One of my main rules when starting out was: ‘Never turn work down, unless you really can’t do it.’
Never say ‘No’ because you’re too busy, the deadlines aren’t right or you don’t like the work.
I stick to this, even now after being self-employed for 12 years. In contrast, freelancers I know who were more ‘picky’ have all gone out of business.
Apart from anything else, you never know where a new challenge might lead.
In 2005, I was asked to run a webwriting course for a London borough. My instinct was to say: ‘No, sorry, I don’t teach this.’ Which was true – I’d never taught it!
But I accepted it, researched it and delivered the course. The client loved it. This led to at least 30 other courses, and I ended up doing more in-house web writing courses than anything else. I trained staff on some the country’s biggest sites and even helped the government put together their ‘best practice writing guide’ for employees.
Good job I didn’t say ‘No’ to that one! This extra work kept my business afloat when the recession started to bite in 2007-8.
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