Why You’re Waiting Too Long to Leave Low-Paying Projects

Raise your hand if you're like me and you've stayed with a low-payer WAY beyond what was necessary…like they were your highest paid work and now they're you're lowest…by giant margins. When you wait too long to leave that low-paying project, it ends up harming not only your business outlook, but your confidence, self-esteem, and mental health. Frustration and bitterness creep in along with feelings like you'll never make it.

This week's livestream is going over why you're still stuck like velcro to that low-paying client, how to know when to leap to greener pastures, when you should leave your lowest paying clients behind for good, and how to maintain great relationships even though you're not working together anymore.

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Welcome in welcome into our live stream. Hey Vicky. Welcome in. Yeah, we had to do a little pup maintenance. Charlotte took down the camera. Well, she almost did. Um, so we had to do a little bit of that. So we're a little late today and we should be okay now with the camera. Uh, let's do a pup date. Let's see how they're doing over there. Since we're a little late, let's start checking in. Oh good. Cause bow destroy the whole blanket arrangement. Charlotte, are you feeling a little pup set? Are you feeling upset because you took down the camera. She's like, you have to try to bite me to help you go be a good girl. All right, well ready. 1, 2, 3 dogs. Oh, you were so close bud. You can get it. It's right there. It's right there. Good job. All right. You go being a good girl.

It's okay to be puffed. Set. The camera did try to bite you. All right, bow. Ready? 1, 2, 3 dog. Good job. You caught it. Good job. All right. Just as a notification for everybody who cares, uh, Bo is about to turn 15. His birthday is in as on Monday. So on Monday. Let's see if we can get a, both on camera. They, they just love sitting just far enough apart that you like can't get them both on camera. Yeah, the camera to act. So Beau is going to turn, um, he is going to turn 15 on Monday. So he'll go from being geriatric to continuing to be ultra geriatric. Yeah. So, all right. Let's start with our topic. So today we're talking about leaving those low paying projects. So this is something that, uh, I think it's tough sometimes when you get a client where you like working with them, but you wait a really long time to leave the low-paying project.

You okay. Over there, you digging around. Okay. Thank you, Vicky Bo says, thank you. So you wait too long to leave these low paying projects, right? You, um, like working with the client or you feel like you really need the money, um, or you feel like there's a whole bunch of different things that kind of keep you stuck in that low paying project. And for me, what usually ends up happening is, um, I keep this low paying project and it becomes like my lowest payer. Like I ended up keeping this work, um, and they ended up just being my lowest paying work and then I just get frustrated by it. So we're going to talk about a few things. We're going to talk about a few important things, um, where you can kind of like move along and how this kind of like works with your mindset and kind of like mental health stuff.

So let's talk about the Velcro part, like why you're stuck, like Velcro to this low paying project. Number one, a lot of times that's because you really like working with them. They're nice people. They're easy to work with. Um, you know, sometimes you really need the money. Uh, sometimes it's like your first client. I know that this has happened to me. And some of my friends, you get your first client and you're just like, boom, you just like stick to them because you're like, man, you gave me a chance when like, I didn't have anybody else. You were my only client. Um, so you ended up having a lot of like emotional attachment to these clients. You end up kind of like bonding to them in a way. Um, and you bond to them in a few different ways, right? You bond to them in, um, kind of this, like, you know, you're really grateful that they gave you a chance, you bond with them in a way where they're like easy to work with.

And you're just like, oh man, like doing this work, isn't that big of a deal. Yeah. I'm not getting paid well, but you know, doing the work itself, isn't ultra complicated. Uh, you bond with them because maybe they gave you a really good testimonial or maybe they keep giving you a ton of work. Right. There's a lot of things that we, um, can enjoy and like about, um, our lowest paid work, but it doesn't mean that we should stay there. It doesn't mean that, um, we should continue working over and over and over again with them, even though we're, we're seeing like our other projects will pop up, go really high up. And these are like, you know, this guy just keeps dropping. Hey Marie, welcome in. Yeah. And so there's also this other thing that happens where, um, I know for me, one of the things that stuck like that I Velcro to clients is like, I just keep ignoring red flags.

I'm like, oh, that's not a big deal. And then I'm like, well, I look back on it. I'm like, what was I doing? Um, and then there's like more red flags that come like they pay late or they forget things or they say one thing and do another, or you get edits from them. And you're like, this isn't what you asked for at all. Um, or man, you get red flags like they miss meetings or they give you inconsistent direction. Or, um, there's always someone changing at the company. Like for three months you work with one person and that person leaves. And then you work with another person two or three months after that they leave. And that churn is really, um, a really big pain and it's really hard to work with, but you're just like, oh, well at least it's work. They still want to work with me.

Um, but that can be something that just like keeps you in this situation keeps you kind of like embroiled in this client relationship. That's not really good for growing your business. Um, Maria says I had a great client who was local, but he felt since he had given me a break that I should do discount work. Oh yeah. I remember we talked about this. Yeah. So there's this other thing that keeps us stuck with our Velcro clients is like, we start feeling like we should do that. Right. They gave us, oh my gosh, like we gave you your first pile of work. You're local. Um, we live near each other, whatever. Um, you should give me a discount because I gave you this thing and it ends up being, yes, it ends up being this thing where we're like, we think that we should do that.

Right. We think there should be some sort of magical like give and take, like you got the work. The work is like, you know, you got the work you gave them basically like discount pricing anyways. Right. Cause it's probably your first project or, um, your early project. So yeah. There's like this weird thing that happens sometimes where, um, hello, flower power. I feel like I know who flower power is. I remember you said your name in a comment once, but flower power. Let me know what your name is. So I can say what your actual name is instead of flower, power happy Friday. Um, yeah. So like there's these things I've known in flower power, if you want. I just feel like sometimes people are like, oh yeah, that's just my username for YouTube. I'd rather be called, you know, Becky or whatever. Um, so anyways, yeah, this is something that we end up feeling like we should do that.

Right? Like we get sucked in. We're like, oh man, like maybe I should give a discount. Cause he gave me this work and it comes from this place of like low self worth or like worrying. There's not gonna be other clients or hanging on to this low paying work, like hanging on to this low paying work where we think that that's like our only option or we think that like we deserve that or that, um, like someone's finally paying us for, uh, the thing that we love to do. Right. Are you okay? And we feel like we should, you know, take less money for that. Are you okay? Are you traumatized by the camera biting you? I feel like you just really had a hard day today. You okay, here you go. You go buddy. Ready? Well, let's see if we can do it to the camera. 1, 2, 3 dogs. That was a bad throat. That was my fault. Hold on. It's right here. All right. Ready? Let's try again. 1, 2, 3 dog. Oh buddy. You're so close. You need help.

Sorry Charlotte. All right buddy. We'll find it later. We'll find it later. We'll find it later.

Can you go in your Hobbit hole? Good job, man. Charlotte, you seem really sad. She's sitting over there. Not now. Cause I'm giving her tree dos, but she's sitting over there. She looks so sad before. Ready about okay. Why don't you three dogs. Oh, you're so close buddy. You go, you have to tell them 1, 2, 3 dog or less. He can't catch anything. I know this sounds silly, but I used to just throw things for him and he would never catch them. And then like now the last, I don't know, a couple of months where I've said 1, 2, 3 dog. He can actually catch things. So you have to say that, Hey Lisa, welcome in. Welcome to our live stream. We're a little wild today. We were a little late. Thanks for everybody for holding on. Cool. So let's keep talking about this. Um, this is why we're stuck.

There's a lot of things that we do with like, um, how we feel about ourselves, what we think we deserve in clients. Um, the types of things that we as freelance writers really struggle with in terms of like self-worth mindset and mental health. Like we think it's okay to like a lot of times you're like, thank God. Someone's just paying me to write. That's kind of it like, oh my gosh, someone's actually paying me to do the thing I want to do. Instead of me working a nine to five job, doing boring stuff that I don't want to do. So we ended up getting Velcroed to these clients because we're like, they gave me a chance. I should just hang on for dear life. No one will ever give me this chance again, which isn't true at all. The second thing we want to talk about is how to know when we need to leap to Rener pastors, this is really important.

So this is something, um, that took me a long time. Yeah. I know. Whisper loves the treatise thing. Um, and it just like, as a FYI, if you have questions while I'm going over, anything, feel free to pop them in the chat. Feel free to hop in there. Put a question. If I say something weird or confusing, ask a question, we were happy. Um, we're going to go through questions at the end. So, um, when you need to jump to greener pastures. So here's a few things. Number one, I have numbers now, guys, this is magical. Well, when are you doing? Okay, number one.

Okay. It's over there somewhere. We lost a trio and now we're having like a, we're having like a, uh, uh, like a treasure hunt for it. I think it's actually behind the pet bed, but I'm not totally sure. Anyways, number one, when you need to jump to greener pastures, if you are feeling burned out, if you're feeling stressed, if you're feeling annoyed, if you're feeling frustrated, if you start hating the client, if every time you get an email from them, you're like, oh my gosh, please shoot me. If you end up getting all this work where you're just like, I hate this. I don't want to work this. Like this is boring or whatever. I think it's behind that Pepin. Did you find it? Maybe it's in the leg. We're having a mass problem.

Um, if you end up getting any of these, any of these things where you feel like your mental health or your mindset is taking a hit or like you hate it. Like this is something that happens when, um, sometimes you will get high paid work. They ended up working with clients that just aren't a fit for them. And they ended up getting really frustrated really easily. That's when you need to know, like I gotta cut this loose. I gotta get out of here. Hi. Um, so you find it yet? Nope. Well, it fell over there. So I don't know. It's disappeared. Anytime you feel like your mental health or mindset or taken a hit or you're like negative, right? Like you end up being really negative. Like every time you write an email, you're like, all right, time to put my happy face on and try to pretend like this is great. Um, then you need to, you need to move on. Um, the next thing that we want to talk about with greener pastures, because now I have a number two, um, is, oh my gosh. All right. I see. This is just like a big, oh my gosh. You're going to knock everything down. Okay. We're having a wild live stream today. This is just how it is today. All right. Yeah.

All right, hold on.

We'll find it later, buddy. You go lay down. Good boy. Alright, Charlotte, go in your, have a hole in your, have a hole. Charlie bean. How'd it. Hold big girl. Think of it. This is what happens. When you have wild animals living in your house, we have a wart hog and a wild bear living in your house. This is what happens. All right. Number two. You need to move to greener pastures. If your regular clients like most of your other clients are up here and this is down here. Okay? If there's a big gap like this client is giving you 500 bucks a month and these clients are giving you 2000 bucks a month. That's a problem. Um, if your per word or your project rates. So like, let's say your blog posts for this client are a hundred dollars a blog post, and this is $300 a blog post.

They got to go like they got to go and it doesn't mean they have to go immediately. So let me clarify this. Sometimes people think like, oh, just because the price differentiation is so big, I should just cut them immediately. No, you need to phase them out and you need to have enough work in at this level to phase this one out because this isn't really helping you grow your career. And I'm sure that really what happens is you get really frustrated really quick. So you want to phase them out. You want to get another client at this level. Then you can phase this one out and say, Hey, just wanted to give you guys a little notice. Um, I, my client load, you know, I don't have enough room in my schedule anymore. We need to move on. Um, we need to cancel our contract or you just end the contract, right?

You say like, all right, this contract only has two more months on it. I'll finish up the contract. I won't renew it. Or, um, if it's really bad, like if things are really frustrating and uh, you're really just like, I don't want to do this. Always, always, always in your contract, have something in there that says like, you can cancel the contract. Mine says 15 days notice. So mine says, um, freelancer and client can cancel the contract as long as they, both of them get 15 days notice. So, um, yeah, they are being hurricane, hurricane hubs today. Um, yeah. And Maria says, when I take a low paying job, I find that I don't have the time to do marketing and get the better paid job. Yeah. We'll talk about this too. Um, we'll talk about this. That'll be our number three. I'll switch up.

So we'll talk about it as number three. So number three, when you're doing a lot of stuff for a low paying job, here's what usually happens. You end up doing a lot of work for a little bit of money and because you're spending all that time, doing that low paid work you're sucked in, right? You don't have time to market to do hire clients, right? Like you don't have time to do all the marketing, um, to get a better paying project. So sometimes what ends up happening and I've done this in my business is you have to let the low paying client go and use all of that time that you use to spend working on their stuff, to get the better paid clients. This can be frustrating and hard. And sometimes you're like, oh man, I really wish I still had that money. But when you get that better paying client, it's all worth it.

So here's the deal. Usually what ends up happening. And I found this in my business is when I have a low paying client, I ended up working a lot for them. Like I'm really getting, like, if I were to work it out hourly, like I'm getting a very low, hourly rate. I'm working a ton, I'm doing very complex stuff for not a lot of money. And all of that time and effort can be put into my marketing. I can send my LOI. I can make my list of companies to reach out to, I can pay attention to more sources and information to compile places I need to reach out to or people to grow my network with. Um, so when you're like, kind of looking at the time spend is your time better spent on a $500 a month client, or is your time better spent on finding a thousand dollars a month client?

You have to kind of make that decision. So here's the deal. If you really need the money, sometimes you just have to make it work. So that means you have to find some, you got to find some way to, um, find that, find that time. Like maybe you spend like Saturday mornings doing it for like a month, just every Saturday for a month, you try to do it. Um, or you end up saying like, all right, like I'm just gonna put like a movie on, I'll put a movie on and then I'll do marketing for an hour and that'll be that. But when, when you feel like it's a time suck, right. When you're working on this low paying work and you feel like you don't have time to do marketing to get a better paying job, that's usually a big signal that you need.

You need to cut that client anyways. So you have marketing time. Um, because man, it's, it's really like using all your time, energy and effort. So that'd be number three. The next thing we want to talk about, I liked having these numbers. It's nice. So, um, the next thing we want to talk about is like your mental health burnout aspect. This has happened to me a bunch. So a lot of times when I have a low paying client and this was like years ago, um, I would end up getting really burned out. I would just like work a lot for them and not make a lot of money. And I had this idea, like I had this mindset of like, oh, well, instead of doing five things, I'll just do 20 a month. Like, I'll just do more of the same thing. I'll just put more of my eggs in that one basket and it'll be fine.

And like that doesn't work. You don't want to be doing that. So this was something that I did where I was like, oh, I'm doing, you know, five or 10 articles a month. If I could do 20 a month, I would make this much money and I'd be set. And that's not what you want to do. You don't want to increase the low paid stuff. You want to decrease the low-paid stuff and increase your high paid stuff from other sources. You want varied amounts of income. So if you start feeling bitter and resentful and angry, you should leave. You should go to greener pastures. If you're in a place where your mental health is suffering and you're like feeling really anxious about dealing with that client, or you're just like, really, like, it's really messing with your attitude. Like you feel, um, you feel like you're not being your regular self with your friends and family.

Like you're just always on edge or you're always annoyed or, um, there's something that it's really weighing on. Like how you act in the rest of your life, then they gotta go. You gotta move on. Um, I re I came across this, like, there's like this idea I came across recently, um, from somebody else that's basically like no amount of money and no amount of success and no amount of career stuff. And no amount of like, all these things are going to replace your mental health, right? Like nothing you can't like get the points back by being more successful. Like it doesn't work that way. So if you start chipping away at your mental health points, while you work for low paid clients, then when you get high paid clients, like your attitude sucks. And you're already annoyed and frustrated and bitter because you got this like dark cloud hanging around.

So when you moved to greener pastures, you gotta pay attention. Like that's a big signal. It's like when you're feeling all of these really negative, horrible emotions. And sometimes like, they're normal, let's just start there. All of the negative emotions are normal. That's going to happen from time to time. What we're talking about is like, regularly, like you work with this client every day, or every time you get an email or every time you submit work or, um, it's like a regular occurrence where you're just like, oh gosh, like you just hate it. So you got to move on to greener pastures there. You can't just like, hang on to it and just keep trucking along because I'm telling you like the longterm mental health better, like the long-term mental health cons of that are like really heavy. Um, and this is another reason why a lot of people end up quitting freelance writing because instead of realizing that they could do all of these other things, they could market to get better clients, they could cut their low payers.

Um, they could realize that there really isn't a big emotional connection between you and your clients. Most of the time, um, like they just quit freelance writing. They're like, oh, all I got was like $150 a blog post. And like I had to work a ton and it was horrible. They don't think about like other options of how it could be better. They just quit because they're like, this is the only thing that's happening. And I'm feeling bad all the time. And instead of like looking at the feeling bad part and instead of, um, really paying attention to all the little things that happen, right. All the little things like, like, oh, you start getting like a tinge of annoyance. Every time you get an email, then you get a tinge of frustration. Then you're like, oh my gosh, why are they emailing me? Yeah.

You know, um, instead of paying attention to that, they like, let it build up and then they quit. So when we kind of like, hang on to these low paying projects for way too long, we end up building up this like big pain in the butt kind of feeling. And then when we let them go, we feel relief. Right? So if you think about it, let's talk about like, this'll be our last one in this category. So our last one in this category is number five. If you think about getting rid of this client and you feel relieved, you should get rid of that client. Even if they're a high paying client, which this happens, people get high paying clients. And those high paying clients are like more high maintenance than like all of their other clients. If it becomes something where you're just like, I would feel relieved, not doing this, I would feel relieved.

I'm not having to work on this project anymore. They need to go and they don't need to go immediately. But I can tell you as someone where this has happened to me, like you got to phase them out. Like this is not something that's good for your business. It's not something that's good for your regular work. Um, it's not good for your creativity or your writing skills. Like it just becomes something. Please don't throw up, throw up today. It just gets something that, um, that weighs on you. It's just something that ends up being a big anchor that weighs your business down a ways you're writing down. It's a big pain in the butt. So pay attention to this stuff, like pay attention to all these little things that come up, pay attention to how you're feeling. And when you, like, when you wait a really long time to let go of low payers, right?

Like I know most of the time when I talk to students, like, or people in my freelance writer, wealth lab course when I talked to them and they were like, yeah, I'm doing this thing. It's like, they've hung onto these low pairs for years. Sometimes like long periods of time, we're doing a little treasure hunting stuff. Um, and this really weighs them down. They feel like there's no way out. They feel like there's no other options. They feel like they're not able to, um, really move up and freelancing. Like they feel like that's all there is because they've just hung on to this person or this client, um, for so long. And, um, and it really changes how they view the landscape of freelance writer. It really, what are you doing? Hi, bud. We're doing a lot of digging today. What are you doing? What are you doing?

We're having a wild day. Thanks for hanging on for our wild day today. Everybody I know, like normally we're a little more focused or like I'm a little more focused, but today we're just having a wild day. It's just, I don't know. We lost the tree though. So now it's Def con one in here and we're looking at like Bozeman digging around and looking for it. Like if you, you can see, like he's dug all the blankets off and he's like looking through all the things and trying to find it, but we'll find it, buddy. Don't you worry? Oh, he found that he does. Or did you do that? You throw on off. I thought he found it. Good job, buddy. You did it. You're the best. Now you can stop looking. Okay. All right. So let's keep going. So we have a few more things.

If you have questions, pop them in the chat. I'm happy to answer anything about your low paying clients or maybe, you know, your frustrations with other types of things. Uh, it feels like this has been helpful. Give it a thumbs up. If you feel like you want to learn more about a high ability or high-income freelance writing business subscribe. All right, let's talk about this. When should you leave your low paying clients behind for good. If you're frustrated, if you're annoyed, if they're harming your mental health, if you're anxious and it's making you feel depressed, like actually depressed, not, you're not like, you're like, oh my God, I'm so depressed. And I'm like, actual, like your depression is kicking in and you're like the dark hole. You're like landing in the dark hole. Um, you need to say goodbye to them. When you have that gap, you need to say goodbye to them.

When they're rude to you or disrespectful, you need to say goodbye to them. When you have differences in how the content is, right? Like they just want you to turn content. No, we don't ever want to just turn the content. The whole point is that we create quality content that lasts for a long time. Like we create content that lives, um, you don't want to end up in this situation most of the time where you're just turning and turning and turning. Even if you end up getting a client where they're like, Hey, we're trying to create a bunch of content for a launch, or we're trying to create a bunch of content to refresh our website. That's a way different story. That's not just like, we're creating content endlessly forever. This is like, we need quality pieces. When people show up to our website or show up to this thing, we need quality stuff for them to land on.

That's a way different beast. So you have to say goodbye to your lowest paying clients. Um, when you are in a place that you just feel like it's not really worth it to your business, your mental health, your mindset, your bank account, to hold on to them. Like there's a bunch of different things where we have these low paying clients and we just keep holding on to them because, um, hold on, because we feel like things would be worse without them, or we feel like, um, we feel like we won't get a better client or that like, thank God someone's paying us to do what we want to do. Or, um, there's just so many different factors that happen, but you gotta leave that client behind when it's really starting to affect you. And this happens a lot more times than people like to admit, like, they're like, oh yeah, I just, you know, got a new client, whatever.

Like, they don't want to admit that, that it just wasn't a fit. And they don't want to admit that it was really frustrating and hard to work with them. And they don't want to admit that, um, they feel like they failed, right? Like by getting rid of a client or something, they feel like they failed. And it's just part of having our business, like part of being a freelance writer is knowing when you need to get out of there. Like when you need the escape hatch, that's part of learning how to run your business is like, when do I actually need the escape hatch? When do I actually need to, um, get out of there for the betterment of my, just my life. Um, there's times where like I can, you know, I've cried over many clients, I've cried over many clients and I've been so angry and frustrated.

And then I'm like, you know, what, why am I doing this? Like, I shouldn't even be working with them like this. This is obviously not a fit. What I'm doing right now is not a fit, like whatever I turn in or whatever I'm doing. Um, it's just not a fit for them. I just like, you know, and it's not good for either party. If it's not a fit, it's not good for either party because it's frustrating for them to have to do edits or to have to do all of these different things that was frustrating for you. So it's kind of like relief for everybody or kind of just part ways and move on. So really important stuff though, when you're leaving your clients right. Really important stuff, when you should just like finally stop the waiting period and, um, get rid of your low paying clients is like anything where you feel like it's just like changing the way you see your business.

It's making you feel really negative. It's harming your mental health. It's harming your mindset. You start feeling like you're never going to get a good client, or you're never going to move up, or you're never going to be able to make good money. Like all of these things really hit heavy. Um, you got to get out of there. And then our last thing that we want to go over is what we want to do with great relationships. So you can still have good relationships, um, with these low paying clients while you leave. So here's the deal. We can maintain these relationships. We can stay connected with people on LinkedIn. We can. Um, do you want to go to your habit hall, go to your, have a hole, try not to knock everything now. Um, we can still maintain great relationships with them because we're connecting with them on LinkedIn, or we can send them a referral for a writer that might be better at that price point.

You know, like maybe for you, that price point is well below what you're getting paid for your other work, but maybe for another writer, maybe like a, a newer writer, that price point is like the highest thing they've ever gotten. And maybe there'll be a better fit for that client. You can give them a referral. That's a good way to maintain a relationship. Um, the other thing is that we want to end on good terms. We do. You can just tell them like, Hey, I just don't think, you know, I'm the right fit. I just don't seem to be meeting, um, the needs that you need, like for the content. Um, there's always like a nice way to get out of the relationship. Well, not always, but most of the time, um, you don't have to go to them and say like, you're my lowest paying client.

This is the worst you want too much for the money. Like, oh my gosh, don't say any of that. We can still maintain good relationships with them. Um, we can still like end on good terms. And we can say like, yeah, I've really enjoyed working with you, but it just seems like, you know, my content isn't a match, or it seems like my writing style isn't a match. Or, um, you can say like, I feel like we're not on the same page when it comes to expectations for the content. Um, there's so many things that happen in amongst working for your clients, right? There's so many different things like that. You can say like, Hey, I just don't, this is just doesn't seem to be working out. It seems really frustrating for you to have to go back and make all these changes or whatever it is.

So you can always do that. And then you can say like, Hey, I'd love to stay in touch. You know, in case we can work together again, at some point down the road, or, um, you know, these are we're ma maintaining relationships with people that we actually want to maintain relationships with. If you have a low paying client where you're just like, I gotta get outta here, like push the red button, like beep like let's get out. Um, you don't have to maintain relationships with them. You can just say like, Hey, we're not a fit. Like I would like to cancel the contract ended there. Um, but this is for people where it's just like, you feel a little more Velcro to them. Like you feel a little bit more attached to them. Like you like them as a person. It's just like, it's just not working out.

Um, and I find that sometimes what's really helpful is like, um, they still connect with you on LinkedIn. Like you put up posts or put up new clips or, um, you end up, you know, putting something on LinkedIn and they share it or they like it, or they comment on it and you can still maintain that relationship with them. Um, and we're talking about the good people. We're talking about people that we want to maintain a relationship with. Um, and sometimes what ends up happening is those people and I'm moving to a company with more money or they move to a company with different expectations or they move to their own company. And they're like, we want you to come on to this agency and write for us. Um, and maintaining those relationships with those clients are really good. Sometimes, you know, um, there's clients you get where, um, their, their budget, like they understand their budget for their project is too low for what they want.

And when they move, companies are like, we actually have budget now. Um, and I think it's important to maintain certain relationships because you never know who's going to refer you. You never really know, um, what kinds of stuff will change or happen. You never know if they'll open their own business and want you to come write for them. You never really know. So if you have a good relationship with someone like, and mostly you're leaving because of price or, um, because, you know, it's just really frustrating. Like it's not that person, it's somebody else at the company who wants you to write some other kinds of changes. Like, I think it's important to maintain those relationships so you can always leave on a good note. Just tell them like, um, tell them, like, I just feel like my writing style is not a fit, or I feel like we have different expectations for the content.

Um, or I feel like, you know, um, when I write it and we do a lot of edits, we're just not a match. Like my, you know, my content, um, and the expectations or the outline that you gave me. And then the final product are really different. So I feel like it would be better for you to find a different writer. Who's a better fit for you. Like, that's it, we don't have to go into a diatribe. It's not like a, you know, we're not like breaking up with them in a romcom. Like we're not in a romcom. We're like, oh my gosh, no, like it's not like that at all. This is a business relationship, right. So yes, we want to maintain a friendship with them, a relationship with them. Um, if they're, you know, if they're a good client or like, if they're a good person, um, it just like, there's some things that are a little jammed up.

Um, but it doesn't have to be dramatic. It doesn't have to be this thing where you go into this long, like this long diatribe about why you need a break up or why you need to cancel the contract. Like very rarely have I found that people, like, when you say like, Hey, I just don't think this is a fit. Do they come back? And they're like, why? Like very, very rare. Do they want to know why? Like, they're, you know, they're taking that as rejection. So they're not to, they do most of the time, don't want to know why they're being rejected other than the fact that it's not a fit. So, um, any questions, any last things that we can go over today for? We hop off and the last things we want to talk about, um, just remember that when you're, when you're like holding onto these low paying projects, it's okay to leave them.

Like you don't have to hold on to them because they were your first client. You don't have to hold on to them because, um, they're really nice people. You can maintain a relationship with them, not working for them until they have more budget or until they move somewhere else. Um, I also feel like when writers end up waiting too long, um, for, you know, like holding onto these low pain projects, like, remember that it's a lot of times the emotion is like on our side, like our clients aren't as emotionally attached to us as we are to them. Um, so if you're feeling very emotional and you're just like, oh my gosh, like, I can't believe I'm going to leave them in the lurch. And I can't believe I'm going to, um, like leave them hanging. Like number one, you can always refer another writer to them who you think might actually be a better fit.

Number two, you can always help them try to find somebody else. Um, you can, number three, you can finish off your contract with them and just say like, Hey, I just want to let you know. I'm like, you know, I'm not going to renew the contract. Um, I just don't think we're a great fit to continue working together. And then you can give them all this advance notice and all this stuff, um, where you don't have to like, wait it out for years and you don't have to like, stay on Upwork or stay on a platform and be like, oh my gosh, I'm getting into this crappy stuff. You don't have to wait. This is like a mind thing. Like you think you have to wait because of all these different factors, but you don't, you don't have to wait. Um, and you don't have to feel like you're letting somebody down.

Um, you're trying your best, right? Like if you really are trying your best, this is your best right now. It may not be your best forever, right? Like five years down the road, you might've been able to do better, but you're here right now. This is where you are. Um, if you're really trying your best, then this is, this is the best you can do. It's just not working out. It's not a fit. So if you ever find yourself in a situation where you're feeling like your mental health has taken a check, like a, a drop, your mindset's taking drop, you're feeling bitter and angry and resentful and upset. Um, if you're in any kind of thing where you get an email or a comment or something from them, and you're just like, oh my God, you know, like you got to get out of there.

Don't wait. Cause that's a buildup. And then it goes out to all your other clients. It trickles out. Um, if you have a big gap, like you started with this client, they're your first client and they just, or a second client. And they're just down here in every other clients, like way up here, eventually you got to phase them out. And, um, that's not just on money. It's also like holding you back because oftentimes the value of that content is going up as you get more experience. So cool. All right. It seems like we don't have any questions or any extra things to go over. Oh, I missed a whole bunch of parts of the chat. Hold on one second. I missed a bunch of stuff. Um, let's see. Okay. Blah, blah, blah.

Maria says, what helps emotional? What emotionally helps is if you have some spare food in your pantry, that's all luxury. That is to you, a luxury frozen blueberries are your favorite cookie, and you're not going to eat it all at once. It's a bit of a cushion. Yeah. Like sometimes you have to like, I, you know, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who comfort eats sometimes. Um, bless you. Maria says, uh, you made a really good comment in our wealth lab. So right now I'm running like my core students. So Maria is one of my core students in the freelance writer wealth lab. So we have our live Q and A's twice a week. So I think she's talking about that. Um, look at how much a client is worth to you. Like how much you make per year from them and how much they're going to make from what you write for them.

Right. There's a big difference. So if you have a low paying client, just remember that, like the ROI they're getting on their content is like crazy high. Like content marketing is like the cheapest way to make the most money bar. None. Um, it's better than paid ads. It's better than all the other ways. So doing content and creating content gets them so much more money in. So like what they're paying you is always going to be really small to what they're getting back. So always keep that in mind too. When you're thinking about leaving low-paying clients, um, oh, Diane, welcome in. I'm glad you're here. Um, it's okay. Diane, you can't miss it. You can just show up and join us. So if you want to watch the replay later, you can totally do that. But, um, yeah. Then I can't, well, Diane, we're glad that you're here to chat with us.

So, um, oh, good pitch. It's on for November. That's also a good thing. So if you feel like you need to let go of some clients do a pitch athon, send a bunch of Lys, send a bunch of pitches to the magazines. Yeah. That's always a good way. Cool. Um, let's see. Cool. All right. I think we're good. All right. Well, I'm glad everybody joined today. Thanks Diane. And Marie and Vicky. And there's somebody else that I'm forgetting Laura power, flower power. That's right. Flower power, and Lisa. Yeah. Thanks everybody for showing up for, you know, your interest in this topic. If you have anything that pops up, like how have you kind of dealt with low paying clients? Is there anything that's popped up where, sorry, where you feel like you made a good transition away from a low paying client, drop it in the comments below.

I'm interested to hear. Sometimes people end up firing clients and it ends up being the best thing they've ever done. And sometimes they fire clients and it's like the worst thing. Uh, it just depends. So, um, if you've ever had a really successful like, um, you know, client off-boarding experience, let me know below, or if there's anything where you feel like there's a reason why you hung on to a low payer for a really long time, drop that in the comments below. Oh, good. I'm glad that this was encouraging. Yeah. There's always like, think of it this way. Sometimes it's not always about money it's sometimes it's just about better fit. And sometimes yes, you have a low paying client and yes, your next client pays you maybe like a hundred dollars more per blog, post or $500 more per case study or something. But sometimes it just about fit.

Sometimes you have this low paying client is you realize once you let go of them, that it wasn't about the money. It was really about the fit. So just remember, there's always better fits out there for you always, always, always, there are always better fits out there for you. Like there's plenty of clients who need help. There's plenty of clients who need content like that. Like if anything, the thing I keep hearing is like, people are opening up their budgets for 2022. Oh my gosh, we're grumpy. Um, so there's always a better fit out there. There's always a better client and sometimes letting go of low payers. Like you realize that after the fact, you realize that after the fact that it wasn't really about the money, it was like all this stuff surrounding it. And then you were like also I'm not getting paid very well.

So cool. I'm glad that was helpful. I'm glad that was encouraging. Um, we'll be back here every Friday. We're here every Friday at noon central. Um, if you feel like this was helpful, give it a thumbs up. If you feel like you want to learn more about a high earning freelance writing business subscribe, and I will see you next Friday. Bye. Oh, and thanks for dealing with our wild ride today. Thanks for dealing with our wild ride, where we have lost credo and wild dogs. So thank you for hanging on in there. All right, bye.

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