“I love my rejection slips. They show me that I try.”
I truly got disappointed and began having self-doubts when 95% of my bids on Upwork got rejected. Didn’t know how to respond to clients when they turned down my proposals. Each time I got rejected, I felt broken, yet gullibly kept hoping and pitching for more projects. From my freelancing experience so far, I have realized that rejections are always hurtful, and the bad news is, no one can escape it.
Have you ever faced rejection as a freelancer? What steps did you take to deal with it?
Rejection, as I said, is an inescapable piece of being a freelancer. Regardless of how great you are, there will come a period when you’re overlooked and replaced by someone else. On the other hand, your work or thought is dismissed by your client altogether. You may be exhausting all your bids and getting ‘no’ for an answer for most of them.
This happened to me. Here is how I dealt with rejections and brought them to my favor.
The 5 Best Ways To Handle Rejection As A Freelancer
Acknowledge and make peace with it
Being rejected is never decent and you can’t help it! But as you acquire more experience as a specialist in your field, you’ll slowly turn out to be more used to the ebbs and flows, and rejections will sting less. Acknowledge that you cannot please everyone. Make peace with the fact that you will be the best choice for some clients and the last option for some. Work on building your expertise and finding your niche (if you already haven’t).
Related Posts:
Take advantage of your rejections
At the moment your bid gets rejected, endeavor to discover why you didn’t land a position, or why your work was rejected. Communicate with your clients if possible and utilize their reasons for rejection to learn and improvise. Use the feedback from your clients to enhance your skills. Taking criticisms positively opens up the way for bigger opportunities.
Role Reversal
Great way to grow from criticisms is by reversing the role in your head. Imagine yourself as the client and try to judge where did it go wrong? Analyze the areas that you might need to improve. Write down your evaluations and focus on improving them the next time.Bid right
The two main mistakes many freelancers do to avoid rejections are –
- Overrate their bids when they have had the luck with many projects back to back
- Underrate their charges when the last few bids have been rejected.
Setting the right price is a very crucial aspect of freelancing. There is a fair chance of losing on the grounds that you were simply costly or sounded incredibly cheap. Do an in-depth market study and get an idea of what other freelancers like you charge. Once you are confident that your charges are reasonable, stick to it and focus on the other aspects like skills, time-management, and selecting the right job.
Educate your clients
It is sometimes a part of the job to make your clients aware of your specialty. Personally, I have experienced such clients many a time who did not have a well-thought-out work plan. They just had the funds and expected a strategy from me. Although this can seem troublesome, it is also an extraordinary opportunity to grow the working relationship.
When you comprehend criticism, ask solution-focused questions to the client like –
● “If I can settle this part, will you be glad to continue working with me?”
● “What do I have to change to meet the requirements?”
● “How do you see the end-product?”
Keep hunting
As a freelancer, you can’t afford put all your investments in one place. Once you get rejected for one job, you have so many other options to choose from. Always be on the lookout for new and better job opportunities. My personal strategy is setting aside four hours per week for hunting jobs, shortlisting them, and sending detailed proposals with the right bid prices.
Attempt to build a network of various customers, ventures, freelance jobs websites, and wellsprings of work, as you’ll then have other potential alternatives on the table, and it will likewise matter less to you if one of them doesn’t turn out well. The more open doors you put yourself out there for, the better your chances of achievement. Keep organizing, advertising, pitching, and tuning in to your current customers, with the goal that no single circumstance feels like a ‘do or die’ thing.
The long-term solution is to excel in your field and establish yourself as a freelancer. While rejections will continue stinging, remind yourself that they are adding the route and prompting new openings. Even the best in your field have faced dismissals sooner or later in their lives. So the next time your bid fails, don’t give it a chance to influence you to feel down. Rather let it fire you up, stay motivated and make you more resolved to succeed.
