“Never give up” is one of those pieces of advice that sounds good because it is simple, but it’s not always true.

Sometimes, giving up is exactly the right thing to do.

There are many things that reach the end of its natural life cycle. It doesn’t have anything to do with you being lazy or unwilling to work through difficulty.

A lot of people seem to assume that once you choose a path, you are supposed to stay on it forever.

If you start a business, then you should keep running it. If you become a freelancer, that should remain your identity. If you create a particular service or specialise in a certain area, you are somehow expected to keep doing it indefinitely, even if your interests, priorities and life have completely changed… Is that realistic at all?

Such an expectation boxes people in more than they realise.

It creates a lot of unnecessary pressure around choosing the “right” thing, because every decision starts to feel permanent. Instead of exploring, people become afraid that if they change direction later, it will mean they made the wrong choice in the first place. Or that a change of mind makes them appear flaky.

Funny thing is that life doesn’t work that way.

Change is natural and constant. I know that in the past year alone, I’ve naturally evolved the way I regard success. Priorities shift, circumstances evolve, and your understanding of yourself becomes clearer with experience.

Change is not an interruption to life – change is life.

We change jobs, move houses, enter new seasons, leave old environments, start projects and eventually finish them (or not). Some chapters last for years, while others only exist long enough to teach us something important. ‘Giving up’ when you know it’s time should be celebrated.

It’s key to distinguish between a difficult season and something that has genuinely stopped fitting. Not every hurdle is a sign to leave, but not every act of persistence is automatically wise either.

Here are three signs that it might be time to give up.

1. You are only continuing because you have already invested so much

One of the easiest reasons to stay stuck is the feeling that you have already put too much into something to walk away. The sunk cost fallacy.

This can happen if you’ve spent years building the business, invested money into the idea, developed a reputation around it, THEN told everyone that this was what you were going to do. After a while, stopping feels like a wasted effort. So, you continue sticking to the same thing again and again.

That’s the key problem. If you only continue because it would feel like a waste not to, then you are inadvertently preventing yourself from venturing into other more effective things.

Things don’t become meaningless just because it ended. Your past experience will always leave you with more knowledge than you know.

• A business can teach you how to work with people, manage projects, communicate clearly and understand what you actually want from your life (even if you eventually decide that you no longer want to run it.)

• A project may introduce you to people, sharpen your skills or lead you towards something you could not have imagined when you first started.

Not every idea is meant to become a lifelong commitment.

Their value is not determined by how long you managed to keep them alive.

If the main reason you are continuing is because you have already invested so much, it may be worth asking whether you are genuinely committed to the future of the thing, or simply attached to the past.

2. The good parts no longer outweigh the bad ones

Every worthwhile pursuit will have difficult periods.

Businesses go through dry seasons and creative projects become frustrating. Freelancing can feel uncertain, and even work you genuinely love will occasionally feel tiring or repetitive. A bad month, a difficult client or a period of low motivation does not automatically mean it is time to quit.

In those moments, it’ll make more sense to ask yourself – in the larger picture, does the good outweigh the bad?

• Do you still feel excited by what you are building, even if the current season is not ideal?

• If the problems disappeared tomorrow, would you still want to be doing this?

If the answer is yes, then you may simply be going through a rough patch.

You still recognise why you started. There are still signs of life! The good moments still feel worth it, and somewhere underneath the frustration… you remain connected to the direction.

That headspace is entirely different from thinking about something… and only feeling more trapped and tired.

If every part of it feels like a drag, if the good periods no longer feel good enough to justify the low ones, and if continuing feels more like an obligation than a genuine choice… then the issue is not about the current season.

It’s a huge telltale sign that the structure has expired for you.

3. You are continuing for the sake of continuing

It’s easier to keep going when the idea of stopping feels uncomfortable.

When the business is still technically operating, the project still exists, or the service is still available, so we continue maintaining it because that is what we have always done… We always need to be clear that motion ≠ progress.

There is a difference between patiently allowing something time to grow VS repeatedly forcing life into something that no longer works.

This does not mean you should abandon every new idea the moment results are slow.

Anything worthwhile deserves a proper attempt.

You should give it time, put in honest effort and allow yourself enough experience to understand what is actually happening.

However, there also comes a point where fast iteration is more useful than blind persistence.

If you try something properly and realise it is not working, you are allowed to change it. You can change as many times as necessary while you are learning what fits.

This is not the same as running away every time you meet a hurdle. It is simply responding to the information in front of you rather than staying loyal to an idea that no longer makes sense. In this scenario, giving up is not an emotional collapse, but a practical decision.

It’s natural when you have learnt enough to know that this particular direction is not where you want to keep investing your life.

Change Is Not Failure

Life never reaches a point where everything is completely settled forever.

The moment we achieve one goal, our attention naturally moves towards another. We become curious about something new, want to improve a different part of our lives, or realise that the thing we once wanted was only one step towards something else.

We have become far too afraid of the phrase “giving up,” as though staying is always admirable and leaving is always a failure. Sometimes staying requires courage, and other times leaving requires even more.

The true skill is knowing when something is still alive and working for you, and when it is time to let it go. Make space for the new to circulate in your life.

That is The Good Yield.

Melissa Foo is the writer behind The Good Yield. She writes about freelancing, career pivots, self-belief, identity, and building a flexible working life – shaped by her experience building and running her own creative agency, alongside her work in facilitation, education, and design thinking.

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In Part One, we looked at the common limiting beliefs that prevent people with a corporate background from progressing further into freelancing.

Many people know they have valuable experience, but they do not know how to translate it into something another person can understand and pay for. It has to do more with your identity and self-beliefs than your actual skillset.

In this article, you will learn how to extract the value from what you already know and turn it into a clear starting point.

Translate your experience into an offer

Corporate experience is often described in broad terms. An offer becomes clearer when you can explain what you help someone do, ideally in an elevator pitch format.

For example, rather than saying you do brand messaging, you focus explicitly on helping early-stage companies clarify their messaging before a launch.

Instead of being a general business consultant, you focus on ironing out project bottlenecks for law firms.

The goal is to move away from describing your background and start describing your usefulness. Be as outcome specific as possible.

In order to do so, look between the lines in your job experience to determine:

• What problems did people rely on you to solve?

• What became easier because you were involved?

• What did colleagues repeatedly approach you for?

• What outcomes did your work help create?

This makes it easier for you to be clear about the type of outcomes you can deliver for businesses. If you can explain what you do and its effectiveness within 15 seconds, you have won. That is your elevator pitch.

Expand beyond your job title

A job title is usually one dimensional. It is lacking when compared to the many skillsets you have probably picked up along the way. Building on top of your job experience, know that you have the freedom to package yourself beyond your previous role.

For example:

Just because you were a marketing manager, it does not mean that you have to offer general marketing services. You may have written campaign briefs, coordinated agencies, reviewed content, managed launches, and presented results to senior leadership. That is beyond campaign and asset management.

After understanding all of the results you have delivered, you have the freedom to zone in on one valuable part of it and build a starting offer around that.

Connect your skill to a real problem

Once you have identified what you can help someone do, connect that skill to a real problem.

You may be excellent at writing, building systems, facilitating meetings, analysing information, or managing projects. However, you still need to understand who needs that skill and why it matters to them.

• Who is experiencing the problem?

• How does it affect their work?

• Does it matter enough for them to pay for support?

It is difficult to approach someone who does not see a problem as a problem and convince them that it exists, matters, is urgent, and must be solved by you. That is too much convincing.

This is where many people exhaust themselves through outreach. They send dozens of messages to people who may have no reason to care about what they are offering. When nobody replies, they conclude that freelancing is impossible.

Remember to look for places where demand is already visible. Be active in your desired industries and do some primary research. What are slowing teams down?

Another resource for primary research on market demand would be job listings. They reveal more about businesses than people think.

Use job descriptions as market research

Job listings are one of the best sources of real-time, pre-funded market research.

When a company posts a job description, they are publicly broadcasting two vital pieces of intelligence:

1. Budget is already approved. Money has been allocated to solve this specific problem.

2. The pain point is urgent. The operational gap exists right now and is costing them time or revenue.

By regularly scanning job postings in your niche, you get direct insight into in-demand skill sets, emerging software stacks, and the high-value problems companies are actively spending money to fix.

The Strategy: Unlocking the “Hidden” Freelance Gig

Traditional full-time hiring is notoriously slow, often taking 60 to 90+ days to complete. During that window, projects stall, deadlines are missed, and internal teams get burnt out. This hiring gap creates a warm, high-converting opening for direct outreach. It provides you an easier gateway into a warm relationship with an organisation for a project.

Instead of applying as an employee, use the job ad as leverage to pitch a targeted, interim solution:

• Identify the Core Priority: Read between the lines of the job description. Which key responsibility represents 80% of their immediate pain?

• Position as a Bridge: Reach out directly to the hiring manager or department head. Offer to step in immediately on a project or contract basis to tackle that specific piece while they take their time finding the right permanent hire.

• Lead with Targeted Proof: Share a tailored portfolio or mini-case study showing how you have solved that exact bottleneck for similar companies.

Why Companies Say Yes: You are not competing with full-time applicants – you’re offering an immediate relief valve, which increases your market value. You reduce their hiring friction, keep project momentum alive, and let them test a specialist without long-term overhead.

Package one clear starting point

Simple is king. There is no need to turn an entire freelancing venture into a complete business model right off the bat. It is not necessary to prepare multiple services, packages, or build a complicated website before speaking to your first client.

All that is required is one problem you’re solving for, one type of client, one outcome, and one way to work together.

For example:

• “I help consultants turn complex ideas into clear presentation decks.”

• “I help small teams document their processes so work moves more smoothly.”

• “I help early-stage founders clarify their messaging before launch.”

• “I help subject-matter experts turn their knowledge into structured workshop materials.”

These are working sentences that do not encapsulate everything about you, but gives the client or customer something concrete to understand. It gives the market a clear entry point.

People are more likely to remember and refer you when they know what to associate you with.

“I do many things across strategy, marketing, operations, and consulting” is difficult to remember.

“She helps founders clarify their messaging before launch” is much easier.

Treat your first offer as a hypothesis

Your first offer is a working hypothesis. Usually, you are not gonna get it right the first time, and that is okay. It will naturally refine over time as you gain more experience and feedback.

You are testing whether someone needs the service, whether they understand it, whether the problem matters enough for them to pay, and whether you can deliver the work well.

You are also testing whether you enjoy the work and whether the arrangement makes commercial sense. Along the way, you might realise that the offer is too broad or narrow. Or maybe your user does not have the budget for what you are offering.

Gathering market response means that your offer has met reality.

You can always refine the wording, adjust the scope, change the audience, improve the process, or restructure the price. Your offer becomes stronger through contact with actual people.

Put the offer near relevant people

Once you have a clearer offer, place it near people who may actually need it.

Start with past colleagues, industry contacts, professional communities, LinkedIn connections, former clients, vendors, and people who already trust your judgement.

Five relevant conversations will teach you way more than 500 generic messages. These may not convert to a direct sale, but a powerful referral that pays dividends.

Your first client may also come from somewhere completely ordinary. And that still counts! Warm relationships are often the simplest place to begin because trust already exists.

Your first offer is best kept simple

It can be a contained piece of work, such as a messaging review, presentation deck, process audit, strategy session, workshop, research summary, or short implementation sprint.

A contained offer is easier for both you and the client.

The client can understand what they are buying. You can estimate the time and effort more accurately. The project has a clear beginning and end.

Start before your confidence arrives

Creating an independent practice does not mean you need to resign tomorrow or completely change your career overnight.

You can test an idea while employed. You can build an additional stream of work by keeping it small and allow it to compound over time.

Freelancing does not need to begin with a dramatic leap. From one project, a whole journey can happen. And as you continue improving your processes, you will develop confidence.

You may not feel ready when you send the first message. And you will definitely feel strange quoting a price for something that was once simply part of your job.

All of this just means that the experience is new. As you continue moving forward, every action gives you another piece of evidence and another reason to trust yourself.

Do not wait for confidence to grant you permission.

Begin with what you already know and let action open the floodgate.

That is The Good Yield.

Melissa Foo is the writer behind The Good Yield, a publication about adaptive work, career pivots, freelancing, and building a resilient working life. She began as the founder and creative lead of her own design studio before moving into facilitation, education, design thinking, and portfolio work.

A deeper look at the internal routines and shifts that help me return to clarity, remain steady in my money story, generate numerous ideas, regulate myself during uncertain periods, and build a rock solid self-belief.

To start, if you want to regulate your nervous system, change your beliefs and everything like that, we have to agree on the same premise, which is:

A lot of people do not realise how much agency they have over their lives.

People like to outsource their sense of self-conviction, power or belief to something else. They outsource it to other factors outside of them…

When, in actual fact, you have a lot of agency over your own life.

If you want to understand the way I regulate my own emotions and mental states, we have to agree that your consciousness, the self-beliefs you inhabit, the story you tell yourself, and your entire identity affect the way you act.

They affect the way you perceive things, which then impacts the way other people respond to you.

That also affects the type of resources, opportunities, and situations that you experience…

Many problems are self-inflicted. It is not a comfortable thing to say because it is easier to blame circumstances and other people than it is to take responsibility for what we tell ourselves and the belief systems we have.

We do not have full control over everything, but that does not negate self-responsibility.

We have no control over the family we are born into or the circumstances we are brought into.

But at some point in your life, you have to take ownership over the fact that you are responsible for yourself, your own internal dialogue, your own self-beliefs and your inner psyche.

Full responsibility also means that you are willing to change any belief or story that does not benefit you and your journey.

A belief is really just a thought repeated again and again.

Over time, you start to believe it. Over time, you start to inhabit it.

When you inhabit a certain state of mind, it eventually becomes part of your experience.

Before we continue –

• If this is something you are unable to accept, then it becomes difficult for the rest of this guide to continue…

• If you do not subscribe to the fact that you have agency over your life, or that the consciousness and identity you choose plays a part in how you experience your life, then this guide might not be for you.

You need strong self-belief when you work for yourself

When it comes to freelancing in general, you must have very strong self-belief.

(Actually, you must have strong self-belief to succeed in anything in life, but even more so when you are doing your own thing.)

There is a pattern between people who succeed. And by success, I mean whatever your own version of success is.

Nobody is saying you need to become the next Elon Musk.

• If your goal is to have a side income, that can be success.

• If your goal is to start an agency, a small business, a large business, a traditional business or an online business, whatever it is, your form of success is yours.

Because we are talking about freelancing in this case, let us narrow it down to freelancing…

First, you have to get clear.

• What does success mean to you when it comes to freelancing?

I do not mean to be clear as in you must know everything and every detail. But you have to at least know what you define success to be.

• Is it time freedom?

• Location freedom?

• Choice?

• Having a side income?

• Building your own agency?

• Having more control over your life?

Whatever it is, that is only for you to define.

A lot of people do not realise how much their own belief systems impact the actions they take.

It is much easier to blame situations, circumstances, people, the economy, the job market, clients, and everything else. The list goes on.

Like I said, you do not have any say over who raised you, where you are from, or the circumstances you were brought into.

BUT if you are consciously thinking, if you have your own thoughts, if you are able to create, ideate and circulate your own ideas, then you also have to accept responsibility for the narratives you choose to tell yourself.

If you are freelancing or running a business and you NEVER change the belief systems you grew up with, you are going to keep repeating the same cycles over and over again.

You have to accept that your life can change from your belief system.

Why is it that some people can spend money and never seem to become broke? It is because they are not compatible with that constant sense of scarcity.

Why is it that some people have such an easy time in relationships? Even if they are not a supermodel, even if they are the most average-looking person ever, they can still have loving and amazing relationships. Because their own internal beliefs makes them compatible with that reality.

Why is it that some people find it so easy to experience success? One good thing after another keeps happening naturally for them, whereas for somebody else, everything feels like an uphill battle. Again, it’s the belief system that serves as a filter.

You are what you tell yourself.

Good or bad, whatever you define those things to be, you become what you repeatedly think about… like what Earl Nightingale said.

Let’s just be honest here. Metaphysics aside, this is also conventional advice.

People always say, “Do not think negatively. Think positively.”

The way you think, the way you prime your brain, and the way you prime your subconscious correlates with the type of ideas you receive and the opportunities you say yes to.

Therefore, as a freelancer, you must have very strong self-belief.

I am not saying that you have to be arrogant, cocky or pretend you know everything.

That is the number-one core rule. No matter what happens, I have the ability to achieve what I want.

I have the ability to go after my goals.

I have the ability to make it.

Even if you do not feel it yet, you have to start believing it. It will make your life as a freelancer much easier.

You can say things to yourself like:

• I am the exception.

• I am the breakout.

• I am the exception to the norm.

• I am walking my road of success.

Whatever you want to tell yourself, make sure there is a power-packed punch to it.

It has to resonate with you.

You need a strong belief that no matter what happens, even if sh*t hits the fan, you have that confidence to navigate your way out of it.

You have to adopt an iron will.

Because freelancing, self-employment and running a business are not for the faint of heart.

• You must have that iron in you to proceed and continue, especially if you are doing something that you consider to be your life’s calling.

• You must have the willpower to achieve the greatest discipline of all, which is directing the way you think.

Your brain is constantly scanning and receiving information all the time.

If you are not able to focus on what you want and structure your internal psyche in a way that allows you to identify successes, access ideas and receive inspiration, it becomes very difficult to succeed as a freelancer.

You can try, but it becomes a mammoth task because you have so much inertia inside you. That happens because you are not aligned with that desired version of yourself.

Say there is a version of you who experiences freelancing very easily.

If the version of you RIGHT NOW believes that nothing ever works out, that everything is difficult and that things are always hard for you, you cannot access the mind of that other version.

That is something important to understand.

Look at every area of your identity

Belief systems do not only exist in one area. It spans every single area of your life.

The most common pillars are usually love, relationships, health, finances, occupation and self. There may be more pillars in your own life, that is entirely dependent on your own personality.

In every pillar, you have different beliefs.

Maybe you have good money beliefs.

You believe that money is present where value is.

Maybe you believe that as long as you are doing what inspires you, or doing something aligned with you, the money will follow.

Or maybe you believe money is difficult to come by.

Maybe you tell yourself that you are not good with money, that money is evil or that money always disappears.

The list is endless.

In love, you might believe that relationships are easy, that you always have love in your life and that loving relationships are normal for you.

Or you might believe love is difficult, impossible to find, that you are too old or that relationships are futile.

You might have bad beliefs about yourself as a person:

• I am not good enough.

• I am not deserving.

• I am not worthy.

Or you might have beliefs like:

• I am always the best at what I do.

• I can achieve what I want.

• I am disciplined.

• I am capable.

You will have many different beliefs and stories about the different areas of your life.

This is not a guide about how to remove every single belief you have.

But you have to identify the main beliefs that are hindering you from being who you want to be.

Say you want to become a freelancer in a particular industry, making a certain amount of money, and experiencing a certain lifestyle or type of freedom.

You have to understand that version of you. That identity.

• If you can think of it, then that version exists as a possibility for you.

• If you can imagine yourself becoming that freelancer, then you can start understanding what that version would be like.

That is why it is important to get clear about your version of success! It can be as big or as small as you want.

Once you have that version of yourself, write down as specifically as you can what beliefs that version has.

• How do they view money?

• How do they view success?

• How do they view relationships?

• How do they view their health?

• How do they view their work?

• How do they view every day?

• What do they do every day?

• What do they say?

• How do they talk to people?

• How do they conduct themselves?

• What kind of energy do they carry?

• Are they confident?

• What kind of character are they?

Think about the archetype. Think about the character traits.

It is like customising a player in a game. You have different skill points for different areas.

How many points would you give them in each area of their life? What kind of person would that be?

Customise the character. That is the ideal version of you.

Then look at yourself right now.

Compare the version who has ticked the boxes and experienced the things you want VS where you are right now.

Write down all the things you currently tell yourself. When you want to craft a new identity, you have to be brutally honest with yourself.

• Where am I currently?

• What stories am I telling myself?

• What am I telling myself about money?

• What am I telling myself about love?

• What am I telling myself about health?

• What am I telling myself about my work?

• What is my life like in those areas right now?

Then compare and contrast where you are and who you want to be.

How far away are you? Are you trending towards the person you want to become?

Are your attitudes, thought processes and feelings similar to that desired version? Or are you living in two completely different worlds?

Once you do this exercise, you become very clear about the beliefs you need to kick and remove from your database.

How I change a belief

How you remove a belief is very simple…

Read more

If your goal is to transition into a new structure after your corporate position, your experience is an unfair advantage.

It has already taught you to work on present problems that other people and businesses still have.

Knowing how decisions are made, how teams communicate, and how projects flow – especially in your industry – is part of your unique positioning. It gives you an edge that outsiders are literally looking for. You’re sitting on a mountain of raw material, and all that’s needed is to transmute it into something tangible.

The problem is that many people feel an inherent isolation and disconnect between their experience and its application. When you’re employed by a company, it can feel as though your experience is all-encompassing and owned by someone else. It can be hard to recognise it as something valuable on its own.

Our blinders and self-concept are not adjusted enough to the fact that we can remain independent entities. The doubt creeps in and we ask ourselves: are we even good enough to be on our own?

You may believe you need another qualification, a completely original idea, or years of freelance experience before you are allowed to begin. To be honest, you probably don’t need any of that.

All that’s needed is for you to change how you look at your current situation. That unlocks more ideas than chasing the next shiny object.

You are also rarely starting from scratch. More often, you are rearranging skills, instincts and experiences you already possess – something I explored in I Never Started From Scratch – I Just Scratched That Itch.

The company only housed your experience, it did not own it.

The good thing about a corporate role is that it gives your work a clear home.

You do what you’re meant to do with a title. The company logo is a stamp that shows the work is legit. You have a manager confirming your responsibilities. The clear line between where your contribution begins and ends primes your mind to see your experience as official.

The moment you decide to leave, however, is when things can feel like they’re falling apart. When the role or title disappears, the once-familiar structure goes along with it. The unconscious association between company names and our worth can make us act as though our value disappeared too.

That’s the greatest lie we’ve decided to believe.

What happened to all of those years of discernment?

When you see corporate work as a training ground, things start to evolve. The company was a dojo, but you kept all of the skillsets. You were still the person thinking, solving, communicating, and creating.

Is that not yours to keep?

Your job title ≠ your value

One reason experienced professionals struggle to see their own offer is that they describe themselves through their job title.

• “I work in marketing.”

• “I am a project manager.”

• “I work in operations.”

• “I am a communications professional.”

Those descriptions explain where you sat inside an organisation, but not the value you created there.

What were the nitty-gritty parts of what you did?

Did you help teams clarify complicated messages, organise campaigns or translate technical information into something understandable by the layperson?

Were you the only one who could bring difficult stakeholders together and create order from vague briefs that kept complex work moving?

Or was your talent in improving workflows and streamlining onboarding for new hires?

Look between the objectives and statistics achieved. The magic is in the middle. The stories of transformation are where the beginning of an offer lies.

Many experienced professionals are sitting on a reservoir of knowledge they have not yet recognised as an independent asset. It can feel like a floodgate waiting to open.

We have to open our minds to the fact that knowledge from employment is fluid and can take on other shapes. An idea can become a service. A service can become a workshop. One method you developed for yourself can become something another business pays to access!

Confidence usually comes after you do the thing

A lot of people assume they need to feel completely qualified, prepared, and certain before they can begin freelancing. Only after that will they approach the client and charge for the work.

Most of the time, that moment never arrives.

There is no official threshold where someone hands you a certificate and says: you may begin now.

Confidence usually comes after the first conversation. After the first awkward pitch. After you deliver and realise you were capable of handling it all along.

Often, action is what builds confidence, not the other way around.

Most people start before they feel qualified

At the beginning of anything new, analysis paralysis can swallow an incredible amount of energy.

You can spend months trying to answer questions that action would answer much faster. Preparation is important, but so is being honest with yourself when it starts to become a hiding place.

Consuming more content instead of executing can be a sign that you are waiting for discomfort to disappear.

Most successful freelancers did not begin because they had reached some magical level of certainty. They started because they were willing to test what they already knew in a different context.

From there, learning and refinement happen.

You cannot think your way into earned confidence

There is one type of confidence that comes from believing in yourself, and another type that only comes from evidence.

You can remind yourself that you are capable and experienced, but eventually, you also need experiences that confirm it.

The self-trust that stems from handling calls, sending invoices, and recovering from mistakes cannot be downloaded in advance. It is accumulated quietly, piece by piece.

Waiting to feel confident before acting creates a strange loop. You are asking yourself to possess the result of an experience you have not yet allowed yourself to have.

Your first project does not need to validate your entire identity as a freelancer. It is simply your first piece of evidence. When you are ready to start gathering that evidence, How To Get Your First Freelance Client breaks down the next practical step.

Who are you without the role?

Breaking through this mindset requires more than packaging a service and calling yourself a consultant, solopreneur, entrepreneur… or whatever other labels there are.

You need to build a belief in your own usefulness that is stable enough to exist without a company reflecting it back to you.

It has to be rock solid. This may require you to become a little existential.

• Why were you in that role?

• What did you learn there?

• What did people trust you with?

• What parts of the work were genuinely yours?

• Who are you when the title is removed?

I wrote more about my own attachment to professional status in I Used to Worship the Corporate Title. Titles can give us language, structure and external legitimacy, but they are never the source of the value itself.

These questions shape how you price, pitch, and position yourself. When you do not believe your value belongs to you, you hesitate to charge properly. You treat every prospect as though they are rescuing you.

You may keep collecting qualifications because you think the next certificate will finally make your experience real…

The truth is that it was already real!

The deeper work is redirecting that value back to YOU.

Because before you can turn your experience into an offer, you have to recognise that it belongs to you, as part of your unique story.

That is The Good Yield.

In Part Two, we will look at how to shape that experience into an offer people can understand and pay for.

P.S. If you’re at Step Zero, I created [The First Freelance Offer Kit] to help you turn your existing skills into a testable offer.

It’s built for that exact moment when you know you have valuable experience, but you’re not sure how to package it or start putting it out there.

Get The Kit!

Melissa Foo is the writer behind The Good Yield, a publication about adaptive work, career pivots, freelancing, and building a resilient working life. She began as the founder and creative lead of her own design studio before moving into facilitation, education, design thinking, and portfolio work.

I wrote this piece together with , who helps product builders find ideas worth building and make better product decisions through user feedback. She brings 12+ years of experience across startups, agencies, and big tech, and regularly shares practical tips and frameworks through her newsletter, Innovation & Strategy Lab.

Many people building their product online consider UI and UX at some point: what to include on your website, how clients could find you, what first impression will you make.

By many standards two concepts become one idea, narrowed down to the appearance. But they are complementary that work best in combination.

This article aims at explaining the difference and how it could matter for your own business.

Visual Appeal Doesn’t Directly Translate to Utility

Imagine you decided to treat yourself and for your upcoming holidays you booked a hotel suite that cost enough to make your eyes water.

The room is stunning: white, light-catching marble, chestnut panelling, a king bed from a magazine shoot, with a sea of soft pillows in multiple sizes and colors. The minibar is stocked and there is champagne waiting in a cooler. A breeze of fresh perfume pleasantly tickles your nose.

After a couple of hours of travel, you naturally need to use the bathroom and shower.

The room toilet is vast, luxurious - has a glass wall, floor to ceiling is overlooking the bedroom: translucent, in agreement with the recent trends… and extremely effective at eliminating whatever remained of the evening’s romantic atmosphere.

You enter the shower and put on some alpine flower soap that lathers into a silky foam. You try to wash it off and find yourself confronted with a mini sculpture offering no lever nor indication of which direction produces water.

You figure it out eventually, at the cost of a near-scalding that leaves you gripping the towel rail.

The champagne requires a corkscrew that is nowhere to be found.

The mattress, when you finally reach it exhausted, is soft as a cloud.

A breather…

You end up spending the night rearranging pillows, and waking with a stiff lower back.

You paid for the beautiful picture the hotel website sold you, only to find the hotel had stopped at making the experience look appealing rather than actually delivering it

That suite had a flawless UI but its UX was a slow accumulation of failures. These could have been let slide individually, but together they completely ruined your first impression.

So now, glued to your phone, you research cheaper alternatives in the area on Booking.com.

Surface That Covers the Story

UI, or user interface, is everything visible: the layout, shapes and the color palette.

UX, or user experience, is a story behind what’s principle by the eye, it begins before the user types your website address into a browser.

It is driven by the reason they came and what they wanted to accomplish, and it ends long after they left, when they decided if they would ever return.

A stunning UI covering up a poorly conceived UX is the design equivalent of that hotel suit: gorgeous embodiment of an exhausting experience.

This distinction has roots older than digital product design.

Le Corbusier spent a significant portion of his career creating a house - a machine for living in, pushing the visual appearance to the background in importance.

The Bauhaus built a movement around the conviction that beauty and function cannot be separated.

Experience, in the UX sense, covers the full journey:

• what your client was doing before they found you,

• what drove them to look in the first place,

• whether they understand immediately who your service is for

• whether they can move through your offer without having to dig for the information they need

It includes the context they are in, whether they are settled at home on their comfortable sofa or on a train after a long day at work in a space where they are not allowed to speak out loud.

It includes what they feel when they complete something with your support, and what the final experience feels like when they decide to leave.

A useful framework in UX research describes two ascending levels: functional needs at the base and delight, including aesthetics at the top.

The second level is only reachable once the first has been met, and a beautiful interface on top of an unclear offer remains champagne without a corkscrew: the gesture is generous, the execution sucks.

Why Research Comes Before

The hotel suit adventure wasn’t successful because the image replaced the experience itself.

This often happens in product teams: the design looks polished, which makes it hard to question whether it is solving any user issue.

Product teams tend to fall in love with their solutions before they have fully understood the problem they are solving.

It happens when you build from your own perspective, your own context, and your own intuitive sense of how a user out there would navigate it.

You are designing for yourself, in your own state of knowledge. The user may perceive the problem differently: they may have another relationship to technology, less time, lower trust in services, and a lower threshold for confusion.

User research should help you notice those constraints before you ship the product.

Observation and structured conversation sadly cannot guarantee success, but they expand what you know, which helps to move in the right direction or pivot if necessary.

A Freelance Business Works the Same Way

Both UI and UX principles are needed for a freelance business to succeed.

The first things beginners often focus on are the business name, how the website looks, the logo design, whether or not to print a name card, or even the colour palette of the email signature. While these are important parts of the overall business experience, they are not the key drivers that translate your efforts into income.

Appearances do not mean very much if there is no real system or structure behind them. Before you worry about your colour palette, think through whether or not you have a viable service that people actually need in order to solve a problem.

Even if you are not selling something that requires a major digital presence, you are still selling an experience to your users – your clients and customers – even if what you are delivering is a service.

• The branding, website, social content and visual identity are the UI.

• The offer, positioning, communication, delivery process and client journey are the UX.

Good branding is important because it helps your customers build trust with you. But clarity around your services, and how the customer experiences those services at every touchpoint – from the discovery call to the final delivery – are equally, if not more, important.

The image and branding capture the target, but without proper follow-through on that brand impression, the experience may not be pleasant for the customer at all. A business can look professional while still feeling unclear or difficult to buy from.

One of the Biggest Freelancing Mistakes Is Focusing on UI First

The start of any freelancing journey is exciting. We let the excitement take over and move towards the quick-hit dopamine tasks – the pretty website, tweaking the logo, creating some social media templates – and it looks like we are making good progress.

We feel as though we are working on the business.

But because of that inertia, we may forgo or even actively avoid the seemingly more difficult tasks.

The true go-to-market moment is not when you post your social media templates or update the colours on your name card. It is when you speak to potential clients and test the market through their feedback.

• Is your idea even feasible?

• Do people understand what you are selling?

• Is it something they would actually pay for?

It is usually a lot easier to avoid that part or leave it until the very end because, frankly, it is the least fun.

Some examples of focusing too much on the surface-level appearance of your freelance business include:

• Designing a full brand before you have even defined your offer

• Building a website before speaking to potential clients

• Creating several packages without knowing what clients value

• Listing every skill you have instead of communicating one clear outcome

• Copying another freelancer’s business without understanding your own audience

Most of the time, it becomes almost like a form of avoidance.

Mind you, there is nothing wrong with presentation. The problem is when presentation becomes an avoidance tactic that stops you from doing the actual tasks that move the levers in your business.

You are using presentation to avoid answering the deeper business questions.

Do people even want to buy what you have in mind? Is it actually viable in the general market? Does the problem you are trying to solve even matter enough to the customer?

An offer does not really count for much, and your business cannot move the needle, unless you actually test it.

This is no different from people doing endless research to find the perfect product fit without ever trying anything in the first place.

What Freelance UX Actually Looks Like

Much like UX in the traditional sense, freelance UX is founded on the same principles.

When it comes to the UX of your freelance business, you need to place yourself in the shoes of your customer or client.

What you offer should be clear enough to speak directly to their problem and make it easy for them to buy. A good user journey also makes it straightforward for the client to understand who the service is for in the first place.

Do not underestimate the power of clear communication.

What can the customer expect from your process? Does it leave them better off than where they started?

What feels intuitive for them to understand? Does working with you reduce their cognitive load, or are you making them work harder to understand what is happening?

Do not package and bundle things together just for the sake of it. It only makes the purchasing process feel bloated. You want to keep everything light and seamless.

Offer discounts or add-ons only when they genuinely make things easier or more valuable for the customer. For example, perhaps an add-on gives their company a reason to continue keeping you as the incumbent vendor.

But do not throw in extra services they do not need. If they only need a specific piece of collateral or a deck written, do not suddenly offer them a full brand audit out of nowhere.

Always ask for feedback while you are working with your customers. Have quick check-ins and conversations throughout the process.

You might think something is straightforward because, as a freelancer, you are the expert in your field.

You may assume that your client knows the same language as you or is picturing the same output.

But that is exactly why you need to communicate in a way that makes it easy for the client to understand your language, so that both of you remain on the same page.

Feedback from real conversations and projects should shape how your offer develops. You take everything you learn and refine the offering again. This is how your processes age like fine wine and improve as you better understand the true user journey.

It is also important to recognise that your own thoughts and judgements may differ from reality.

For example, you may think your clients will prefer filling in an enquiry form, but the majority of them may choose to book a discovery call instead. You might assume that one part of your offer matters most, only to discover that clients consistently value something else.

So never be afraid or surprised when your assumptions are proven wrong. That information is what helps you improve the experience.

Final Thoughts

The point is not that your freelance business should not look good. UI still matters. A clear visual identity, a professional website, and thoughtful presentation can help people understand who you are and build trust in what you offer.

However, these factors cannot carry the entire experience on their own.

Much like the hotel suite, something can look beautiful and still be frustrating to use. The champagne can be waiting, the marble can be spotless and the room can photograph perfectly, but none of that matters very much if the guest cannot work the shower or find the corkscrew.

The same goes for your freelance business.

You can have a beautiful website, polished social media templates and the perfect colour palette, but if people do not understand what you offer, who it is for or how to work with you, the experience starts to fall apart.

This is where UX and research matter. You cannot build everything from your own perspective and assume that the customer will experience it in the same way. You have to speak to people, observe what they actually do, listen to where they get confused, and allow real feedback to shape the service.

The goal is not to choose between UI and UX. Both are needed. The UI creates the first impression, while the UX determines whether the experience behind that impression actually works.

So yes, make your freelance business look good. But also make it clear, useful, easy to buy from and genuinely designed around the people you want to serve.

Because in the end, good branding may get someone through the door, but the experience is what makes them stay, become a repeat customer, and even recommend you to someone else.

That is The Good Yield.

P.S. If you’re at Step Zero, I created [The First Freelance Offer Kit] to help you turn your existing skills into a testable offer.

It’s built for that exact moment when you know you have valuable experience, but you’re not sure how to package it or start putting it out there.

Get The Kit!

Melissa Foo is the writer behind The Good Yield, a publication about adaptive work, career pivots, freelancing, and building a resilient working life. She began as the founder and creative lead of her own design studio before moving into facilitation, education, design thinking, and portfolio work.

In this episode, I’ll walk through the main steps for handling an unpaid invoice clearly and professionally.

Read more

Freedom is something I consider paramount to everything I do.

And that might pose a question: what does freedom even look like anyway?

To me, freedom is having autonomy over my own choices and what I want to do. It is not rebellion, as in I refuse to listen to someone else. It is not me trying to be difficult or intentionally go against what people say just for the sake of it.

Freedom means that at the end of the day, I know what I am responsible for and I know that I can really stand by my own choices.

That is the core of it. Freedom is where my self-trust and confidence come from.

A Childhood Itch

Ever since I was a kid, my only sibling has special needs. Cognitively and developmentally, we are both very different. As a child, I could never really make sense of it. I knew that my situation was vastly different than that of my peers, but I struggled to articulate or process the family dynamic. I just grew up inside it; which at times, felt quite isolating, especially without the resources to connect with others in a similar situation.

Subconsciously, that made me pull my defences up against the world.

I was naturally living in the shadow of someone else. I blended into the background a bit too much, moulding myself into someone who was easy to manage.

At the same time, I craved independence and autonomy before I even found the words for it. I wanted clear options. I wanted space for myself – alone and peaceful – without anybody else questioning me.

I didn’t want to keep blending into someone else’s background. I wanted to craft my own instead.

During my schooling years, I struggled to find my own footing with this inner desire. The rigidity of people and places was overwhelming. On the surface, I was being taught a particular vision of success or a fulfilling life. Under the surface, my childhood desires continued to bubble and boil…

The ‘Creative Curse’

Why doesn’t the normal path speak to me? …Does it even have to speak to me? Am I just thinking too much into this?

These were questions I grappled with internally, particularly when I was on the verge of graduating from university. It felt silly almost, to say that I live with this inner impulse of self-expression. I had to accept that this was simply part of me.

As I have told many people, you do not choose to be a creative.

The creative life picks you.

It draws you in and you do not have a choice. The creative curse, as I like to dub it. Not a curse in a literal sense, but it’s this itch where you are really destined to live out that creative urge in you. No matter how hard you try to suppress it, the more the creative forces will pull you in.

The driving force behind my own goals and ideals was always in the pursuit of freedom.

The freedom to make something out of what I see, feel, think, and experience. Not just to inherit a life, but to actively shape it.

Success = Choices

As maturity beckons, the pursuit of freedom becomes less of a chase and more of an exploration.

Freedom is really in the everyday choices I make. The choices in how I show up, where I spend my energy, what I say yes to, and what I decide to turn down. Freedom became less of a need to run away, and more of a way to describe autonomy and choices. The power of a choice.

When I knew it was time to venture into my own path, I realised I could either dampen my own urge or choose to live from that internal pull. But that required a lot of self-honesty.

It required understanding why I am the way I am. It required me to look back into my childhood and the internal narratives I had formed along the way. How many beliefs did I inherit, and how many were actually from me?

I wanted to protect the vulnerability of little me by giving myself options I previously couldn’t explore. After all, mobility and adaptability are things that nobody can really take away from me.

That also spurred me to be on this spree of not wanting to waste my time. The moment I could grab any sense of independence and navigate on my own two feet, I wanted to take it.

I wanted to spread my wings and fly as high as I could allow myself to do so.

Expression came through the channels of starting a design business, experimenting with creative outlets… anything that made sure I would not have to place my entire sense of safety in someone else’s hands.

This is where my creative urges, business, freelancing and embodiment of freedom started to blur into one another. I channel my energy purely into joy, direction, expression, and work that feels like me.

I took my impulses and condensed them into this direction where I never had to seek permission to simply be.

The process also required me to define a version of success only I could fulfil. Going back to choices – freedom is present in the path you know is truly yours.

Freedom Is Not Isolation

Autonomy doesn’t mean living life in a silo, nor does it mean rejecting help. Support and guidance are important. However, knowing the difference between support and permission is a must. No other person should have authority over your own life.

I find it so refreshing to be directly responsible and in charge of the life that I create with intention, instead of waiting for it to simply fall through from the sky. Actively participating in my own life – knowing that I can create, pivot, change, refine, and decide again – feels wildly freeing. I removed the need to prove myself to someone else.

What starts as a shock to the nervous system, as a cry for independence, eventually turns into discernment. Freedom carries less escapism now, and more of the power that comes with owning my choices.

The Good Yield Is My Latest Experiment

The Good Yield is another piece of my freedom stack. One that’s centred on expression, writing, and crafting my own narrative. My little nook of building something that reflects how I see the world.

Freedom of creating something that does not have to fit neatly into someone else’s category in order to be real.

Perhaps that’s why freedom makes everything else make sense to me. Underneath the creativity, the business, the freelancing, the writing, the pivots, the choices, and the experiments, that has always been the thread.

The essence of freedom. The jolt of excitement in the morning. The gift of a new day.

That is The Good Yield.

P.S. If you’re at Step Zero, I created [The First Freelance Offer Kit] to help you turn your existing skills into a testable offer.

It’s built for that exact moment when you know you have valuable experience, but you’re not sure how to package it or start putting it out there.

Get The Kit!

Melissa Foo is the writer behind The Good Yield, a publication about adaptive work, career pivots, freelancing, and building a resilient working life. She began as the founder and creative lead of her own design studio before moving into facilitation, education, design thinking, and portfolio work.

In my previous article, I talked about what freelancers should look out for before signing a contract.

This one is about the other side. What happens when you are the one creating the agreement?

Before freelancing, I ran a B2B design agency. That meant I was constantly writing proposals, quotations, and service agreements for corporate clients.

Disclaimer before we begin: I am not a lawyer, so this is not legal advice. This is simply what I learnt from running projects, dealing with approvals, managing other freelancers, and refining my agreements along the way. Please use your own discretion when applying information from this article.

With that out of the way, here are the 7 terms I include in every agreement:

1. Project Objectives

I usually start with the project objectives – before payment terms, timelines, and deliverables. It’s important to be clear on what the project is actually meant to achieve. A simple paragraph is enough, as long as it answers the following questions:

1. What are we creating?

2. Why are we creating it?

3. What outcome is needed?

Project issues can arise when both parties are discussing the same project, but are on different pages or using different lingo. Project objectives make the expected outcomes clear in writing, which protects you from misunderstandings.

That’s why before I draft anything else, I want the objectives to be clear enough that the rest of the agreement can be built around it.

2. Payment Terms And Schedule

People usually write the payment terms, but forget the schedule entirely.

When I was running my agency, my clients were primarily in the B2B space, so terms and payment schedules had to be more robust. The experience of being onboarded as a trusted vendor is different from working directly with consumers. This was my general rule of thumb:

• For smaller projects worth a few hundred dollars, I usually requested payment upfront.

• For larger projects, especially four-figure projects and above, I preferred breaking payment into phases.

For example:

• 50% upon commencement

• 25% upon first milestone

• 25% upon completion

The exact structure depends on the project, but the principle is the same. I’ve learnt the hard way not to leave payment until the end. It might feel awkward talking about money at first, but I promise you that the earlier you have that conversation, the better it’ll be for both you and the client.

In an ideal world, projects follow proposed timelines as expected. However, in business, things change all the time that are outside of your control. Project approvals can stall, stakeholders can change, and deadlines may shift according to key company milestones.

You are not in control of every single thing that happens on the client’s side, but you still need cash flow. As they say, CASH IS KING. Treat deposits as your fuel.

I also like to separate payment terms from payment schedule.

• Payment terms: explain the structure of how payment is to be collected.

• Payment schedule: explains when the money is actually due.

This is especially important when working with companies. Sometimes the project is approved, the invoice is submitted, and the work is completed, but payment still needs to go through finance or procurement. On my invoices, I always include timelines such as Net 15 or Net 30 – this means payment is due within 15 or 30 days from date of invoice.

You want to be clear on when payment is expected, not just how much is being paid.

3. Timeline And Client Responsibilities

Good project management always includes a timeline, but I am careful with how I write it.

I used to treat project timelines as something that depended mainly on me, until I realised that this was not realistic. If I say a branding project takes six weeks, that assumes feedback is given on time, approvals happen on time, and the client provides the required materials on time.

In reality, projects can shift. Feedback can be delayed, departments may need more time to review things, and internal stakeholders may change along the way.

That is why I prefer giving a realistic project range. For example, I may state that a project can be completed in six to eight weeks, provided that feedback, approvals, and materials are given on time.

I also include a line to clarify that delays in feedback, approvals, or materials from the client may affect the final delivery timeline.

Don’t bite your tongue just to be the “easy freelancer” who never draws boundaries. Clients also have a responsibility to uphold their end of the agreement. Make sure you state what they are responsible for providing, such as logos, copy, images, brand assets, references, feedback, approvals, and internal alignment.

A project dynamic should never be “freelancer does work, client waits”, especially in corporate projects. The client needs to provide input, materials, direction, and approvals too.

If those things are delayed, the project will be delayed too. I like to make that clear upfront.

4. Consolidated Feedback

One of my favourite agency clauses is consolidated feedback.

Where possible, feedback should come through one main point of contact. It is a simple but very effective way to prevent chaos.

Without consolidated feedback, you can end up with five different people giving five different directions. Then it becomes your job to collate everything, interpret conflicting comments, and somehow make it all make sense.

Definitely practise flexibility where needed, but make it clear that for the work to be effective, comments should be aligned internally before they are sent over.

This makes the process cleaner for them, for you, and for the project.

5. Deliverables, Revisions And Scope Changes

Deliverables are the actual things you are contracted to provide. This section needs to be very clear.

For example:

• Number of initial concepts

• Number of revision rounds

• Number of designs, sessions, or outputs

• Final files to be provided/handover process

• Workshops

• Strategy sessions

• Project sprints

• Work that is not part of the scope

This ties back to the project objectives written earlier too. Clarify the scope and include in detail everything that you are engaged to provide. This will serve as the reference point for both sides.

On the topic of revisions or changes, for creative work, revision limits are important. Clients should be able to give feedback, but never agree to unlimited revisions. State the number of initial concepts, the number of revision rounds, what counts as a revision round, and what happens if additional revisions are needed. Decide on the cost per additional revision round as well.

For additional work, it may come up as the project evolves. If a client requests something outside the original agreement, that should be handled separately.

This could mean an additional quotation, a scope variation, or a separate agreement. Put a line in your agreement stating that additional deliverables, revisions, or requests outside the agreed scope may be quoted separately.

6. Ownership Of Work

Ownership is another thing freelancers should clarify early. You don’t want to end up in a situation where you’re confused as to who owns the final rights to the work. It’s important to clarify with the client (or decide) if they own the final deliverables, working files, and unused drafts and concepts.

For design work, there is a difference between giving a client a final PDF and giving them the full working file. There is also a difference between handing over final approved assets and handing over every exploration created during the process.

If working files are included, mention that clearly in the agreement. If they are not included, or require an additional fee for the client to purchase them, include that as well.

7. Termination

Nobody likes thinking about a project ending badly before it even starts, but this is exactly why the termination clause matters. In the unlikely event that something goes wrong, you have to be prepared for the following:

• What happens if the client cancels halfway?

• What happens if the project is paused indefinitely?

• What happens if either party wants to end the agreement?

You need to decide things like whether the deposit is refundable, whether completed work is billable, how much notice is required, and what happens to unfinished work. Keeping it clear beforehand prevents emotions from running the show.

Lessons I Learnt The Hard Way

Most of my contract clauses came from firsthand experience.

One of my first agency projects was a design project worth around $1000. At the time, that felt like a huge milestone and I was unsure if collecting a deposit was even the right move. I wanted to be as hassle-free as possible, so I made the decision for payment to only be after project completion. Grave mistake.

I know now that the idea of “project completion” is very subjective between me and the client. My internal assumption was that the client would approve the designs quickly, the project would have a smooth conclusion, and payment would be made.

Newsflash: The project never completed.

The client became difficult to reach and they more or less disappeared.

Because payment was only due upon completion, and there was no upfront deposit, that $1000 was essentially forfeited.

The worst part was that I had already hired and paid a freelancer to help with the work.

Cash had already gone out, and no cash came in. That was when I learnt: always collect a deposit.

This experience made me move to a 50% - 50% payment structure. Fifty percent upfront and fifty percent upon completion. While it was better, it wasn’t always enough.

Later on, I was engaged for another project that was initially expected to take 1 month, but ended up stretching to 4 months because of approvals, stakeholder changes, and shifting timelines.

Accrued revenue and accounts receivable aren’t cash. Money you are expecting is not the same as money you already have, which is important from an accounting and cashflow perspective.

That was what made me decide to go 50% - 25% - 25% for larger projects, and tying payments to key project milestones. As a freelancer, remember that clarity pays dividends.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, freelance agreements are not there to make the working relationship feel cold or rigid. They are there to make the relationship clearer.

When expectations are written down properly, both sides know what they are agreeing to, what they are responsible for, and what happens if the project changes along the way.

Happy freelancer, happy client, happy life.

Agreements may not be the most exciting part of freelancing, but the clearer the agreement, the easier it is to stay excited about the actual work.

That is The Good Yield.

P.S. If you’re at Step Zero, I created [The First Freelance Offer Kit] to help you turn your existing skills into a testable offer.

It’s built for that exact moment when you know you have valuable experience, but you’re not sure how to package it or start putting it out there.

Get The Kit!

Melissa Foo is the writer behind The Good Yield, a publication about adaptive work, career pivots, freelancing, and building a resilient working life. She began as the founder and creative lead of her own design studio before moving into facilitation, education, design thinking, and portfolio work.

The Good Yield began as a place for me to write honestly about freelancing and building an independent working life.

Since then, it has grown into a practical library for people building more self-directed careers – with free articles, paid deep dives, resources and more focused support.

I am intentional about keeping The Good Yield simple and useful. Everything here should help you move forward in some way, whether that means learning something new, applying a practical framework, understanding the thinking behind a decision, or getting support with a specific challenge.

You can start with the free writing, go deeper through the paid tier, use the practical resources, or work with me directly when you need a more personalised perspective.

Here’s everything you can explore inside The Good Yield.

Free Tier

Every Monday at 9AM EST, a new post goes out to all subscribers.

These posts offer practical breakdowns on freelancing, money, mindset, negotiation, career pivots, and building a working life that fits your own journey.

Some articles are tactical, covering topics such as pricing an offer, negotiating with a client, assessing an opportunity and making stronger freelance decisions.

Others focus on the beliefs and internal shifts behind the work: our relationship with money, the pressure to follow a conventional path, navigating uncertainty, and learning to trust our own definition of success.

When you subscribe, you’ll have something useful to start each week – without making freelancing sound more complicated than it needs to be.

Browse All Posts

Paid Tier (USD 10/mo)

The paid tier is where I share the deeper, more personal, and behind-the-scenes side of The Good Yield, alongside practical resources created specifically for paid subscribers.

In-depth paid content is published on the 1st and 3rd Thursday of every month, with the occasional bonus post.

You can expect:

• Detailed written guides

• Templates, resources, and practical kits for freelancing

• Long-form audio and podcast-style reflections

• Exact processes and step-by-step walkthroughs

• Behind-the-scenes business decisions

• Honest stories from my freelancing and business journey

• Deeper reflections on money, identity, pivots, uncertainty, and self-belief

• Ask The Good Yield, where I answer selected subscriber questions

• Opportunities to help shape future topics and submit content requests

Some posts are practical. Others go deeper into the decisions, transitions, lessons, and thinking behind the public Monday posts.

Audio posts also include written notes or summaries for readers who prefer to scan the main ideas.

If you’d like a closer look at how I actually think about and navigate freelancing, this is where you’ll find it.

Annual Paid Tier (USD 85/year)

Get everything in the paid tier, save compared to paying monthly, and receive complimentary access to The First Freelance Offer Kit.

The kit walks you through turning the skills and experience you already have into a clear freelance offer you can start putting into the world.

If you already know you want to stay with The Good Yield for the year, this is the best-value way to subscribe.

Upgrade Your Tier

The First Freelance Offer Kit – Flagship Digital Product

The First Freelance Offer Kit is a practical guide designed to help you turn your existing skills into a clear, sellable first offer.

It’s my own framework, broken down into practical modules and guided worksheets, so you don’t have to guess what to do next.

Many people know they want to freelance but become stuck trying to build an entire business before they have even made their first offer. They worry about branding, websites, service menus, business plans, and having everything figured out in advance. I’ve been there myself.

That’s why I built this kit around what I believe is the most important starting point: identifying what you can offer, who it can help, and how to explain it clearly enough for someone to buy.

Ready to start on the right foot?

Get The First Freelance Offer Kit

Mini Coaching

I also offer focused coaching calls designed around one specific question, decision or freelance challenge.

You might want to discuss:

• What your first freelance offer should be

• How to price a project or service

• Whether an opportunity is worth accepting

• How to package your experience more clearly

• How to navigate a career pivot

• What your next practical move should be

Bring the situation to the call, and we’ll work through it together. The aim is to cut through the noise surrounding the decision in front of you so you leave with greater clarity and a practical next step.

Book a Mini Coaching Call

Brand Partnerships

Brands can also partner with The Good Yield through sponsored ad placements and relevant collaborations.

I am interested in working with brands, tools, and services that are genuinely useful to freelancers, creatives and people building more independent careers.

Any partnership should feel relevant to the publication and valuable to the readers. I do not want to promote something simply because a placement is available.

The best collaborations will naturally fit the conversations already happening through The Good Yield.

If you’re interested in partnering with The Good Yield, I’d love to hear more about your brand and how we might work together.

You can email me at thegoodyield [at] gmail.com or purchase a placement below:

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In whatever way you choose to support this publication, I’m honoured that you’re here. Let’s keep growing together ♡

Explore The Good Yield Archive

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Must-Read Free Articles

• Contracts 101: What Every Freelancer Should Check Before Signing

• 7 Terms I Include In My Freelance Agreements

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• The 3-Layer Income Stack Every Freelancer Needs

• 4 Money Beliefs Every Freelancer Needs

• Hourly vs Project Pricing: Which One Should I Choose?

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After I closed my design agency, I moved more seriously into facilitation, education and portfolio work, and thought that was the big shift. And it was a big shift, but it was not the full shift, because after changing the structure, I realised I was still carrying many of the same limitations with me.

When I was running the agency, I thought in terms of clients, projects and business growth. Then, when I moved more deeply into facilitation, I found a new ceiling: time. One hour equalled one rate. One workshop equalled one payment. I could not duplicate myself or be in five places at once.

So even though the work had changed, my mind was still doing the same thing. It was looking at my current circumstances and using them to decide what was possible for me.

That was when I realised I had to go back to the drawing board. I had changed the external structure, but I had not fully upgraded the person operating inside it.

I took a weekend to ask myself a very simple question: who do I actually want to be?

Read more

• Do not depend entirely on freelance platforms. When you are starting from zero, you are competing with freelancers who already have reviews, completed projects and established profiles.

Read more

You have someone to share the workload with, bounce ideas off, and build something together. It feels less lonely and less risky. Business partnerships can feel a little like alchemy when you are starting something new.

I wasn’t actively looking for a business partner. It happened quite naturally after I worked with someone on another project. We had complementary skill sets, struck up a conversation, and decided to give it a shot.

I learnt an incredible amount from that experience.

Read more

One of the most underrated skills a freelancer can have is something many people never mention.

It’s not finding clients, pricing well, or being good at the actual work. This matters way more than that.

It is about knowing what you are agreeing to.

Contracts are not the most exciting part of freelancing, but they are one of the most important. A badly understood contract can create more problems than a slow month, a difficult client, or a project that does not go perfectly.

A lot of freelancers get into trouble because they signed something they did not fully understand.

Before we begin, a quick disclaimer.

This article is not legal advice and should not be treated as such. I am simply sharing from my experience running a design agency and working as a freelancer in Singapore. If you require legal advice specific to your situation, please consult a lawyer or legal professional.

What Exactly Is A Contract?

In simple terms, a contract is an agreement between two or more parties.

For this article, I am referring mainly to work-related contracts. This could include freelance agreements, service agreements, contractor agreements, NDAs, or any document that governs a working relationship between you and another party.

The core thing about contracts is that it is a commitment.

If you are putting your signature on something, you need to know what you are agreeing to, what you are responsible for, how you get paid, and how the arrangement can end.

As freelancers, we usually encounter contracts from both sides.

Sometimes it comes from companies, and other times, we are the ones creating the agreements for our own clients.

This article focuses on that first side: what to look out for before you sign anything.

This Matters More Than Most People Think

Before becoming a full-time freelancer, I ran a B2B design agency.

That meant dealing with proposals, quotations, service agreements, NDAs, payment terms, project scopes, and all sorts of contractual documents… And if you don’t have the slightest clue on what’s going on, it can turn into a nightmare fast. Contracts show up everywhere.

Contracts come in the form of service level agreements, non-disclosure agreements, non-compete clauses; all of which have their own ramifications if not followed properly.

Knowledge to protect yourself is a superpower that prevents you from accidentally breaching something.

These are the few things I always pay attention to before signing anything:

The #1 Thing I Check: Payment Terms

Whenever I receive a contract, the first thing I look for is the payment section.

You should know:

• How much you are being paid

• Whether the payment is hourly, sessional, retainer-based, or project-based

• When payment is due

• How frequently payment happens

• Whether there are payment milestones

• Whether invoicing is required

If these things are not clearly stated, please ask. Don’t simply assume that it’ll sort itself out. If you are doing the work, you should know exactly how and when you are getting paid. While this sounds obvious, you’d be surprised as to how many payment issues happen due to vague terms.

The #2 Thing I Check: Non-Compete Clause

Another area I always look out for is the non-compete clause.

This is especially important for freelancers because many of us work with multiple organisations at the same time.

Depending on how it is written, a non-compete clause may limit your ability to work with certain companies, clients, industries, or competitors. If a clause affects your ability to take on other work, you need to read it carefully.

The #3 Thing I Check: Termination Clause

One of the biggest mistakes freelancers make is only focusing on how the agreement starts. The beginning may present itself as a honeymoon phase – a dream role, interesting project, attractive rates. If you sign it while being blindsided, you might miss out on the inclusion of a termination clause.

Before signing, ask:

• How can either party terminate the agreement?

• Is notice required?

• How much notice is required?

• Are there penalties for terminating early?

• What happens to outstanding payments?

• What happens to ongoing work?

A good agreement should explain how the working relationship begins and how both parties can exit cleanly. If it’s not clearly written, ask for it to be included.

The ‘Good To Have’: Force Majeure Clause

Another clause worth understanding is the force majeure clause.

In simple terms, this usually refers to extraordinary situations outside everyone’s control. This could include major emergencies, government restrictions, natural disasters, or events that make it impossible for either party to fulfil their obligations.

Hopefully, you will never need it but it is still worth knowing what it covers.

A Contract I Chose Not To Sign

Not too long ago, I was offered a freelance opportunity. The people seemed nice and the work was interesting enough. It looked great on the surface, until they sent me the contract.

Two things immediately stood out.

1. There was no clear termination clause.

2. There was also no confirmed payment structure. Payment terms and rates would only be reviewed after signing.

No matter how nice the people were, this stood out to me as a huge red flag.

Ambiguity is expensive when you’re a freelancer. Don’t be afraid to raise something because you’re worried you’ll be seen as difficult. After all, how can you A) commit to an agreement when you do not know exactly how the arrangement ends and B) commit when payment rates and terms are not defined.

Signing such an agreement places you in freelance purgatory.

I raised my concerns and asked if the contract could be changed, but there were barriers to communication and approval. In the end, I decided that it was not something I was comfortable proceeding with, which I do not regret at all.

Ask Questions Before Signing

Always, always, always clarify your doubts before you sign anything. I cannot stress this enough. Once your signature is on the page, any terms you’d like to change become significantly harder to negotiate.

• If a clause does not make sense, ask.

• If the payment structure is unclear, ask.

• If a notice period seems unreasonable, ask.

As a freelancer, there’s no other department to double check your agreements. Doing your due diligence is your protection layer. Remember that any professional organisation should be willing to explain the terms they are asking you to agree to.

If they are unwilling to clarify something important, that tells you something too.

My Personal Checklist Before Signing

1. Never sign something you do not understand.

2. Read the terms properly, more than once.

3. Ask questions if anything is vague.

4. Check payment terms, termination clauses, and restrictions on other work.

5. Use AI or a trusted person to help you understand the language, but don’t rely on that alone for high-stakes agreements.

6. If the stakes are high, seek legal advice.

7. Do not sign out of excitement, fear, pressure, or comparison.

8. If something feels like a serious red flag, pause.

A contract can continue affecting you long after the excitement of a new opportunity has passed.

Time taken to understand something properly is never wasted. Future you will thank you for it.

That is The Good Yield.

P.S. If you’re at Step Zero, I created [The First Freelance Offer Kit] to help you turn your existing skills into a testable offer.

It’s built for that exact moment when you know you have valuable experience, but you’re not sure how to package it or start putting it out there.

Get The Kit!

Melissa Foo is the writer behind The Good Yield, a publication about adaptive work, career pivots, freelancing, and building a resilient working life. She began as the founder and creative lead of her own design studio before moving into facilitation, education, design thinking, and portfolio work.

I came across a post about portfolio careers recently. The author highlighted how muddled the term has become.

Indeed, labels have become a commodity.

These days, almost anything outside a 9-to-5 gets labelled a “portfolio career”.

I don’t believe in gatekeeping labels, but a person who works in marketing full-time and teaches yoga on the weekends is not the same as a solopreneur who has a targeted career strategy. The former may be fuelled by discovery, while the latter is usually built with intention and structure.

One is not better than the other as these are both different approaches. Many people treat freelancing or going solo as an extremely black and white situation. The reality is that portfolio careers get you to ask yourself – how diversified is your career structure?

For me, the easiest way to think about this is through three layers: your base, your variables, and your upside.

Or visually: rocks, pebbles, and sand.

So… What Really Is a Portfolio Career?

A portfolio career is not just having random gigs.

It is an intentional stack of skills, income streams, assets, interests, and work that together form a unique career. It is not necessarily anti-job nor is it full-time freelancing. And it is definitely not quitting everything and throwing yourself into a passion project with no structure.

A portfolio career is when your career is no longer built around one single role, one single employer, or one single stream of income.

It rests upon multiple pillars.

A Portfolio Career Can Still Include a 9-to-5

You do not need to be a full-time freelancer to have a portfolio career.

For example, someone could work Monday to Friday as an investment banker, then tutor finance students on weekends or during evenings. One part of their career is traditional employment. Another part is independent work. Together, they create a wider career ecosystem, yet they are still connected with an underlying expertise.

One of the biggest strengths of a portfolio career is that it prevents one vertical from holding everything.

Freelancing Is Not Automatically a Portfolio Career Either

Freelancing and portfolio careers are related, but they are not the same thing.

The usual type of freelancing involves providing a direct service to clients. Maybe you are a designer, writer, trainer, consultant, strategist, developer, or coach. You work with clients, deliver a service, invoice them, and get paid.

That is freelancing. However, being a freelancer does not automatically mean you have a portfolio career.

If you are a freelance designer and all your income comes from the same kind of client, the same service, and the same market demand, you are still primarily operating in one area. You may be self-employed, but your income is still concentrated.

That concentration is where the risk sits. If that one client type slows down, if that market shifts, if budgets freeze, if stakeholders change, or if you simply realise you no longer want to do that kind of work, the whole structure can start shaking.

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Stability Comes From Diversification, Not Just Employment

A traditional job can feel stable because the income is predictable. You know when your salary comes in. You know what your monthly number is and you can plan around it.

But even a job carries concentration risk. If your whole income depends on one employer and that role disappears, you are also exposed. We have seen this with retrenchments, restructures, and industries changing faster than people expected.

A strong portfolio career gives you more than one pillar. If one area slows down, your whole life does not collapse because you already have buffer. You have time to make your next move without your nervous system going into shutdown.

This matters because the real difference between scattered work and a sustainable portfolio career is not the label. It is the structure underneath it.

If you want to build a portfolio career that actually holds you, these are the three layers I would start with:

Income Stack #1: Your Base – The Rocks

Your base is the part of your income that keeps you grounded.

It covers your essentials: food, transport, bills, rent, mortgage, basic responsibilities, and the things that keep your life running.

This could be a fixed part-time role, recurring classes, rostered work, a long-term contract, a retainer client, or any income stream that gives you enough predictability to not operate from survival mode every day.

This is the layer many people skip.

They see people online saying, “Quit your job and go all in,” and they assume that is the only brave path. Then they jump into freelancing, content creation, coaching, or a new business with no floor underneath them, and very quickly, the pressure becomes unbearable, because there is no base to rest on.

When your base is covered, you can think more clearly. You will stop making every opportunity carry the emotional weight of your entire survival.

When I first started my design business in my early twenties, I could go all in with much less backup because that season of life allowed for it. I had fewer responsibilities and more room to take that kind of risk.

Now, as I get older, I value a different kind of structure. I still want freedom, but I also want depth, stability, and room to build without constantly being in fight-or-flight mode. My base gives me that.

Income Stack #2: Your Variables – The Pebbles

Once your base is in place, you can start stacking your variables.

Variables are the opportunities that add movement and strength to your income, even if they are not fixed every single week.

These could be workshops, short-term programmes, speaker sessions, morning classes, consulting sprints, training gigs, half-day engagements, or project-based work.

They might come in for a season, a month, a programme, or a specific client need. They may not be as predictable as your base, but they are often higher-yield and more expansive.

This is where the portfolio starts becoming more robust.

Your base keeps you steady and your variables create momentum. It also builds the bridge for you to experiment in other industries you’re interested in.

The important thing is that you do not need to solve the whole structure in one day.

Portfolio careers are cascading stacks. You build one layer, then the next. Your base may grow and your variables may become more consistent. Some variables may eventually become part of your base!

Income Stack #3: Your Upside – The Sand

Then comes your upside.

This is usually the thing that belongs more fully to you. For example, your own intellectual property or projects that compound over time.

This could be a newsletter, YouTube channel, community, digital product, course, personal brand, methodology, writing platform, or small business ecosystem.

The mistake people make is turning their upside into their base too early.

They start a newsletter and immediately pressure it to become their full-time income. They launch a product and expect it to save them immediately. They start creating content and suddenly every post has to perform.

That is the fastest way to kill the very thing that needs space to grow. Your upside grows best when it is not being strangled by survival pressure.

When your base and variables are already supporting you, your upside can become a place of creativity and long-term compounding. You can enjoy it and create with less panic. Clarity will start to guide your actions because you are not desperate for instant proof from it.

For me, that upside is The Good Yield.

It is where I write, build my ideas, and create offers like The First Freelance Offer Kit. This space has become my haven where I share my knowledge on going from 0 to 1 in freelancing.

And because I have a base and variables, I do not need The Good Yield to carry everything immediately.

I am free to let it grow!

The Real Point of a Portfolio Career

At the start, your portfolio career may not look like much.

The numbers may feel small and the pieces may look scattered. You may wonder whether anything is actually working. Trust me, I know how that feels.

At the same time, when you keep moving in the same direction, the structure starts forming. Your skills deepen, the dots start connecting, and everything will make sense in due time.

After all, a portfolio career is an intentional stack of work, income, skills, assets, and energy that gives you more room to live, build, earn, and grow. Understanding structure for your income goes a long way.

That is The Good Yield.

P.S. If you’re at Step Zero, I created [The First Freelance Offer Kit] to help you turn your existing skills into a testable offer.

It’s built for that exact moment when you know you have valuable experience, but you’re not sure how to package it or start putting it out there.

Get The Kit!

Melissa Foo is the writer behind The Good Yield, a publication about adaptive work, career pivots, freelancing, and building a resilient working life. She began as the founder and creative lead of her own design studio before moving into facilitation, education, design thinking, and portfolio work.

Newsflash: Getting your first client doesn’t have to be hard.

I left a comment on Reddit recently under a post where someone had spent three months doing outreach without finding a single client.

Three months.

He was a web developer, and from what he shared, he had been reaching out to gyms and local businesses, wondering why nobody was replying to him. And I get why someone would look at that and think, okay, is outreach dead? Is cold outreach just not working anymore?

Sometimes it feels like that. I mean, is it impossible to get a client now unless you already have a huge audience, a personal brand, a referral network, or some secret thing that everyone else seems to know about except you?

Good news – outreach isn’t dead. What’s dead is spray and pray.

When I commented to help him out, he mentioned that the method he had been following was basically trying to convince business owners why they should even use his service in the first place. That is where the whole thing starts to break.

If you don’t know who your user is, and the person you’re reaching out to doesn’t already see the thing you’re pitching as a real problem, you’re not just selling your service. You’re doing double convincing.

First, you have to convince them that the problem exists. Then, you have to convince them that the problem is urgent enough for them to want relief from it now. And after all of that, you still have to convince them that you’re the person they should trust to solve it.

That’s a lot!!

People start to feel like they have to go through hell and back just to get one client to come on board, when actually the issue may not be that getting clients is impossible. It may just be that they’re pitching into the void, to people who don’t care about the problem in the first place. Or worse still, people who might not even have a problem.

Spray and pray doesn’t work

Spray and pray is the usual technique that gets suggested by so many people as though it’s the grand answer to finding freelance clients. Sending more messages and casting the net wide to 500 people; thinking it’s a pure numbers game, with the hope that someone will eventually bite… isn’t a smart move. It wastes a lot of your precious energy.

Definitely, numbers matter to some extent. You can’t send one message, get ignored, and immediately conclude that freelancing is dead. But it’s also not true that if you spam 500 people with a vague offer, you’re guaranteed to get a client.

If your offer or service is unclear, if your message doesn’t make sense, or if you’re contacting people who don’t even see why your service matters, then you’re just getting yourself flagged as spam.

You’re better off knowing what you provide more specifically, and reaching out to five people who actually have a real chance of needing that support.

If you want the simple version for now, here’s how I’d go about getting your first client.

1. Understand what you actually do

The first thing is that you have to get clear on the type of service you provide, and I mean really get clear.

Not just “I do design”.

Not just “I do marketing”.

Not just “I build websites”.

What does that even mean for the person you’re talking to?

If you’re a designer, what kind of design do you actually do? Brand design, content design, presentation design, website design, reports, social media graphics, specific collateral for certain types of businesses or teams? Those are all different things, even if they sit under the same giant umbrella of “design”.

And if you’re a marketer, who do you market for, and what part of marketing do you actually help with? Content strategy, email campaigns, SEO, copywriting, launch support, social media planning?

The more specific you are with the type of service or skill set you provide, the easier it becomes for someone else to understand whether they need you. It doesn’t mean you’re boxed in forever. It doesn’t mean your offer can never evolve. It just means that at the starting point, specificity is literally everything.

Trust me when I say that if you try to speak to everyone, you usually end up speaking to no one. And that sucks big time.

2. Know your user

Freelancing isn’t just about having an audience or creating demand out of thin air.

You have to know your user, as in:

• Who actually needs your service?

• Who already has the problem?

• Does your service even solves something they care about?

The issue with spray and pray is that, as a freelancer, you may think everybody needs your product or service.

But that’s not really the case…

A lot of people, especially when they’re new to freelancing or pivoting into service work, tend to look at the problems of their potential clients <from their own point of view.> Then the frustration comes in when they don’t understand why the client doesn’t see the situation as a problem.

It’s very difficult to convince people there’s a problem when they can’t even see that there’s a problem.

That’s why trying to force people to care doesn’t work. You now have to convince them to care first, and then convince them that you’re the solution. That’s a lot of work before you even get to the actual work.

The better thing to do is to go where demand already exists.

And how do you know where demand exists? You talk to the user. You observe people who might need your skill set. You look through Reddit threads. You read LinkedIn posts. You pay attention to your industry. You notice what people in your network are complaining about. You look at companies hiring for similar full-time roles, because if they’re hiring for that kind of role, that already tells you there may be a real need there!

Don’t start by asking, “Who can I convince?”

A better question is, “Where does this problem already exist?”

That saves you a ton of mental effort from trying to guess your way through freelancing.

3. Be where your user is

Once you know what you do, and once you have a clearer sense of who may need it, the next thing is to be where your user is.

For example, if your user is a company in a specific industry, are there events in that space? Are there exhibitions? Are there online communities? Are people talking about this problem on LinkedIn? Can you speak to someone in your network who knows someone who knows someone? Can you set up a coffee chat? Can you reach out and simply ask more about what they’re seeing in that space?

Where your user is can be online or offline.

It doesn’t always have to be this dramatic thing where you’re cold pitching strangers every single day. Typically it’s adding people on LinkedIn, dropping a casual message, or even joining a relevant community. A good thing to do is reading through job listings to understand what businesses are already looking for.

Come in seeking to understand first. Once you actually understand the person, the business, the context, and the problem better, the sales conversation becomes much more natural. Your offer is the natural fit to their puzzle.

4. Nurture and develop the relationship

From a freelancing point of view, it can be incredibly frustrating when your user doesn’t seem to have the same urgency as you.

You may be thinking, why are they not replying, why are they not signing, why are they not moving faster, why are they not seeing how obvious this is?

One thing I need you to know is that: your user is NOT you.

It takes empathy and imagination to step into their perspective and understand that before someone hires an independent partner, they may need trust, clarity, timing, budget, comfort, and a sense that you actually understand them.

Selling is very relationship-based, especially if you’re going in cold as a freelancer. It’s often not the first touchpoint where the prospect signs with you. Usually, the relationship needs time to develop, because people do buy emotionally. They buy based on trust, comfort, instinct, and how they feel about you; even if other factors like price, timeline, and skill set also come into play.

The strongest chance you have is not always having the perfect pitch. It’s that human-to-human connection; are you giving them that space to have their problems heard? Even if its commercial, clients ultimately just want to be understood.

Only if feasible, I sometimes recommend giving them a bit of a sneak peek of what you can already do. This doesn’t mean free work without discernment, by the way.

Please don’t spend hours doing unpaid labour for random prospects. However, there are low-effort, high-value things you can do that help build trust – like offering a quick observation, sharing a useful insight, pointing out something they may not have noticed, doing a short audit, or referring them to someone else who can help with something adjacent.

My rule of thumb is that if you’re going to do something upfront, it shouldn’t take you more than an hour or two, and you also don’t need to do this for every single prospect.

Do it for the ones where there’s a mutual connection, where the relationship feels good, and where you can actually see the possibility of working together.

Freelancing is a two-way street. Working with a client is a two-way street.

It can’t just be all about them. It also has to be about you and how you feel about the prospect.

5. Continue the relationship, add on, refer, or iterate

Depending on how well you’ve carried out the above steps, you should at least start getting some kind of responses, whether that’s a prospect, a conversation, a referral, an enquiry, or eventually a client.

Getting the client is only the start though.

You still have to carry through the work, communicate properly, deliver well, and continue developing the relationship. As you work with them, pay attention to whether there are natural add-ons, future services, referrals, or other ways you can support them.

For example, if you offer design, but you notice they’re also struggling with business development, maybe you can refer them to someone who does that, or offer a useful suggestion in that direction. This doesn’t mean you need to become their entire business consultant, but it does mean you can and SHOULD think of the relationship more holistically.

Working like a client is almost like dating someone. You build gradually and steadily. As it evolves, it can lead to another project or another referral.

If all of that doesn’t come into play, then you also need to iterate.

If something isn’t working for 30 days, and there are no signs of progress, no replies, no conversations, and people are just ignoring you, then do some troubleshooting instead of blindly continuing the same thing.

Is the issue the way you’re doing outreach? Is the issue that you haven’t spoken to enough relevant people? Is the issue that you’re targeting the wrong problem? Is the issue that your offer is unclear? Is the issue that you’re trying to convince people who don’t even see the problem?

When you start something new, you don’t really know until you have data, so your first few attempts may not be the best, and that’s okay. The point is not to take every failed attempt as proof that you can’t do this.

The point is to keep the data point, refine the way you connect with people, refine your skill set, refine your offer, and keep improving!

Mindset shift: your first client doesn’t have to be perfect

When it comes to freelancing, a lot of people assume that everything is saturated, that the number of clients is finite, and that there may not be any space for them.

But the market is always changing... There are always businesses. There are always new people. There are always problems that need to be solved.

Your job as a freelancer is not to invent a problem and then force people to care. Your job is to notice real problems, connect with people on a human level, empathise with what they’re struggling with, and connect the dots in a way that gives them a fresh perspective or a fresh solution.

That’s why selling should feel more natural. Not effortless in the sense that you never need to do anything, but natural in the sense that you’re not begging someone to care about something they don’t care about.

Also, be open to the fact that your first client may come from somewhere unexpected.

It may not come from the exact process you imagined. It may come from a family friend, a past classmate, someone in your network, a referral, a random conversation, or someone who suddenly hears that you’re freelancing and asks about your services.

That still counts!

Please don’t make the first client more prestigious or complicated than it needs to be. You’re not desperate because your first client came from an unexpected place. You’re collecting data, building experience, and learning how to work with people.

Your first client is not going to be favourite client. Your first client is definitely not your forever client.

…Same as how your first job is not your forever job.

Forget the delusions the internet says on how something should be. It doesn’t have to be perfect and it doesn’t have to come from the most polished source. It doesn’t have to validate your entire identity as a freelancer.

As long as someone is paying you to provide a service for them, that counts.

Keep the definition simple, take it as it comes, and move forward from there!

That is The Good Yield.

P.S. If you’re at Step Zero, I created [The First Freelance Offer Kit] to help you turn your existing skills into a testable offer.

It’s built for that exact moment when you know you have valuable experience, but you’re not sure how to package it or start putting it out there.

Get The Kit!

Many people don’t even consider freelancing because of the money part. That’s completely fair.

Different seasons of life call for different financial structures. The status quo of a fixed salary provides a sustainable and predictable safety net, which helps to manage our expectations and plan our lives effectively. It’s often something I consider as well. Even as a solopreneur, the allure of being a full-time employee is real! Knowing how much you will make each month, when the money hits your bank account, your fixed number of leave days, it’s tempting… After all, the weight isn’t on you to create your own structure.

While there are many benefits to this, many are increasingly feeling called to step outside of the norm too.

When the itch hits to do your own thing, reality can sink in hard and fast. It will often feel as though the floor beneath you suddenly evaporates, and it technically does. You have to suddenly assume responsibility for your own income flow, stability, safety net, next step, and most importantly – regulating yourself enough so that the new rhythm of money flow (or lack thereof) doesn’t leave you in shell shock.

I must admit that it is, in truth, a lot.

If left unmanaged, you end up placing yourself in a situation that short circuits your nervous system.

This is where having good money beliefs matter a ton. Without a better money framework, it becomes much harder to make clear decisions. It can affect you in more ways than one, especially in:

• What you end up charging for your services

• What you say yes or no to

• Whether or not you panic when things hit a slow season

• Whether you cling onto low quality work that no longer fits you

• Whether you actually see potential and opportunities right in front of you

Survival mode is the ultimate freelance killer. It’s what causes beginners to throw in the towel too soon.

A daily expense can feel like a huge load. What was once a normal purchase you didn’t think much of, now consumes your emotional bandwidth, because the guilt is too real to pay for it. Even worse – when a slightly risky but potentially good move becomes something your nervous system immediately rejects because it’s seemingly too dangerous.

As we equate money to security, it should be more of a priority to also work on our money beliefs.

If the story running underneath everything is “money is hard to earn”, “money is finite”, “I can’t keep money”, “I need everything fixed right now before I can feel safe”, or “I’m not good enough to charge that much”, then you’re going to keep making decisions from that place.

Even when the situation in front of you requires a clearer version of you.

Must-have Belief #1: Money is meant to be used

There was a point in time when I had to drill this into my head and understand it in my body. Money is meant to be used. Not wasted, thrown around or for the sake of proving that you’re successful… but used.

At some point, the money you earn HAS to move. It’ll go towards food, transport, rent, bills, savings, tools, software, courses, health, rest, travel, experiences, taxes, random life admin, and everything else that makes up an actual life.

That’s not wrong at all. That’s literally what money is for. Using money for living should never feel like guilt expenses.

There is a problem when we treat money like it counts only if it stays untouched in the bank account. The number sitting there is the safety. And the moment you use it, even for something reasonable, it feels like a loss. If the assumption is that money cannot be used, then each payment (even an investment in yourself) will feel like depletion. You just end up being scared with a bank balance.

Saving money, having a buffer, and being responsible with resources is good.

But hoarding money from fear is different. That only keeps you small.

Hoarding makes you scared to invest in yourself, pay for support, or subscribe to the tool that would make your workflow more effective.

Ironically, freelancing already naturally comes with that movement.

Money comes in and goes, there’s a natural flow. Some months are quieter and some invoices come early. Some opportunities arrive from where you expect, and others come from the most random place ever.

If every movement of money sends you into panic, freelancing will feel ten times harder than it needs to.

Reinforcing to ourselves that money is meant to be used removes guilt associated with living, and that in turn lets you be more comfortable with managing your own income structures.

Must-have Belief #2: Money can come in more than one way

The traditional salaried structure is simple. One job, a payout date, and a fixed amount. This primes your brain into a fixed structure. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this, it trains your nervous system into believing that money can only come through one primary channel – that is, a job – and when you deviate from that, your internal alarm bells may start to sound.

This conflicts directly with freelancing. Money might come from a client project, a retainer, a workshop, a teaching gig, a referral, a digital product, a past client returning, a random message, a small thing that turns into a bigger thing, or someone remembering that you exist six months after one conversation.

Expanding the possibilities of how you can potentially receive money opens you up to identifying more opportunities.

The reality is that you might build one path, but money enters through another door.

You might think the client will come from LinkedIn, but actually it comes from someone you met two years ago. You might think the product has to sell immediately, but then the product actually becomes the reason someone trusts your thinking and hires you for something else.

Being too fixed can make you miss what’s already moving.

Structure is a must; be it through having offers and building relationships with others, but also leave some room for money and opportunities to surprise you.

Must-have Belief #3: Money does not have to come through suffering

One of the most harmful money beliefs is that ‘money is earned through hard work’. This causes you to assume that if something is easy or smooth, and your money flows through that way, that it’s not legitimate. If you didn’t suffer for it, maybe you don’t deserve it.

If you believe that money only comes through suffering, you’ll keep finding ways to suffer for it. This will affect the actions you take, for example:

• You’ll undercharge and overdeliver.

• You’ll take on clients that drain you because at least it’s money.

• You’ll make every project heavier than it needs to be.

• You’ll feel guilty when something is easy for you, even if it’s only easy because you spent years building the skill.

Guilt is a very heavy emotion that prevents you from realising that you already possess the taste and judgement needed to succeed.

When someone pays you for something that feels obvious to you, it doesn’t mean the work has no value. It may just mean you’ve integrated the value so deeply that you don’t notice it anymore.

The belief that “Money is easy to make” is not about pretending you never need to put in effort. It’s understanding that suffering is not a requirement for experiencing success. It enables you to let money come from skill, clarity, timing, relationships, usefulness, and solving a real problem. Panic and exhaustion are not necessary for money to hit your bank account.

Must-have Belief #4: Money doesn’t define your worth

Price is often how we equate value with something. And when you freelance, pricing yourself can feel extremely confronting.

You’re no longer hidden inside a salary band or a job title or a company structure. You have to determine your own rates, send quotes, and decide what your time, skill, and work are worth in that context.

Suddenly, money becomes very personal. The usual thoughts might race in your mind: Am I good enough to charge this? Will they think I’m too expensive? Do I have enough experience? What if I’m not worth it?

I get it. But at some point, you have to separate your price from your entire identity.

A higher rate doesn’t mean that you’re worth more. A lower rate doesn’t mean you’re worth less. Your rate is not a final judgement on your worth as a human being. It’s simply a working number based on your skill, the scope, the value, the market, your experience, your capacity, and the kind of work being asked of you.

When determining your rates, it’s still important to price responsibly. Don’t pretend to be able to do something you can’t do. Don’t charge expert rates for something you genuinely don’t know how to deliver.

At the same time, don’t erase what you already know. As a freelancer, you need to get used to being paid for that value without turning every quote into a self-worth crisis.

The goal is to stop identifying with fear around money

In our society, money is naturally equated with survival. As a freelancer, sometimes fear will still pop up. The point is not to suppress the emotion, but by changing your belief system around money, the end goal is to NOT let fear make every decision for you.

If fear is the one driving, you’ll keep choosing the thing that gives immediate relief but costs you later. You’ll keep chasing the most urgent money instead of building the kind of work that actually fits you. This is what makes freelancing feel like a survival loop.

It’s important to build enough internal steadiness that you can look at money clearly. This empowers you to know what to say yes to, when to charge more, and live a life that supports you as you grow in your freelancing journey.

That is The Good Yield.

P.S. If you’re at Step Zero, I created [The First Freelance Offer Kit] to help you turn your existing skills into a testable offer.

It’s built for that exact moment when you know you have valuable experience, but you’re not sure how to package it or start putting it out there.

Get The Kit!

Melissa Foo is the writer behind The Good Yield, a publication about adaptive work, career pivots, freelancing, and building a resilient working life. She began as the founder and creative lead of her own design studio before moving into facilitation, education, design thinking, and portfolio work.

The script starts early…

I used to worship the corporate title.

Not in a loud way, but in that quiet manner where you slowly absorb what a society deems impressive and respectable.

Growing up in Singapore means inheriting a very specific operating system.

It is a hyper-competitive environment built on a relentless loop of matching scripts: meritocracy, hard work, and continuous upward progress.

The narrative is drummed into you from day one: get into the right school, secure the right university slot, land the right corporate job, and your life will automatically make sense.

There is a pragmatic reason for this. Singapore’s survival has always relied on speed, efficiency, and forward momentum. That founding state mentality trickles down into its citizens. From the outside, the country looks like a flawless, shiny metropolis – efficient and successful.

But from the inside, that efficiency comes with a human cost… It breeds a culture that values appearances over actual alignment.

Growing up in an environment that ranks you against your peers makes you question yourself a lot. Am I hitting the right societal checkpoints fast enough? To be fair, this environment builds incredible grit. It teaches you to bite the bullet and execute.

The danger of pure pragmatism: When we become hyper-trained to find the most efficient route to maximise the next outcome, we forget to ask an essential question: Is this path actually mine to begin with?

University makes the script louder

I moved through local neighbourhood schools, did well enough academically, and eventually landed a spot at a local university. In Singapore, this milestone is often treated as the magnum opus of a young person’s life – the ultimate stamp of validation that means your [real] life can finally begin.

I studied business at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Coming from a Polytechnic background rather than the more traditional Junior College route, I already felt a bit like an outlier… But once I stepped onto campus, the corporate script became deafening.

Suddenly, everyone was chasing the same shiny tokens: prestigious summer internships, global brand names for the résumé, and job titles that sounded weighty and serious when spoken aloud.

I completely absorbed the idea that this was the blueprint for happiness.

I genuinely believed that a meaningful life meant maximising shareholder value, climbing a predictable ladder, and wearing an impressive title like armour to earn the respect of others.

It sounds absurd to say it out loud now, but at the time, it was the very air we breathed. If you picked a conventional path, you were celebrated; if you looked elsewhere, you were viewed with polite concern. I bought into it… only because the alternative made me feel incredibly insecure.

This happened because I sought my confidence from labels and markers others had made up.

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The illusion of prestige as safety

The competition wasn’t just about securing employment, that’s low hanging fruit. It was about securing legibility. The ideal career path had to be easily explained over a family dinner or on a LinkedIn update. It meant working in a glass tower, occupying a defined slot in a massive hierarchy, and relying on a corporate brand name as proof of your personal worth.

I was terrified that people would judge or misread me if I didn’t do just that. And frankly speaking, I craved that easy validation.

Yet, every single instinct in my body resisted it. It simply felt off.

That is the strangest part of growing up inside a highly efficient system: you can inherit a dream before you even check if you want the reality of it!

You chase a label for its stability, all while ignoring the quiet internal voice telling you it doesn’t fit.

The breaking point: A question in a counselling office

As I was about to wrap up my third year of university, the pressure cooked into something unsustainable. I was panicking, trying to force myself into a mould I could not actually live inside. And then, the general illusion finally broke.

I realised that entering a business degree wasn’t an independent decision I had made on my own accord. I had chosen it because the script demanded I look impressive to someone else. I wanted that validation so badly – but I wasn’t getting it. The cracks were showing, the anxiety was mounting, and I was left staring at my future thinking, “Okay... now what?”

At 26, I can see how dramatic this sounds. But at 20, it felt unbearably heavy.

I found myself sitting in a counselling session one day, completely overwhelmed by the crushing weight of the stress, trying to contemplate what to do with my life. I just needed to hear different words from a stranger. The counsellor looked at me and asked a question that completely rewired my perspective:

“If you spend your life doing what other people want you to do,

and following their advice,

when will you ever get around to living what you want to do?”

It struck a massive chord. It was a painful realisation: up to that exact point, I couldn’t honestly say that the majority of my major life decisions were informed by my own genuine thoughts. Years earlier, I had actually wanted to study humanities.

But what did the script say? Humanities aren’t practical. Humanities won’t get you the shiny corporate title. So, I had suppressed it.

This time, I refused to shut that voice down.

Against the explicit judgement of practically everybody around me, I decided to wrap up my university degree early. In the Singapore system, nobody willingly chooses to forgo their Honours year without a very serious reason. It is seen as academic sacrilege. But I walked away from it anyway.

In place of my Honours year, I enrolled in a one-year Illustration course.

Looking back, that singular, “unproductive” choice completely changed my brain chemistry. It was as if a lightbulb had finally been switched on in a dark room. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t executing a pre-written script.

I was actively giving myself permission to explore.

Breaking away from the linear narrative

That act of (lame) defiance was the catalyst. Huzzah!

Studying illustration cracked my world open. From there, I started freelancing, which eventually led to co-founding my own design agency. Running that agency exposed me to the raw, messy reality of creating value from scratch… handling clients, communication, and strategy. The good, the bad, the in-between.

That process of figuring out how to package raw experience eventually became the foundation for [The First Freelance Offer Kit].

But while the experience sharpened my skills, it also revealed a deeper urge. I wanted work that felt more human, direct, and collaborative. I wanted to move into teaching, facilitation, and learning development.

Only in retrospect does this journey look like a smooth, logical progression.

Reality:      Business Student ──> Illustration Course ──> Agency Owner ──> Facilitator

The Myth:     Junior Associate ──> Senior Manager ──> Director  ──> VP

Before I entered university, I expected a degree to settle my life.

Instead, stepping off the track brought me to a much healthier layer of questions:

• What kind of work actually makes me feel alive?

• Who do I want to become through the things I build?

• Why am I chasing a destination just because it looks good from the outside?

A title is a container! Not a life

As I continue to develop my portfolio career, corporate titles have lost the power they once held over me. I still understand the appeal of prestige; the social currency of a massive brand name on a CV is undeniable. Heck, even as I add projects to my stack, it’s natural to treasure more attractive sounding names.

But chasing it as a primary metric feels like chasing a ghost. Once you have the impressive title and the high-status LinkedIn headline, the core reality remains unchanged. You still have to wake up to the actual work…

We frequently mistake the container for the contents.

A corporate title is an excellent container, but if the life inside it feels entirely misaligned, the polish means nothing.

From judgment to self-honesty

The irony is that I used to internally judge people who stepped off the traditional track.

I assumed they lacked pragmatism, or that they weren’t taking life seriously enough to maximise their opportunities. I now see how narrow that worldview was.

A “proven path” is only logical if it leads to a destination you actually want to visit. Stability is only useful if it anchors a lifestyle that brings you peace.

If you suspect you are chasing a title for the wrong reasons, you don’t need to quit your job tomorrow. Instead, try separating the label from the life. Ask yourself these four foundational questions:

The Title Audit – Critical Reflections

• What is this title giving me?

  • Is it providing necessary income, structure, credibility, or genuine skill development?

• What is this title costing me?

  • Is it taking a toll on my curiosity, health, time, honesty, or creative freedom?

• What parts do I want to keep?

  • Is it the specific industry, the strategy work, the income level, or the human connection?

• What parts am I keeping just for show?

  • Am I staying purely because I am terrified of how I will explain my identity without this brand name?

What the work makes of you

The older I get, the less interested I am in how impressive a career sounds on paper, and the more obsessed I am with what the work does to the human being performing it.

We can spend decades ensuring our lives look perfect to the outside world, only to realise we forgot to build a life we actually want to live… And it’s still something I’m reminding myself of every day.

Job titles are functional tools. They are useful shorthand for corporate hierarchies, but they are entirely too small to hold the complexity of who you are.

I used to worship the corporate title. Now, I would much rather build a life that fits.

That is The Good Yield.

P.S. If you’re at Step Zero, I created [The First Freelance Offer Kit] to help you turn your existing skills into a testable offer.

It’s built for that exact moment when you know you have valuable experience, but you’re not sure how to package it or start putting it out there.

Get The Kit!

Melissa Foo is the writer behind The Good Yield, a publication about adaptive work, career pivots, freelancing, and building a resilient working life. She began as the founder and creative lead of her own design studio before moving into facilitation, education, design thinking, and portfolio work.

In Part 1, I talked about the difference between hourly pricing and project pricing, and why the right structure depends on the kind of work you do.

Once you understand the structure, the next question is usually:

Okay, so what do I actually charge?

This is where a lot of freelancers get stuck.

Some people pick a number based on what feels comfortable. Some people reverse-engineer it from their monthly expenses. Some people copy what they saw someone else charge online. Some people undercharge because they are scared of losing the client. Others overcorrect and pick a number that sounds confident, but does not really match the brief, market, or client context.

I do not think pricing should be random.

There is no perfect formula, but there should be reasoning.

Market Intelligence vs. Arbitrary Numbers

There is no single magic formula for determining your rates.

I would not calculate your price strictly based on your personal monthly expenses or a corporate salary equivalent. Your survival needs matter as a baseline, of course.

However, that alone should not dictate your market value.

You also need pricing intelligence.

Look at:

• other service providers within your niche;

• public rate cards, if they exist;

• LinkedIn and industry discussions;

• how people price based on experience;

• how people price based on qualifications;

• how people price based on project complexity;

• how people price based on audience size, deliverables, or outcomes.

You can even step into the shoes of a buyer and ask: if I were looking to buy this service, what would I expect to pay, and what would justify a higher fee?

This is not about copying someone else’s model. It is about expanding your commercial awareness! When you understand the landscape, you stop tossing out random numbers and you start making more informed business decisions.

And I think that is part of professional maturity. It is not just having the courage to charge more.

It is knowing why your price makes sense for that specific brief, client, and context.

Segmentation: Know Who You Are Pricing For

Something I do not see people talk about enough is segmentation.

Segmentation simply means categorising your buyers based on their operating realities. Different organisations operate under different constraints, and they value different outcomes.

A direct-to-consumer lifestyle brand may be more price-sensitive because their margins, growth stage, and budget structure are different. A large B2B company may have a very different budget, approval process, and perception of value.

A school, non-profit, SME, startup, agency, corporate, or government-linked organisation will not all approach pricing in the same way.

Pricing requires nuance and understanding.

You cannot assume every non-profit has no budget or every corporate has unlimited money. That is not the point. The point is to understand that the end user’s ecosystem affects the pricing conversation.

The same skill set can be priced differently depending on who it is for, what it helps them achieve, and how important the outcome is to them.

That is why pricing is not just about you. It is also about the client, the market, the need, the context, and the value of the work in that environment.

Dynamic Pricing: Let Your Rate Mature with The Market

We also need to step away from very rigid online advice that says, “Never lower your rates,” or “Never budge,” or “Charge your worth.”

I understand the intention behind it, but independent work requires pragmatism.

Pricing is, and should always be, dynamic.

You are not a fixed menu item floating in a vacuum. You are operating inside a living market! Economic landscapes shift and corporate budgets contract. Demand goes up and down. Seasons fluctuate! Your portfolio expands... and your positioning changes.

One of your greatest assets as a solo provider is flexibility.

Dynamic pricing does not mean being chaotic or randomly moving your numbers around based on your mood. It means watching the market with clear eyes.

You are paying attention to:

• what the market is willing to pay;

• what kind of clients you are currently serving;

• whether demand is high or low;

• whether the work is urgent or flexible;

• whether the project gives you experience, credibility, access, or a useful case study;

• whether the work takes more time, energy, or preparation than expected;

• whether your rate still reflects your current skill, positioning, and capacity.

In one season, you may intentionally price a project more accessibly because you want to break into a new sector, secure a strong case study, or build a relationship with an anchor client. In another season, your calendar may be full, demand may be higher, and your rates should reflect that.

Pricing should mature as you mature.

My General Rule of Thumb

If you need a simple framework to guide your next proposal, I would keep it to this:

1. If the work is on-site, time-blocked, or based on your live presence, use hourly or day rates.
   Your focused time and attention are the unit of exchange.

2. If the work is remote, output-driven, and has a clear brief, use project-based pricing.
   Protect your efficiency and charge for the outcome.

3. If the scope is clearly defined and the deliverables are fixed, use fixed pricing and sign it properly.
   Define the deliverables, revision rounds, timeline, payment terms, and what happens if the scope changes.

4. If the scope is vague, experimental, advisory-heavy, or likely to move, use hourly, day rate, retainer, or phased pricing.
   Do not trap yourself in a fixed price for a project that is obviously going to keep changing.

Expectation Management Over Numbers

For project-based work, always collect an upfront deposit. I would usually say 50% upfront for direct client engagements. For larger corporate contracts, you can structure this through milestone payments, but work should not begin without some form of financial commitment.

If you are billing hourly, outline the terms clearly in writing before you begin. And also be aware of when contractually, to expect payment.

State clearly:

• the hourly rate;

• the estimated total hour window, if applicable;

• invoicing cycles;

• cancellation terms;

• what happens if the project requirements expand;

• what is included and what is not included.

A lot of freelance problems are usually expectation problems dressed up as money problems.

My Personal Experience

When I ran my design agency, project-based pricing was the standard model. It made sense for that ecosystem because the deliverables were usually tangible: a brand guide, a pitch deck, a corporate publication, a brochure, a set of collaterals, or whatever the project required.

The price depended on clear variables: the number of assets, the number of pages or slides, the complexity of the work, the timeline, the revision rounds, and the kind of client.

Now, as my portfolio has moved more into facilitation, workshops, teaching, training, and portfolio-style engagements, the pricing structure has naturally shifted.

When I am booked to facilitate a group session, teach a class, run a workshop, or hold a room, my physical presence, active energy, and real-time guidance are the core value. My time is locked; so hourly rates, session blocks, and day rates make more sense for those parts of the work.

Your pricing model should always follow the nature of the work.

Real Advice for The Independent Path

Let’s be real: as a consumer, you have probably questioned the price of something before.

We all have internal markers of what things should cost based on our own context, experience, budget, and perception of value.

Clients and organisations do the same thing.

Sometimes their budgets are reasonable and sometimes they are completely out of touch. But I do not think it is helpful to treat every single pricing objection as a personal insult or an act of disrespect.

Of course, you need to hold your boundaries and walk away from low-value or toxic arrangements. But sometimes a pricing mismatch simply means the client’s budget cycle, project scope, or perception of value is not aligned with your business model.

That is just business.

As you build your career, your financial models will mature alongside your skills. You will get better at knowing when to charge by the clock, when to quote a project fee, when to package the work, when to use a retainer, when to use a day rate, and when to simply walk away.

Your pricing will mature as you mature. Your structure will change as your work changes… And honestly, it’s part of the freedom.

That is The Good Yield.

P.S. If you’re at Step Zero, I created [The First Freelance Offer Kit] to help you turn your existing skills into a testable offer.

It’s built for that exact moment when you know you have valuable experience, but you’re not sure how to package it or start putting it out there.

Get The Kit!

Melissa Foo is the writer behind The Good Yield, a publication about adaptive work, career pivots, freelancing, and building a resilient working life. She began as the founder and creative lead of her own design studio before moving into facilitation, education, design thinking, and portfolio work.

People always talk about hourly pricing versus project pricing as though there is one correct answer. The whole debate is actually a lot more practical than that.

The ultimate question is…

Which pricing structure actually serves the kind of work you do, the kind of client you serve, and the life you want to build?

Pricing is not just about numbers. It is about your comfort level, your market, your experience, your client type, your delivery style, and the general idea of how you want to structure your life. That is the part many people miss.

It is easy to talk about pricing in a highly theoretical way, but once you actually start freelancing, you realise very quickly that pricing affects everything.

Pricing can decide whether something feels contained, and sustainable, or whether it quietly turns into one of those endless engagements where you are constantly doing more than what you originally agreed to.

Before we even talk about what to charge, it helps to first understand the structure you are choosing.

The Basic Difference

There are many ways to quote or price your work, but the two most common pillars are:

• Hourly pricing means you decide what your rate is per hour, and the client pays according to the number of hours worked or physically blocked for them.

• Project pricing means you quote a fixed price for a defined scope of work, based on the type of project, the deliverables, the terms, and the value of what is being created.

Neither is automatically superior.

Some freelancers have a clear service menu with fixed prices attached. Others choose to keep their offers private and price entirely based on each enquiry. Some work on retainers, monthly hour blocks, credits, day rates, or session blocks.

Pricing is not a clean, static formula you copy and paste forever. It ultimately is your call, based on your working relationships.

1. Project-based Pricing

Project-based pricing is what most people point to when they discuss high-value, outcome-driven freelance work. You are not charging purely for the clock; you are charging for a defined outcome, a deliverable, or a transformation.

The core premise: this is the project, this is the scope, this is the value of the work, and this is the fixed price.

This model works especially well when the work has a clear beginning, middle, and end.

For example: a brand identity, a website, a pitch deck, a publication, a strategy document, a campaign concept, a set of templates, a workshop design, or a clearly scoped deliverable.

Pros of project-based pricing

• You can usually price higher.
  Because you are not tying your effort directly to time, you can price based on your expertise, the complexity of the scope, the deliverables, and what the work allows the client to do.

• You can set the tone of the engagement from the start.
  A project quote allows you to define what is included, what is excluded, the timeline, the number of revision rounds, and how the engagement should move.

• There are more packaging and upselling opportunities.
  You can present tiered options, add-ons, or optional extensions depending on what the client needs.

• You are not punished for being fast and efficient.
  If you can complete a high-quality deliverable quickly because you have experience, templates, systems, or a sharper process, you do not earn less just because you are fast.

• You can protect your project margin.
  When your process is strong and the scope is controlled, project pricing can offer healthier margins than hourly work.

• You get more control over your schedule.
  For remote, output-based assignments, you can manage your own time as long as you hit the agreed milestones.

• You can create a clear payment schedule.
  For example, a 50% upfront deposit, a milestone payment, and a final completion fee.

Cons of project-based pricing

• Value can be subjective.
  What feels like a reasonable investment to you may feel expensive to a client who does not understand the thinking, experience, and labour involved. Then, it’s on you to sell that value effectively, which can be a mammoth task.

• Approval may take a longer time.
  Depending on your client, you may be subject to procurement policies that require multiple decision makers to sign off on the pricing.

• Expectations can differ.
  You may assume the project involves one clear scope, while the client assumes it includes a dozen other “small” requests, or extra service touches.

• There is the “infinite changes” trap.
  Some clients assume a fixed price means endless revisions unless your terms clearly state otherwise. Even so, there is a tendency to ‘nudge’, it is on you to hold your ground.

• Timelines can stretch.
  If feedback gets delayed, stakeholders multiply, or approvals stall, a project can drag on much longer than expected. This is something people don’t mention and it’s not in your control.

• You may underestimate the actual labour.
  People love saying project pricing means you can finish something quickly and still get paid the full amount. And yes, in a best-case scenario, that is true. But in real life, scopes can shift, feedback can drag, and your calculated hourly average can drop very quickly.

• You need strong scope control.
  If you do not define what is included and what is not, project pricing can turn messy very fast.

Project pricing is powerful, but only if you have proper scope, proper boundaries, proper terms, and a very clear idea of what the engagement actually includes.

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2. Hourly Pricing

Hourly pricing is more straightforward. You establish your rate per hour, and the client pays for the time worked or the time blocked out on your calendar.

This works especially well for ongoing, roster-based, on-site, consulting, teaching, or facilitation-heavy engagements.

The core premise: this is my time, this is my rate, and this is the number of hours required.

Hourly pricing is often dismissed online because people associate it with “trading time for money.”

And yes, there is some truth to that, but that does not automatically make hourly pricing bad.

For certain kinds of work, hourly or day rates are actually the cleanest and most sensible structure.

If your value depends on your live presence, real-time guidance, physical attendance, or active delivery, then time is not just a random unit, it’s part of the work.

Pros of hourly pricing

• It is simple to calculate and track.
  There is a clear unit of measurement. If you work more hours, you charge more hours.

• It is easy for clients to understand.
  Sometimes clients do not need a complex package. They just need to know your hourly cost, how many hours they need, and what can be done within that time.

• It works well for rostered or face-to-face work.
  If you are booked for training, teaching, facilitation, or live sessions, your physical presence is part of the value. Hourly or day rates track this clearly.

• Scope expansion is easier to manage.
  If a client expands the brief, you do not always need to renegotiate a whole new project fee. You can simply add the additional hours.

• There are natural calendar boundaries.
  If a client books you from 9am to 12pm, that is the agreed time block. Anything beyond that can be treated as additional time, and the client knows that additional hours, means additional costs.

• It gives schedule predictability.
  Hourly, session, or day rates can help you map out your week, your capacity, and your rest more clearly. This is great when you are also running multiple projects in your own spare time.

• Reduced mental load.
  When the time block is over, the work is over. You do not need to hold or carry the project around with you after the block is done.

Cons of hourly pricing

• You may need to time-track.
  This is especially true if you are working directly with a client and charging based on actual time worked.

• You are still trading time for money.
  There is a physical ceiling because there are only so many hours in a day.

• It can penalise speed and mastery.
  As you become better and faster, you may technically get paid less for the same deliverable unless you keep raising your hourly rate.

• There are hidden time costs.
  For on-site roles, a three-hour delivery window may actually take five or six hours once you include travel, setup, waiting, packing, and buffer time.

• Preparation time needs to be accounted for.
  If the client only pays for delivery hours but the work requires research, customisation, materials, or extensive planning, your actual take-home rate drops unless you build that into the quote.

• Recovery time matters.
  For facilitation, teaching, training, or people-facing work, the time spent delivering is not always the only energy cost.

• A blocked schedule has opportunity cost.
  Saying yes to one time block means saying no to another opportunity during that same window.

Hourly pricing is not bad. It is just a different structure. It gives clarity, but it also has a ceiling. Project pricing gives flexibility and margin, but it requires stronger scope control.

Quick Comparison

• Project-Based Pricing

  • Best for: Clear outcomes, remote delivery, defined deliverables, fixed scope, and output-based work.

  • Main risk: Scope creep, delayed feedback, extra stakeholders, and long timelines eating into your margin.

• Hourly / Day Rate

  • Best for: On-site work, live facilitation, teaching, consulting, rostered work, advisory support, and shifting briefs.

  • Main risk: Capped earning potential, hidden prep time, travel time, recovery time, and calendar limits.

So, Which One Should You Choose?

It all depends on which structure best matches the nature of your work.

If the work depends heavily on live presence, time blocks, on-site delivery, teaching, facilitation, consulting, or ongoing support – hourly rates, day rates, or session blocks may serve you better. Your focused time and attention are the unit of exchange.

If the work is remote, output-based, clearly scoped, and tied to a defined deliverable – project pricing may give you more margin, flexibility, and control. Your outcome is the unit of exchange.

If the scope is clearly defined and the deliverables are fixed, use fixed pricing and document it properly. Define the deliverables, revision rounds, timeline, payment terms, and what happens if the scope changes.

If the scope is vague, experimental, advisory-heavy, or likely to move, use hourly pricing, a day rate, a retainer, or phased pricing. Do not trap yourself in a fixed price for a project that is obviously going to keep changing.

The goal is to pick the pricing structure that protects the work, protects your energy, makes sense to the client, and supports the kind of working life you are actually trying to build.

That is The Good Yield.

In Part 2, I’ll go deeper into the next question: once you understand the structure, how do you actually decide what to charge?

P.S. If you’re at Step Zero, I created [The First Freelance Offer Kit] to help you turn your existing skills into a testable offer.

It’s built for that exact moment when you know you have valuable experience, but you’re not sure how to package it or start putting it out there.

Get The Kit!

Melissa Foo is the writer behind The Good Yield, a publication about adaptive work, career pivots, freelancing, and building a resilient working life. She began as the founder and creative lead of her own design studio before moving into facilitation, education, design thinking, and portfolio work.

It’s called Substack Creators Club.

NOT an engagement group or a subscribe-for-subscribe thing, and not a place to dump links and disappear.

Just a simple Facebook group to connect, share what we’re working on, read each other’s thoughts, and not build in isolation.

You can join here: The Substack Creators Club

Cheers,
Melissa
The Good Yield