When Do You Say No To A Project?
Freelancers are constantly on the lookout for their next project because simply put, nothing in their professional life is permanent😁 But does that mean they keep saying yes all the time? Absolutely not!
An extremely difficult part in the freelancing career is figuring out how and when to say no. It’s tricky because saying no comes with a huge set of risks. The pressure to grow and get more clients is so much that sometimes we jump at the opportunity without really thinking about what it entails.
So how does one really figure this out?
Here is a short checklist that might help🤓
The scope of work is not your expertise
This one’s fairly simple. If the scope of work is not something that you are familiar with, you have to be honest with yourself and the client and let the opportunity go. I’ll help you with a personal example here. I enjoy content writing and don’t mind putting in the research whenever required. I know I can easily create content around hospitality, travel and business while fintech might take me more time. I can write website copy, social media copy, blogs and newsletters. I’ve got a couple of opportunities to work with health related app development teams where I was required to help with app design and content. While this is an area of interest I had to turn down the opportunity because I am not well versed with design psychology and would not do justice to this project. What is important to me is putting in a lot of focus to deliver exactly what the client wants and I would not want to cause any delay because of my work. At the end of it I also want to enjoy the process of creating and want the clients to live with a good opinion of my work ethics. Keeping all these factors in mind I had to turn down that opportunity- because design and design psychology was not my expertise.
Client has unrealistic expectations
Have you been on client calls where you feel things started off relatively easy but your task list is being filled with things you did not sign up for, and you are left wondering how on Earth is one person supposed to complete all of this? If you feel overwhelmed with work that you did not sign up for you either say no or gather a team to delegate (before that please ensure that your budgets are in place) For example- you sign up with a brand to handle the blogs for 4 cities, public relations for six cities and an official launch in two cities. There is no way one person can handle that and you need a team in place.
This is when you say no, or ask for a bigger budget so that you can put together a team and work with them. Remember- if you want to grow you will have to delegate!
Unnecessary negotiations are taking a lot of time
You hopped onto a couple of calls, shared a few rate cards and the client insists on negotiating further- RED FLAG! These negotiations calls make you realise that money is the focus of the project and it is clear that your value is not being appreciated because all that the client needs is a resource to do a job that he has a set budget for. You charge what you charge because of the value you bring to the project and if you feel that the client refuses to see your value of that, and there is a lot of time being wasted in negotiating, it is time to let go.
It might feel super scary to turn down work as a freelancer, but please understand that saying no to things that you do not want will help you understand what you want, and bring to you only those projects that make you grow. Like anything else in life, this habit also needs to be practiced consistently so that you reap the benefits.
