thomas.river•1mo agoProlific Poster

PSA: The "always say yes" advice almost cost me 80 hours

I read a post on here last week from a guy who said he turned down 3 projects in one month and his income went up. At first I thought he was crazy, but then I realized I was saying yes to every little thing clients asked for, even outside the scope. I had a client ask me to rewrite 12 product descriptions after I already delivered them, and I just said sure. Now I'm wondering how many hours I've given away for free this year. Has anyone else found that saying no actually makes you more money?

4 comments

4 Comments

garcia.cameron1mo ago

The 'rewrite 12 descriptions' part hit home, I learned that lesson the hard way too.

kevin_williams1mo ago

@garcia.cameron yeah it's like learning to cook, you just keep tasting till it's right.

hannah_craig1mo ago

The 12 rewrites sounds brutal but honestly that kind of grinding practice is what made my own descriptions finally click. Did you find a specific rewrite number or technique that turned a corner for you or was it more about slowly building up a gut feel for what works?

blake_kelly192d ago

12 rewrites is a lot. In my experience you gotta set a hard limit before you even start, like "two rounds of revisions included, anything after that is billed hourly." I've had clients try to squeeze extra work out of me too and the second I put a dollar amount on it they usually decide the original version was fine after all. Take this with a grain of salt but a simple "sure, that'll be an extra $150" has saved me way more time than saying yes for free ever did.