One of our bootcamp students asked if it's okay to fake it until you make it.

He was referring to how a lot of freelancers are 'yes men'. What I mean is that they keep saying 'yes' during interviews or when a client assigns them something.

For example:

• Can you do research on different restaurants in Davao for me? YES
• Can you write the content for my blog articles? YES
• Can you redesign my website? YES
• Can you create an app for my business? YES

The thing is, the people who say YES to everything are the people who make the least amount of money online. But before we jump into that, I want to talk to you about why people can't say no.

Why people can't say no

So you might be wondering why most people keep saying yes. It's usually one of the following reasons:
1.) They're afraid of not getting hired for the job/getting fired
2.) They want to make as much money as they can so they take on ANY work that they can
3.) They're not really sure what they want to do with regards to work, so they try out everything

These are all valid reasons. However, saying yes to everything isn't always the right solution

What happens when a freelancer does work he isn't familiar with

What ends up happening when a freelancer says 'yes' to things they aren't familiar with is usually one of three things
1.) The freelancer crams study and tries to learn what they can about the task they were assigned while doing the job at the same time
2.) Because the freelancer isn't familiar with the work, he submits work that is incorrect
3.) The freelancer figures out that they can't do the work and ends up stop communicating with the client or keeps on asking for deadline extensions

I know this first-hand because I've either done one of the above or had one of the above done to me.

All of the above end up bad - for the client and the freelancer, except sometimes in the case of:

1.) The freelancer crams study and tries to learn what they can about the task they were assigned while doing the job at the same time

So when can we 'learn on the job'?

Learning on the job

If you aren't even familiar or haven't heard of what the client is asking you to do, then you should just say 'NO'. If the task is something that you can learn on the job, it's something that you've heard of already.

If the task is something you've heard of or are familiar with, my suggestion is to do some research before taking on the job. Read about the task, study the task, ask other people (in our Facebook group!) and gauge if it is something you can quickly learn.

If it isn't, then just say NO.

Being honest with clients

Most importantly, we have to be 100% honest with clients. If the task is something you have absolutely no experience in, but you think you can do it, you should set expectations with your clients that even though you have no experience doing that task, you think you can do it, and that you're willing to do it and learn .

What happens when we say YES to something we shouldn't have

Three things are at stake when we promise to do something that we can't
1.) Our own feedback and reputation
2.) Our client's business
3.) The reputation of Filipino freelancers

First of all, clients can leave you bad feedback, but more importantly, you not being able to do what you promised can negatively affect a client's business by a lot. Client's businesses are their babys, they work their entire lives to achieve their business - you shouldn't put that in jeopardy just because you wanted to earn an extra $5.

Lastly, Filipino freelancers will be affected. We already have a somewhat bad reputation about not responding to clients and not delivering on our promises. We say YES so easily even when we can't do something and then when a client asks for our work, we just stop communicating. Our bad reputation is hurting us, please don't do it.

Hell Yes or No

I want to leave you with a quote by Derek Sivers:

"If I’m not saying “HELL YEAH!” about something, then say no.

Meaning: When deciding whether to commit to something, if I feel anything less than, “Wow! That would be amazing! Absolutely! Hell yeah!” - then my answer is no.

When you say no to most things, you leave room in your life to really throw yourself completely into that rare thing that makes you say “HELL YEAH!”"

As I said in the beginning of this post - the people who are able to make the most money and charge the highest rates say NO to most things. I say NO to most work - even though I could make a lot more money than I currently do, I only take on work that I really want to do and focus on.

That way, I produce the highest quality work that clients gladly pay high rates for.