New freelancers (and a whole bunch of experienced ones as well) make a mountain of mistakes right off the bat. Thankfully, most of them learn from these lumps, bumps, and bruises that they get – and a handful of them turn those mistakes into knowledge and wisdom on the road to real freelancer wealth.
Sadly, there are a whole bunch more freelancers out there that never really “get it”. They keep making the same mistakes time after time, wondering why they aren’t making the kind of money that they’d always wanted to, and believing that they just need to “work harder”.
If only they’d work smarter.
Here are the mistakes you can’t make as a new freelancer.
Getting paid AFTER you deliver the work
The biggest (and maybe the most debilitating) mistake of them all – though number three on this list definitely gives this one a run for its money – is making the mistake of getting paid AFTER you deliver the work.
Everyone does it (and we mean EVERYONE) at least a handful of times when they are just getting started. A lot of it has to do with trusting your clients, feeling like they’ll take care of you if you take care of them.
A lot more of it has to do with insecurities and a lack of confidence.
Regardless of the reasoning behind it, getting paid after you deliver work is always a mistake because you lose all leverage. Unless you have a sure fire way to “revoke” their ability to use whatever it is you deliver if they failed to pay you, you will (inevitably) find yourself up the creek without a paddle – or a payment – at least a couple of times if you go down this river.
Always get paid the balance before you deliver any work product.
Working without some kind of contract
Secondly, you have to know that it’s absolutely nuts to work without some type of contract agreement, even if you’ve never going to go to a lawyer and have one draw a legitimate bona fide legal document for you.
Contracts are going to give you the opportunity to establish boundaries, parameters, and deadlines that you and your client need to meet if the project is to continue on the path that you both agree to (at the prices that you both agreed to).
If these documents are going to give you all kinds of leverage, but they’re also going to protect you from “scope creep”. Every freelance project out there deals with at least a little bit of scope creep (you throwing in a couple of freebies because you don’t want to nickel and dime somebody), but you don’t want the project to continue expanding beyond original parameters without you getting paid for the effort that you’re putting in.
A contract makes sure that never happens.
Working for free (or worse)
Finally, you need to be sure that you NEVER work for free unless you absolutely, positively have zero other alternatives available.
A lot of people when they are new to the freelancing world are under the impression that they have to do some free work to get some case studies or to get a little bit of experience under their belt – or even worse, to work in exchange for “getting their name out there” – but literally nothing could be further from the truth.
You should be able to charge something (ANYTHING) for your work when you’re just getting started out, if only for the leverage it gives you as well as the respect of your clients.
If you have to do free work, make sure that it is free work for yourself that you can somehow spin off into a marketing or advertising component to bring in new clients.
