Rethinking Freelancer Rates: Results Over Experience

TO FREELANCERS: Is YEARS OF EXPERIENCE the best basis for structuring your rates as a digital freelancer?

No.

You can run around your house for 8 hours a day for 1 year, and the only work you’ll accomplish is burning calories (unless you’ve been commissioned for 1 year to just burn calories).

Don’t confuse motion with results.

RESULTS are the best basis for determining your rates.

Have you ever heard the story of a student who was requested to teach in his alma mater, even though he was just a second-year college student at that time, right after graduation? Meanwhile, those graduates who applied for the position offered to him got the vanilla response, “We’ll call you back.”

Have you ever heard the story of an entry-level employee who was promoted four times in 12 months, breaking the HR policy (at that time) of not promoting anyone more than twice in 12 months? Meanwhile, all supervisors who had been supervisors for five years when he arrived ended up reporting to him after 12 months.

Hey, hey, hey! Collect accomplishments, not just years of experience.

TO EMPLOYERS: How will you know if you’re talking to a well-accomplished freelancer?

Let me guess.

You’re going to ask for his CV, aren’t you?

I don’t.

Instead, I either give a tailored-fit writing test or conduct an out-of-the-box video call interview.

I don’t ask vanilla questions or make statements like, “Tell me about yourself.”

I ask, “Here’s the situation: _________. Tell me the probable problem(s) and give me the potential solution(s). Add an approximate timeframe and budget for the solution(s). You have two minutes to think, and three minutes to talk. The time starts now.”

Your experience and expertise will manifest in your answer.

Your answer to that hypothetical question is the X-ray of your head and heart.

I don’t care if you only finished kindergarten or if you’re a second cousin of Albert Einstein.

What I care about is how pleasing and satisfying your answer is to the ears of someone who has been there and done that.

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Jaycee De Guzman

Founder and CEO at iPresence Digital Marketing

I am Jaycee de Guzman and I am a Filipino. I am the co-founder and CEO of iPresence Digital Marketing. While being a computer scientist by profession, I have been in the digital marketing business since 2001. I am also the founder and CEO of Equilyst Analytics, one of the longest-standing stock market consultancy firms in the Philippines. On the side, I manage Alpha Agventure, our livestock farming business, which is known as the number one backyard farm in the Philippines. I am on a mission of being a jack of many trades and a master of them all.

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