelance writing work, I have talked to a few successful freelancers and read countless articles written by other successful freelance writers. The ones whose opinions I value the most are the ones who focus the most on getting the best possible value for your work. This means getting the absolute most out of your time, each and every day. And it means not letting anyone or anything get in the way of you getting paid work done.
It also means never under-pricing yourself, because that’s not respecting the important work that freelancers do: namely, making businesses look good. See, it always comes back to that.
We Decide How To Use Our Time
Freelance writers become their own one-person operation for a few very solid reasons, one of which is they are free to use their time however they please. Sometimes this means helping out other freelancers, who are hopefully highly appreciative of good advice. I appreciate the time of one well-known local freelancer, who took a half hour out of his day a few weeks back to give me some very good suggestions about how to grow my business. Hopefully he feels like he didn’t waste his time.
As addendum, when I am investing my energy in helping a client grow their business and succeed beyond previous levels, I never feel like I am wasting my time. This instance was a rare exception. I am happy to be of service to my clients.
See how I can help your business become an information powerhouse. Contact me with your service needs.