Would You Mind If I Charged You for My Labor?

When I worked fulltime for a corporation rather than just for myself, I often did side jobs, such as editing, publicizing, and writing, and most of the time I did these pro bono. Was it because I felt it was a conflict of interest if I took pay? Not really. Was I worried it would put me in a higher tax bracket? Hardly. Was it because I enjoyed helping others? Well, I did, but that wasn’t the reason I didn’t charge for my services. The answer was simply that I didn’t have the confidence to talk “money” and used the excuse that since I already had a day job, I was “gaining experience.”

I hear the gasp of horror from all of you out there and I don’t blame you.

However, once I was forced to go on my own, I had to get over the hesitation about giving estimates for my work and invoicing clients, even though in the beginning, I found that I kept apologizing whenever I brought up the subject of money. A part of me believed my work wasn’t good enough to be paid. Yeah, it’s that old confidence issue that tends to rear its ugly head on occasion and I’m not sure if it has something to do with how society treated me as a woman or just how my parents raised me: never be pushy and always be polite. For me, asking for payment was both pushy and impolite.

Fortunately, I have gotten over that unreasonable dilemma. I’ve even gotten to the point where I don’t wait for the potential client to bring up the matter, but immediately state my fees. So far, it’s been working. That’s not to say every job I estimate I get, but now I don’t second-guess myself wondering if I insulted someone. I suppose that is where survival skills come in while learning at the same time how to be a confident, not to mention smart, businessperson.