Not every client is worth your time.

I want you to really think about that, because, especially if you’ve been employed for a while, you’ve probably never learned to value your time in a way that includes taking action.

I’ve talking about the dangers of freelancing without a minimum hourly rate, and this piggy backs off that. Knowing what your minimum hourly rate is doesn’t mean a whole lot if you don’t know how much you’re making per hour of effort with each of your clients.

Take one of my retainer clients for example. I spent months, nervous working with them, because I didn’t feel like I was earning the $2K a month they were paying me. Never mind that they told me they were fine if I didn’t end up doing much work, I still worried that they’d drop me or feel I wasn’t worth the money. (I mean…$2K is a good amount of money to me, to a whole corporation though? Not so much.)

One week I sat down and really looked at the hours I was spending on their work. I found out that, even in a month where I felt I wasn’t doing enough, I was coming in right at my hourly rate. When I looked at a couple of other clients with this same process? I was coming in WAY under. I could work to find clients that paid me what I was looking for, so they just weren’t worth it.

That’s financial, but there’s another way that clients aren’t worth it...alignment with the purpose of your business. If a client is paying you, even very well, and causing you to violate some of the reasons you started freelancing in the first place (e.g. stressing you out, taking time away from your family, etc.) then they aren’t really helping you shape your business, are they?

Of course, sometimes you just have to pay your bills, but even when you’re just getting started, get yourself in the habit of examining your clients’ worth. If you know that, you’ll be able to keep your business moving in a direction that really works for you.

Megan