The Creative Plight Pt. 2: What’s better than working for free?
Disclaimer: This is a community-driven article, inspired by our lovely community of digital creatives, who love to talk about the future of work.
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Last time we explored the concept of working “for free” and why anyone would do it. Namely, it is something people with creative professions suffer from most and also victims of the “money is evil” ploy.
This time we’re going to focus on the alternatives and also charging your worth if you feel like you’re selling yourself short.
If not money, what?
Many people agree, “money is not everything”.
If you don’t necessarily care about money and you’re happy side-hustling it up, then you should at least strive to get something else in return.
Like passion! Lots of people do stuff for free when it is for passion. The secret is to at least try to eventually make some profit out of it. Unless you’re also working something else that you happen to love.
We should always get something in exchange for your time and work: if not money, then experience, or expertise, or professional relationships and references, or education, or some combination of these. — Jason Rubenstein
After all, we are not slaves.
If not money, what? There are so many ways we can gain value from using our skills — from new connections to barter deals to learning experiences. If you’re a new consultant and you just want to learn to be great at it and get some awesome testimonials, it makes sense to offer free sessions.
The key is to find the balance — what you’re comfortable giving away and what you absolutely want to charge for.
Within this balance lies your financial happiness.
And your peace of mind.
Volunteering is something else.
It warmed up our hearts to see how many people agreed that volunteering is the only acceptable way to work for free. Obviously, you don’t get paid for volunteering and that’s OK because you volunteered your time and skills.
That implies that you willingly gave away what you do, not that somebody made you do it or you did it out of necessity.
You should never work for free because you have to. If you choose to volunteer or do it as a favor, then it’s completely different. Saying no to free work you don’t feel comfortable with will save you a lot of headaches. — Aurelie Chazal
So the key point here is: Never do free work because you “have to”, do it because you “want to”, which is kind of what we covered in the previous section. It’s like this —
If you see free work as a necessary evil, you won’t gain any value from it. But if you see it as a learning experience, you’ll gain everything.
So it’s all about your perspective really! There needn’t be any bad guys in this story. Only people who make their own career choices.
Ask yourself: What have you/will you gain from your choices today?
Charge your worth.
Provided that you do want to make a career out of your passion and you don’t want to end up eating cereal all month or having to sell all of your books to make rent, let’s talk about how much you’re charging.
Because if you have a feeling that you’re undercharging, you’re probably right. And I know what you’re thinking: “nobody would pay that much” and “I’ll lose out on customers”. Regarding the first objection, there are people who pay a lot for specialized services and those “crazies” would actually pay more just to get a better service. Believe it or not, that’s the majority of people who look for products and services online.
Because you buy the perceived value, not the product itself.
Regarding the second objection, you don’t want to be hoarding customers, especially if they’re the wrong ones. You need to be targeting a specific subset of your wider target audience, and you definitely want to enjoy the process of working with them, not end up with a bunch of people who pay you but don’t appreciate or agree with the way you work.
You need to stop making excuses and start valuing yourself and your work more. When you value your work, you end up doing a better job, attracting the right people, and finally, you make a living from something you love.
And if you’re not charging your worth (remember, this goes back to self-worth), I want you to remember this quote:
“The courage for charging for what you do comes from charging for what you do.” @marieforleo
Or in the wise words of Yoda…
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