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Unpopular opinion: I said no to a rush turnaround last Tuesday and lost $800, was I dumb or smart?
So last Tuesday at 4pm I'm sitting at my kitchen table in Akron, coffee gone cold, final draft of a 40 page report due Friday morning. Then the guy emails me: actually we moved the launch up, can you get it to us by 9am tomorrow? So instead of saying yes like I always do, I wrote back and said no, I can do Thursday 5pm, that's it. He went quiet for two hours and then emailed that they'd find someone else, and I lost the $800 final payment. Part of me says I should've just pulled an all nighter and kept the money and the relationship. The other part says if I'd said yes, this same move would've happened on the next three jobs too. I keep going back and forth on whether holding the line was brave or just dumb pride. Freelancers who've actually turned down a last minute deadline change, did it cost you the gig or did it teach them to stop doing it?
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blake_kelly1910d ago
I used to say yes to every rush job until I realized I was training clients to walk all over me. Holding your line was the right call, that $800 was cheap compared to what you'd lose long term.
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