One of the things I love about being a freelancer is that you get paid for the quality of your work.

I remember back in my corporate days when I worked so hard for my boss, doing a better job than the last person who was hired and constantly increasing my own performance. But it made no difference. My colleague who did HALF the amount of productive work but was with the company longer than I had been still earned more than I did and I couldn’t do anything about it. That’s just the way things were.

Thankfully, I’m no longer in corporate. Being a freelancer with a reputation, I can demand higher rates. If I do more effective work than someone else, they won’t get paid more than me just because of ‘seniority’. I get paid based on the quality of my work.

Of course, it didn’t always start like this. When I first started doing freelance work, I had to work at rates much lower than I wanted (but still higher than what my fulltime job paid me) and I had to build my experience and reputation.

I started charging $5/hour and after two months increased that to $10/hour. As I got more and more experience, I also got more confidence to charge higher rates. Two years from when I started, I was charging $50/hour (I never would have even imagined charging $50/hr before!). Now, I have the flexibility to only need to work a few hours a day and have time to do other things - such as write these blog posts. Show me a corporate job that increases your pay 1000% in two years and I’ll buy you dinner. My story isn’t even that unique - nor is it the most successful story out there. There are freelancers that are able to charge more than I do who also started at the very bottom.

What I’m trying to tell you is that if you’re the kind of person that doesn’t care about improving the quality of their work, maybe freelancing/working-from-home isn’t really the right direction for you. But if you want to get paid according to how hard you work and the quality of your work, this is the right path for you. You may need to start at the bottom, but it won’t be long until you earn more than you thought you ever could.