From the beginning of time… hold on, that’s not right.
From the beginning of COVID – that’s better – there has been a surge of remote work that has increased financial and location freedom for workers. Many have discovered the love of being their own boss and becoming partners with other companies to accomplish more and provide much-needed tax relief for both individual business owners. Yet, despite the revelatory experiences and the welcome addition of remote jobs, there still seems to be some hesitation within the markets. While some titles, such as coders, cybersecurity experts, and web designers, are celebrated for being simple to obtain, work with, and subsequently never heard from again, other titles are shunned for some of the same reasons! Freelancers seem to be getting the short end of the stick, and there are pretty unreasonable reasons why.
While I have stated above that remote work is a quick buck and a simple goodbye, that couldn’t be farther from the truth – a little humor does the body good. And I state this so there aren’t those who read it and go “See! I knew it! Remote work is for the lazy and incompetent.” My hope in getting the average Joe business owner to read this is to consider the positives of hiring freelance workers and accept that “old times” are not always the resolutions to modern problems. It’s come to this writer’s attention that my position isn’t taken seriously, and although I could care less of a rat’s butt about the opinion of some business owners I will probably never work with, I aim to change the minds of those this does affect and create some needed discourse within this topic.
So with that, we are going to break down why “freelancer” has turned into such a dirty word… and why each perception is a BS statement!
The increase of negative thoughts surrounding the word “freelance”
It seems that though new freelancers are popping up daily, there is an ominous bubble of negative thoughts that still surround the word “freelance.” Brands are hesitant to rely on freelancers because they have notions that their career instability makes the work meaningless to the freelancer, that they are paying far too much for their services, or even more absurdly that the reputations of freelancers are minuscule and unimportant. It has become so common that it only feels right to address their concerns and refute them with the evidence we have.
“Freelancers act like they don’t want my business, and they are refusing to do what I’m asking of them!”
I will ask this in the least sarcastic way I can muster… do you know what a niche is? If you do – okay, great – if not, let’s just recap really fast. A niche is the decided area a person works in (i.e., sports, health and wellness, landing pages, emails, etc.), so you can see that asking a health and wellness copywriter who specializes in emails to write a landing page on financial futures could get you turned down or rejected. Not saying this is always the case, but it does happen more often than not.
If a freelancer turns down a role, and trust me they really don’t want to, it’s in the best interest of both parties. If for whatever reason, they did decide to take on your project and now they’re refusing to do the work, it may be time to cut your losses. It’s not often you deal with a ghost and live to tell the experience. In the digital age, it has become more common, but that doesn’t have to mean you become jaded or refuse to work with a freelancer in the future – you just have to be more mindful in the future.
“Freelancers don’t care about the work I assigned or their reputations!”
I cannot stress enough how ridiculous it is to insinuate that people who work in the freelance space do not care about their reputation when it is the foundation that gets them more work from other business owners. Sure, you get the occasional bad egg, but the vast majority are working tirelessly to please you so you’ll give them a good review or that oh-so-important recommendation that gets them their next meal.
“Assigned” work as a whole is a different usage of the word based on the perspective of the business owner, as well. “Assigning” something to a freelancer puts the remote worker into the “employee mindset” and sets the relationship into one of employee and boss. Which is not the case. At. All. Depending on the freelancer, “assigned work” is a contracted agreement that projects be assigned before becoming involved in business together, so you can not “add” a new assignment without making another agreement. It is also vital to get the right freelancer based on your project needs (as stated above) because a project is only as good as the freelancer’s specialties.
“It’s too expensive! Freelancers are charging too much not to be here, it’d be better to hire an employee who will always be present!”
Always be present, you say. Just wondering, have you done the math on this? Yes, it seems more expensive because you’re seeing the entirety of the project’s cost for the freelancer’s time – but the reality of hiring an in-house writer versus a freelancer is the charges you won’t see long term. Not all the charges will apply but here’s a comparative list of the charges to hire an employee and what it will be to have a freelancer, based per project of course.
In-house Writer’s Charges:
- Full salary
- Paid time off
- Health insurance
- Tax payoffs
Freelance Writers:
- Project payment
- Fees (cancellation, transaction, etc)
Between the two lists, you can see how significant the changes are between the two employment statuses, not including raises and bonuses. So if the concern is the access to wage ratio, you might want to take your chances and hire a freelancer.
In what ways are “freelancers” combating the negative perceptions of the word?
Many have started transferring their titles to accommodate the businesses they aim to please. Meaning they have switched from deciding freelance as a part-time gig, and “officially” made this their full-time business. Or have they?
Instead of using terms like “freelancer” and “copywriter”, many are switching to using slogans/catchphrases to demonstrate their talents. On LinkedIn, you’ll find that the “f” word and “c” word are rarely used on the platform because there is an innate fear that recruiters or ideal clients will avoid their services like the plague. Yet, I find that this is an unfair {insert word I can’t think of} because it’s both deceiving to the clients and to the entrepreneurs who use filler words instead of getting straight to the point.
Why am I telling you this? It’s not to expose my fellow entrepreneurs, or to warn you of the stakes of hiring a “strategist”, it’s to point out the successful fear-mongering business owners have achieved by refusing opportunities for freelancers who are proud of their efforts. So before you judge freelancers and their roles in your collaborations, read this blog and change your tude.
