The unexpected bonus

Two of my clients gave me unsolicited bonuses in 2024.

Should I feel good about myself and my work? Or should I rethink how I work and how much I charge?

Fundamental (and wrong) truths about freelancing

Here’s what everyone tells freelancers:

• Develop a funnel that generates a lot of leads that you can convert.
• You should be busy all the time: “booked solid.”
• You charge too little. If demand is picking up, raise your prices.
• You can’t make everyone happy. You’ll always have clients with unrealistic expectations and since you’re so busy, you’re going to miss a few deadlines.
• If you’re got work than you can handle, hire someone and grow your business.

I reject all of that. Every bit of it. I don’t want to be growing my business or rich or busy. I want to be happy.

Leaving money on the table

If clients are giving me bonuses, I must be leaving money on the table. If they could pay that much, I should have charged them that much in the first place.

Wrong.

I want every client to be not just happy, but delighted.

I want them to feel that I’m worth every penny they pay me — and more.

I overdeliver on quality, commitment to customer success, and unexpectedly broad and deep expertise.

You know what these things require? Slack. No, not the enterprise collaboration system. I mean slack time. Time to blog. Time to spend with family. Time to think. Time to do more for clients than I can normally charge them for, because I’m obsessive about doing quality work.

When a client hires me to edit or ghostwrite, I always end up doing more than they expect. Why? Because having written and ghostwritten and otherwise shepherded many books, I know all sorts of things that their book needs that they can’t yet imagine — and can’t imagine paying for.

Like giving feedback on covers, knowing what the publisher is and isn’t supposed to do, referring people to agents and hybrid publishers, praising the client’s successes and revealing where they can do better. If I told them up front I was charging for that, they’d think it was an absurd thing for an editor or writer to want to be paid for.

But I do those things because their book needs it, even if the author doesn’t yet realize that.

This leaves nearly all of them extremely happy. They pay me in gratitude and referrals. And by paying my invoices on time.

And sometimes, with unexpected bonuses.

I’d rather leave money on the table than be stressed all day long.

I like it better this way.