In my last newsletter, I discussed my recent experience of hiring a handful independent contractors to complete a variety of jobs in my apartment; and how I discovered that, in the end, and disappointingly so, all I really care about as a prospective client is how much a freelancer is going to cost me.
If you didn’t read my last newsletter, I’d suggest going back and reading it now before continuing reading this one.
It was a case of eating humble pie because regular readers of this newsletter will also remember that I don’t like it when the first thing clients ask me about is my rate. I like to think I’m entering into some kind of relation with a client, and I’ve learned that clients who are only interested in my rate and not my portfolio or skills are not to going to be a good fit for me.
But there I was, needling contractors on the platform to give me their rate, throwing my fists in the air whenever someone asked for more information, or insisted on coming by before giving me a price quote. And as I also explained in that previous newsletter, my decision to hire three out of the five contractors was based solely on price, i.e. they had the lowest rate out of all the freelancers on the platform who responded to my request for help.
Well, my desire to get those jobs done as cheaply as possible came back to bite me, hard. The contractors I chose because of their low rates were all… terrible.
The cleaner I hired, for instance, did a dismal job, hung around for a good 15 minutes after finishing for reasons that are still unclear to me, and became a tad too friendly with me. I still tipped her because I had vouched to do so. 🤦🏽♀️
The painter I hired entirely outsourced the job I’d hired him for to someone else without any advance warning about this, as a result of which I was left to accept that a complete stranger went in and out of my flat with my keys for several days, a stranger whom I could barely communicate with because his French was so poor. I barely ever saw the person I’d actually hired. The whole thing smelled of exploitation and I reported it to the platform through which I’d hired the painter.
As for the mover I hired? He showed up positively stoned.
So, in a sense, I’m back exactly to where I started off. I don’t want to work with clients who only care about rates, and I’ve conversely just learned the hard way that hiring whoever is the cheapest is a recipe for disaster. You know … good work ain’t cheap, and cheap work ain’t good.
I’ll still say this, though. The most expensive contractor I hired did a fantastic job, yes, but it still hurt when he fixed two small things and charged me €110 ($120) for something that took him 5 minutes to do. Value-based pricing, which I’ve been encouraging you all, as well as everyone around me to embrace, hurts when you’re on the receiving end of it.
Another thing I learned in this process is how much trust we as freelancers are essentially asking clients to give us when we bill by the hour. With all the contractors who gave me an hourly rate, I quickly realised that there was no point trying to keep track of when they started working in the morning and when they left my apartment, and that if they decided to take super long smoke breaks, there was really nothing I could do about that. You more or less just have to trust that the people you hire will have the integrity to bill their hours correctly.
All right, that’s it from me for this week. I promise, promise this is the last time I’ll rant talk about the home renovations that have taken over my goddamn LIFE.
If you’ve ever hired a freelancer or independent contractor to do something for you and it went horribly wrong, please tell us about it by emailing us at freelancerthefriendly@gmail.com or commenting on this post on our website. Misery loves company.
Stay hydrated,
Linda
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