Quick update!
FYI - Over the next month, I’ll be sharing a series of stories and lessons on how I transitioned into being a recruiter, working remotely, and making six figures doing it.
If this content doesn’t speak to you, please unsubscribe as I am not currently interested in segmenting my list.
---
A few years ago I was heartbroken, broke, and at a crossroads in my career.
In the span of a few months, my boyfriend broke up with me…
I lost $5,000 on a freelance project… (I’ll share more on how that happened and what you can learn from that lesson in a moment)
And my favorite (only) client sold her company and our contract was coming to an end with no potential to renew.
That was the year I realized marketing was no longer for me.
I wasn’t necessarily bad at it, but I never wanted to do it for someone else again and the solution wasn’t going to be to start an agency or launch a product.
The only solution I had was to pivot.
But first, how did I miss out on $5,000 of client work that I had completed?
Anyone who works with me knows that I require payment upfront before I start working with clients.
These days I get paid 2-3 months upfront before a project begins.
So how did this happen and what can you learn from my pain?
First, let it be known this is the only payment issue I’ve ever faced in my freelance career.
This client came from a trusted referral. Instead of paying the $5k up front, I let them pay in three installments because they asked. This was my first red flag and should have been enough for me to walk away, but I’m not here to discuss how to find and identify clients.
We met on a weekly bases, had a paper trail of continuous communications, and when it came down to releasing the final project documents, they reached out to my referral, said I went ghost after the first payment and went rogue.
My referral instructed me to release the files and that everything would be ok. I would get paid.
Wrong.
I released the files and as the story goes overnight I went from expecting the rest of my payment to owing my payment processor — COUGH PayPal — 2/3rds of the project fee that I had already completed.
Here’s what I learned:
If a business can’t pay you $5k up front, that’s not a business, that’s a solopreneur, and if that’s your thing do what works for you. I don’t work with individuals, I work with businesses. Period.
Don’t use PayPal as your payment processor if you offer services
Here’s why.
PayPal offers seller protection with a loophole.
If a client goes directly to their credit card company or bank reporting fraud or incomplete work, seller protection is void.
It didn’t matter that I had a paper trail, that I did the work, that my words were live on their website generating their business revenue.
I was out of $5,000 and that doctor had gotten away with it.
There wasn’t much I could do.
I couldn’t go call this person out. They had more money, status, and work under their belt.
I was much younger than them and didn’t have much to fall back on.
Frustrated, I started to think.
I worked some dead-end part-time jobs that helped me get by, drove to SF, and started networking in some pretty unique ways… which led me to have a late-night conversation with a CEO who would change my life.
More on that tomorrow :)
Over the next 30 days, I’ll share with you more about how I went from 0 to $125k in my first year as a recruiter.
If you're curious, reply back and let me know what questions I should answer over the next month in my emails.
Cheers,
D
