Know Your Worth, Know Yourself

Do you know your worth? Understanding yourself and your value is vital to your success. Know yourself, and you’ve taken a huge step to success.

Guest Post by Iva Vlasimsky – storytelling4tech.com

There is a saying: “The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for.”

The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for.

Believe me – that is the absolute truth!

What I am referring here are your norms, your outlined goals, your golden standards, and the place where you draw a line below which you do not go.

Lately, life has put me in several situations where it tested my values and personal limits. One of them is my work.

I have been a freelance writer open for the worldwide market from October 2015, and I was starting like most freelance writers – with job boards. Freelancer, Upwork, Outsource and other platforms became my regular “go to” websites. I also lurked LinkedIn job postings, and I even enlisted myself on a business Angel Network as a “talent for hire”. The writing gigs that you get all over those places pay very poorly. We are talking $30 to $50 per piece (and the length varies from 500 to 1500 words). Of course, there are people willing to pay “an entire amount” of 10$ per blog, but for the sake of dignity in this world, I will not even mention them here.

I thought, at first, that it is okay to start cheap. You learn about market trends; start to fill up your portfolio; roll in a couple of cool clients and bit by bit you come to the place with higher paid writing assignments.

So I thought. However, I was wrong.

First of all, if you are serious about writing, copywriting, content writing and alike, job boards are not a place to look for hot trends. The majority of clients there do not have a clear vision of their business; they are mostly just starting out, and what they want is experience in their niche, best quality content, and quick turnaround time, but for the lowest compensation imaginable.

In other words, they want top quality for peanut money (and I wonder if they expect Prada shoes for $30 too!).

Secondly, filling your portfolio and getting clients on a regular basis does not come that easy from job boards, just because there are so many of them listed. On the contrary, my experience is that those gigs are extremely hard to get!

You would not believe just how many people are jumping all over low paid job postings, increasing the competition and lowering your chances that the client will notice your offer.

In summary, you do not get to higher paid jobs; you do not get to work with cool customers, and you stay in the same mud where you started. Because mud is sticky and, it tends to stay in your shoes.

The thing is, I did not have to step into the mud in the first place.

Know Your Worth and You’ll Get Better Offers

There are high-paid writers, copywriters and content writers out there; they just hang out in different corners of the web, and they present themselves differently.

That is why I quickly dropped job boards and started to change the game for me. I enrolled in a coaching program and joined a community of writers. I began to educate myself on online marketing techniques. I chose my niche and started to develop a brand that became a small company, where I am charging big bucks for my writing services.

Those who think that I am too expensive won’t even ask, and I am pretty sure I do not even want them to. You see, I know my value.

Others that are interested show that they appreciate my work and that they are ready to pay for the value I provide as an experienced and educated writer and journalist. Moreover, I am sure that those were the particular clients that I wanted to work with in the first place.

The logic is: if you want those high-paying, serious customers, act as a serious writer as you are.

If you want those high-paying, serious customers, act as a serious writer as you are.

What happened along the way is a major confidence boost.

Becoming an entrepreneur with its niche market and unique set of skills, instead of a freelance content writer for every purpose, I am gradually losing the overwhelming feeling of being a rain drop in an ocean; an invisible freelancer in the global marketplace.

What I am saying is – never settle for less than you are worth! Know your worth, and don’t settle for anything less. Even though you might encounter difficulties on the way; even though you will not have an immediate ROI with this approach – value yourself, your uniqueness and your abilities. That is the only way you can expect others to appreciate you in return.

Moreover, this does not go only for business. It applies to nearly every aspect of life.

So, if you want to realize your plans and utilize the capacity that you have inside:

• Stay focused on your goals,
• Be patient,
• Do your thing (and do it the best you can, with all the help you can get),
• Know yourself and know your worth,
• And believe in yourself.

Your golden standard, dressed as Success, just bought its plane ticket, and is on its way to meet you! If you know your worth, you can be there to meet it.

Richard Lowe Jr

Richard is the Owner and Senior Writer for The Writing King, a bestselling author, and ghostwriter. He’s written and published 63 books, ghostwritten 40+ books, as well as hundreds of blog articles.