Charles Arrington ’21 (PWR)
Freelance writing and design is a great source of income for those in the field of PWR. It allows for working on your own schedule, setting your own rates, and most importantly, doing what you love. However, getting started as a freelance writer is no small task. You must consider where to advertise your services and what exactly it is that you want to sell. I chose to look into Fiverr when it came time to start marketing my services and skills in a freelance setting.
Fiverr is a great site devoted to helping professionals find work through an easy to use platform. Getting started with an account was straightforward and presented no problems, but when I was prompted to list my first ‘gig,’ I ran into the issue of pricing my services. That’s where digital design and marketing professional Will Paterson comes in.
Through YouTube, Will offers a series of videos devoted to helping you build your digital design empire. The one I was most interested in was a video on how to price your work. It evoked the same spirit that one of my peers captured in a line, “What is this work really worth to you and your business?” Below I will break down key pieces of advice given by Will Paterson; here’s a link to the video for future reference. It is an excellent video for students and young professionals looking to get into freelance work – especially if you are not sure where to start.
Paterson’s tips include:
- Position yourself – If you want to succeed in getting work at all, you have to position yourself (On Fiverr in my case) as an expert in the field you choose to work in. For example, my graphic design skills I’d say are intermediate, but my technical writing skills I would rank as expert level. That being said, clearly this is the area that I’d want to market services for primarily. In order to effectively position yourself as an expert, you must show examples of your work and your best products to convince your future clients that you are the real deal.
- Increase your skill set – While you may be an expert in one category of design and writing, there are plenty of other people that you will have to compete with to get the paycheck and opportunities you want. By increasing your skill set and continuing to learn more skills and techniques in your field, you end up with quite a bit more to offer the client. If you can specialize in one area and bolster it with other relevant skills and technical knowledge, a client is much more likely to want to prioritize working with you over others.
- Gain trust – Clients are much more likely to work with you and pay higher amounts for your work if you are transparent about your past projects and provide plenty of examples to show your prowess. Additionally, offering to meet with the client to establish more of a relationship goes a long way in gaining trust. Offer to meet them and discuss the project while also letting them learn more about you as a writer or designer.
- Rehearse negotiations – Being in the freelance world will put you in situations requiring negotiation a considerable amount of the time. This is where you shouldn’t be afraid to ask for more money, especially when you are confident in the value of your work. It is okay to say no to clients who refuse to pay your target amount; in fact Will Paterson and his group say no to 80% of clients that are stuck on the idea of getting the work done for less than asking price.
- Add value – The most important foundation to setting your prices is an accurate assessment of value. Asking yourself questions about the potential your work has in the long run for any client is essential. You are not just a producer of things; you are a writer. For this reason, it isn’t just an article or blog post that you’re selling; it is your intellectual property plus time and effort.
These tips are all extremely helpful when figuring out how to price your work, and even more so in reaffirming that you should probably be charging more for your work. When you know how to assess the value of your work, you will be paid well for it.
Charles (Ross) Arrington is a 2021 graduate of Elon University with a degree in Professional Writing & Rhetoric.
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