In this episode, we’re going to talk about the excitement of getting an offer after maybe you didn’t do much but send over a proposal or maybe they reached out to you with a job offer. And, what do I do in these circumstances? The first time it happens, you’re going to get excited because it is exciting. It’s really good validation that your profile is winning jobs for you. BUT, before you automatically go ahead and accept the job I want you to do two things. Promise me now you’ll do these two things or I promise you it will come back to bite you in the butt. Learn from my experience.

The first time this happened to me I got super excited and instantly accepted their offer. Then I thought ok let me go learn about what they do. For me, I don’t like to work in politics and super religious areas. I like to stay somewhat neutral. The job ended up dealing with a very political topic that I was now going to be working on. So I instantly felt like, “ugh now I have to work on this thing that I’m not super interested in”. Even though they were paying me a great rate (above my posted amount), I dug a little deeper into their profile and was devastated. Here I saw they were horrible to work with, they were horrible to other freelancers, they didn’t pay them, and every other horror story was in their reviews. What have I gotten myself into? So from then on out, I vowed to do these two things. 

#1 - Review their profile. 
#2 - Schedule a conversation with them. 

I tell them that it's part of my best practices and part of my process to have that initial conversation. This makes sure I’m the right fit for them and my skill set matches. I position myself to make sure I’m right for them before we get going and spending money. There’s a value proposition there. What it really is is to make sure I like them, that I can do the job, and I can get a feel for their personality. That's something you can get a better feel for on a call.

I understand that you might not want to waste an hour or more waiting on a call if they already want to pay you. BUT, what if you get yourself into one of those not-so-great situations. You’re going to be kicking yourself later and it’s going to be more of a mess. That’s why I’ll always give away an hour of my time for free to anyone that wants to have a conversation to see if I’m a good fit and they’re a good fit for me. There are so many things that can come across on a call that just don’t come across another way. 

Those are my two things. It's a super exciting time for you if this happens. Congratulations! That means your profile is working for you but definitely still take the time to do these two simple things. Don’t let your excitement get the best of you. Make sure you’re owning your best practices and processes.