A short YouTube monologue by James (published Oct 13, 2019) advising freelancers/entrepreneurs to avoid overpromising to clients. Key recommendations: don't commit immediately during a client request — tell them you'll return with a written proposal and a definite delivery date; document realistic time estimates and pad initial estimates; prioritize increasing your billable rate and treating time as the primary scarce resource ("time is the most important currency, not money").
Chapters
First thing I would do is, which I noticed, if a client's asking you to do something and you're thinking quickly in your head, that's two, three hours work. Don't just steam in with the cost or the time frame and see I can definitely get that done. Say, that's great, leave it with me. I'm just going to get back to you with a proposal. Or I'll document exactly how long that's going to take and where we can fit it in the diary and I'll come back to you with the definite date that we can deliver it on. It buys you a bit of time. That's the first pushback. Then you can think strategically of, hold on, it's three hours work, but it might take four or five hours. So you want to really budget for that as well. Especially when you first get started. You're just keen to get the work and then you're just in a constant chasing the white rabbit and constant cycle. And all that does is get harder and harder because you take on more clients. You've only got so many hours in the day, so you need to be really productive within that time and you need to get your cost per hour up at a higher level. All of the time that needs to be increasing because time is the most important currency, not money, so you can't buy extra time.
