If you are reading this, you have come to my website that I created back in September as a way to generate additional income through freelance work that I have been doing for the past two years that includes copy writing, voice work, and audio production for businesses around the globe, as well as website designs and to host the podcasts that I recently started doing.
The reason behind this blog is due to the conversation that I just had with one of my clients who pays me to work on his website. It’s fitting that his website is to showcase the watches that he repairs and sells as this blog is about the VALUE of YOUR time.
You see, he gave me a call concerning the site and to run some ideas past me, which I am okay with as it wasn’t at a strange hour of the day and it’s a part of my service contract with his site. After our 15-minute call, he thanked me for my time and informed me that he was going to send me another payment to cover what I would typically charge of an hour as a “consultation fee” because as he put it: “I’d rather pay you your hourly fee for these past 15-minutes, rather than attempt to make the changes on my own, only to waste 2-hours and end up with a messed up site.” My clients get it. Do you?
Think about all of the stuff that you do. Now categorize all of the tasks and responsibilities into stuff that you “HAVE TO DO” and “WANT TO DO”.
Spring is here and soon the air will be filled with the buzzing of lawnmowers and trimmers. What is it worth to you to have that time to be out with friends or doing something with your family? Personally, I would rather be out doing something with my two-daughters than mowing my yard. A goal that I had for 2014 was to hire a house cleaning service come by every other week so my wife could RELAX after working all week. Guess what, OUR TIME is worth a lot more than what we are paying for the service. Plus my wife is happier and we’re able to do things as a family rather than cleaning the house or the yard.
Unfortunately, the majority of the people out there want you to work for free. Whether you are a band and the bar is upset that you are asking for too much money, or maybe you are a graphic designer who has been asked to design several logos for a company, but your client wants to know why you are charging them for the time it took you to create all ten conceptual logos, when they only selected one of the ten for their official logo. Maybe you’ve been asked by a colleague at work to help them with a presentation that was coming up; but they fail to grasp that even though you are working with them on THEIR presentation during business hours; the time you are investing in their project, is actually taking time away from your responsibilities. So now you have to put more time in at work in order to get your task done. Now you are putting in more hours at work in order to get your additional responsibilities done, but if you happen to be full time, you’re not getting paid more.
These people are greedy. Plain and simple. They want to get the most out of you so they can save some money and to take all of the credit for the successful end result. Whether it’s the bar owner charging $15 at the door who doesn’t want to pay you more than $800 for your band to play his bar for 4-hours, which doesn’t include the time you are investing into traveling to their establishment to load in, conduct a sound check, and then tear down at the end of the night so his staff can go home; or it’s the client that doesn’t see the value in your experience and knowledge in your field.
We also know that the majority of the businesses out there understand that your time is valuable and that is why they are willing to pay you more when you work overtime or on the weekends. However, what is YOUR time WORTH to YOU? Wouldn’t you rather be doing something that you enjoy instead of being at work longer than you have to be or have the night off because you wouldn’t lower your price for your band to play at some bar?
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