Every month we run
through a series of questions to help you run your freelance business like a bigger business — “self-coaching” your way to better results and a better life.
Hey! Happy Production Month!
So this month, we’re going to be looking at ourselves as workers.
That’s going to mean taking a step back and asking whether we can afford to pay ourselves as workers in our freelance business. This can be a rough conversation, but I promise you that it’s worth taking a hard look at each topic we’re covering.
Let’s start with the most important sign you can’t afford to pay yourself as a worker.
You’re not thinking about paying yourself.
So as a freelancer you’re really working in two roles—business owner and worker. (Ideally, you should be able to pay yourself for both, but that’s a topic for another day.)
As a worker, you should be able to write yourself a check just like any employer would…you should be able to look at the average pay in whatever kind of work your doing and be able to provide something close, if not better. (Likely better because most employers drastically underpay their workers)
If you haven’t even thought of that? Well, that’s a good sign you can’t afford to pay yourself as a worker.
Getting to the other side of all that is going to be a very personal process, but this post on how I did it for myself might be helpful.
And if you want to talk out how you can start shifting your mindset? Come by the Academy boards and let’s talk it out!
Megan