While my purview is AssistU, and all of our VAs are business owners and know it, there’s a word in the mainstream that’s long overdue for a reset.
It’s “freelancer.”
And it’s beyond time we dealt with what the word has come to mean to a lot of people. Too often, it conjures an image of someone doing quick gigs for quick cash. Someone who dabbles. Someone less serious, less committed, or maybe even less skilled than the person who needs the help.
That image is doing everyone a disservice, especially the people actually offering the services.
If you are a business owner and that description has been, even quietly, how you’ve thought of freelancers, I have something for you. The difference between and freelancer and you, Mr. Business Owner is exactly…nothing. A rose by any other name, as they say.
At least that’s true in the US and Canada, where if you work, you are one of two things:
- An employee
- A business owner
Here’s the reality:
All freelancers are business owners.
Every dang one of them, whether they realize it or not.
Part of what makes that murky is that many freelancers don’t even know that. Or they run their businesses like anything but businesses.
I’m trying to help as many of them change that as I can. But you need to help, too. If you’re buying their services, part of your role is understanding what they are, not just what they call themselves.
If you bristle at this idea, try this on for size: As a business owner, you know that being in business is expensive, whether you own a big business, or a tiny, one-person business where there’s zero desire to scale to something bigger. You pay 100% of your self-employment taxes, 100% of your indirect expenses, 100% of your benefits…it all falls on your shoulders along with 100% of the risk.
Can I get an amen, or maybe an “ugh?” Both are equally viable, and every one of us has probably said each at different points in time.
So whether you’re looking at a virtual assistant here on our site, or a freelancer on one of the big freelancer sites, you must, must, must think of them as business owners so that your expectations can be set, and met, accordingly. When you do, you’ll elevate them in your mind, and more easily understand why they value themselves the way they do, and why their pricing is what it is, no matter how they package and talk about it.
You’ll no longer be able to look at them and say, “But I only want you to do a few things for me and surely that’s only worth about $12/hour.” Think what would happen if you only took in $12/hour. You know you couldn’t afford to do that for long and live. And I absolutely believe that no one can run a profitable business anywhere in the US and have an hourly rate of less than $40/hour. Not if they’re doing it legally, legitimately, and sustainably.
Want it done for $15? Get your neighbor’s kid to do it. But please don’t undervalue service providers just because they call themselves freelancers.
While your tasks might have exactly $12 of value for you, the cost if retaining a professional business to do it for you is more.
So get on board, and if you need to, tweak your business model so you can afford to buy whatever goods and services you need. Your inability to afford something has everything to do with your own business and nothing to do with the way other professionals price their own services.
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