The World is your Oyster: Part Four

How do you stay competitive in a global market?

By being willing to do work that sometimes requires getting your hands dirty.

"But I have standards!", you decree. "A minimum rate that I refuse to go below, because otherwise I'm bastardizing the freelance market!"

Standards are great. And it's important to have them. However, the key is to have realistic standards. In the face of a global recession, where people's jobs are getting cut left and right, wages being reduced, or hours-per-week cut down, people are struggling to find the funds to pay all the bills. Everyone is feeling the crunch. And in the face of such a global issue, refusing to evolve with the times is bad for your health. As in, lack of food on your table or roof over your head bad.

If you research actors, business owners, authors, or anyone with money to their name, they almost all have a background of doing dirty work at some point in their history. By dirty work I mean the kind of work that you would consider beneath yourself, whether it be due to the amount of money it pays per hour or how much work it involves. But everyone starts somewhere, and while your standards most certainly evolved over time as you gained the respect of your peers and experience in your chosen industry, in much the same way you have to be able to adapt to the changing of the tides when the weather isn't blowing so fair in your direction.

I regularly see freelance writers complaining about a lack of work. In the same breath they criticize those writers who work jobs that pay lower than what the complainers deem "acceptable". They also go on to state they they refuse to work for lower than X. That's great, if you have a spouse who is supplementing your income or if you have a pension or can survive on part-time income. Because let's face it, in today's global climate charging 75 dollars an hour is going to get you part-time work at best, unless you happen to be in an extremely niche market with a Masters degree or 15+ years experience in that particular niche (a sports writer for the NY Times would be someone I consider a niche writer with such experience as to justify those rates). However, if you are average Joe, you have to be more realistic in your approach.

No millionaire out there would have become a millionaire by only accepting the jobs that paid what they considered to be acceptable. Part of building up your empire is the willingness to work hard for your money, and to sometimes do work that might be considered beneath you simply because of the long term effects. Take an actor who agrees to do a project for free, agreeing to a profit sharing program. He's taking a risk doing the project for no money, but because his name is attached to it, then the chances are that fans of his other work will come see it, which will drive up the percentage. In much the same way, freelance writers should be looking at those low paying jobs and using them to their advantage.

Again, standards are great to have. Everyone has them. I certainly do. But the important thing to remember is that if your standards are getting in the way of you putting food on the table for your family or paying the rent/mortgage, then perhaps you need to adjust your standards to adapt with the times. Standing in the middle of the sidewalk without an umbrella while it's pouring down rain and shouting at the top of your lungs "it's not raining, it's not raining!" doesn't change the fact that it is, in fact, raining. You can put your foot down as much as you want and say "my rates don't have to change!" but if you are suffering from a lack of work because your standards haven't adjust to the times, you aren't benefiting anyone. You certainly aren't benefiting yourself, and you aren't benefiting a client because you are refusing quality work.

Adaption is key. The willingness to be flexible. Gas prices rise and fall. Housing markets fluctuate. Banks adjust their interest rates. Employers give and take away raises. We are in a time of fiscal instability, and the waters are troubled. You have to be willing to adapt if you are going to make it through until the waters calm.

Be your own judge. If you have a bottom line you don't like to go under, that's all well and good, but the moment that bottom line starts interfering with your ability to put food on the table, you should re-evaluate your position in the grand scheme of things and be willing to adjust to the global market. And last but not least, don't allow yourself to be arrogant. There are millions of writers across the globe who are just as talented as you or I, who are more than willing to do the jobs for lower rates. That's the nature of the global beast. However, I'm more interested in putting food on my plate than I am on putting it on the plate of someone in another country, and I'm going to do whatever I can to get that job.