A Freelancer’s Guide to Saying “No”

By Jodi Helmer

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When I started freelancing, I had a “never say no” philosophy when it came to assignments. I wrote about restaurant openings, construction projects, small business anniversaries, and local ordinances, then cashed each $50 check and moved on to the next batch of assignments.

Taking every assignment helped me build my career. It also established a bad habit that took me years to break.

The default “yes” response when an editor offered an assignment meant that I never considered whether I had time to squeeze in more work or whether taking the assignment was the best career or financial move.

So, I came up with a list of three questions that helped me evaluate whether to accept or decline an assignment.

1.    Will it help me meet my income goal?

You could argue that every paying assignment puts me one step closer to my income goal. Experience has taught me that attempting to earn a living wage by cranking out articles that pay $50 is impossible. I developed a quick formula to figure out how much I needed to make per assignment and I used that as a benchmark when I evaluated new work.

2.     Is it a valuable addition to my portfolio?

A few years ago, I wanted to add more tech-focused work to my portfolio and pursued projects that weren’t super interesting to me because they allowed me to add some well-known publications and businesses to my client list. I could showcase that work to help land other, more interesting work.

3.    Is it a story I want to write?

There is nothing better than seeing an assignment email and thinking, “This is an awesome topic!” But that doesn’t always happen.

While I’m grateful for every freelance assignment, not every topic is one I’m excited to cover and that means it’s time for a gut check: Is it worth it to take on this assignment when I’m not excited about the topic?

I consider these questions with each assignment and come up with a “score” to decide whether to accept.

3/3: YES!

2/3: Yes.

1/3: No…unless it’s a topic that I’m so excited to write about that nothing else matters.

It’s not a perfect system, but it’s helpful as a starting point for building a sustainable freelance business.