It’s just seven words..
I get a text from a client. “I used the wiggle trick!” she says gleefully. “And it worked!”
She earned £200 extra for a freelance job she’d already accepted, just by adding a simple, seven-word sentence to an email while discussing the budget.
It’s a sentence I share with all of my self-employed clients, to increase their freelance income. And the most valuable words I ever use, as a writer.
..to increase your freelance income
Every time I accept a job, when the fee is mentioned, I simply say, in a light, friendly tone: “Is there any wiggle room in that?”
If they ask for clarification, I add something like: “It would be great if you could squeeze a little more out of your budget. Then I can really take the time to do it well.”
Often this leads to a small uplift in the fee. And £50 here, £100 there adds up to significant amounts for the same amount of work, over the year. Occasionally, it’s led to me getting double the fee that was initially suggested.
This doesn’t just work for writers. Pretty much any self-employed creative will find it useful.
Unless of course, the person you’re negotiating with asks you to name your price. If that’s a struggle, my longer post on how to charge what you’re worth might be useful.
Note the playful tone
The wiggle room question is light, collaborative. You’re on their side.
I’ve been an editor trying to keep to an impossible budget. It’s mortifying asking valuable contributors to do good work for less than they were paid the year before. It’s also the only way your magazine is going to survive.
After a while, you tend to avoid the freelancers who moan, and lecture you about it. Not because they’re wrong, but because you’re helpless to change the situation. Which means when there is wiggle room, the extra budget doesn’t go to them either.
It’s collaborative, not critical
You’re not implying that the person commissioning you is awful or exploitative. You’re giving them space to be inventive.
If there’s travel involved in the job, they might offer to book a slightly less expensive hotel, and pass the resulting saving on to you. Photographer and stylist clients have been told they can add their assistants as an expense, rather than paying them out of their own fee. Which can make a huge difference.
Or perhaps the person commissioning you can make the job easier in some way, so it takes up less time. I’ve had editors say they can’t pay more, but instead offer to do some research, for instance, or to get an interview transcribed for me. Both of these can save hours.
There’s just one downside
You have to get comfortable with no. None of us like that word. We think it means we’ve over-stepped, that we’ve been rejected. When it could just mean there really is no room for manoeuvre.
Either way, ‘no’ leaves you with a choice. You take the job, for the original fee. And you do that cheerfully, knowing there was no more money on the table. Or you walk away. And no one dies. No children or animals are hurt in the making of this boundary. The world doesn’t end.
If I turn the job down, I say that regretfully, it won’t work for me this time. But if I’d been less busy, or if I’d hit my financial targets for that quarter I might have been happy to do it, so please check in with me again with other work.
If they want me to, I’ll even suggest a good up-and-coming writer who might be glad of the opportunity.
But isn’t that helping your competitors?
Some people worry about helping others in their field. But again, you’re operating from a scarcity mindset, from fear. Which makes us all smaller.
Short-term, perhaps you will lose a job or two if you help new talent, introduce younger freelancers to the pool. But over time, generosity pays dividends. Some of the new young writers I once helped are now editors who give me work; collaborators who offer ideas and contacts; friends I can discuss work issues with; important parts of my support network.
But that’s another story, for another day perhaps. For now, try the wiggle trick. It might work increase your freelance income, too!
And if you’re interested in other ways of making money from your work, check out my FREE 10-day course on growing your creative business: Freelance Foundations: the secrets of successful creatives.
Further reading:
- How to build multiple income streams
- The best platforms for your digital products
- The beginner’s guide to selling your work in shops
- Going freelance? 15 things all creators need to know
What do you think?