Just these past few weeks I got a number of job offers, but they’re either not just a match for me or they ask me to exclusively work for them as their company’s SEO specialist.
I know I can just lie and say “yes, I’ll work for you full-time and only you” even if I’m not, but I want to stay honest and true to my clients. I don’t like lying, and every time you lie you need to find an excuse on every loophole which can be frustrating if you’re working.
As a SEO specialist for almost 7 years now, it’s not practical for me to just work exclusively for someone when I can get more, and here are my reasons why.
WORKING HOURS
Majority of these companies who wish to hire me have working hours, and since majority of them are from the US, UK, or Australia it will be a graveyard shift for my side here in the Philippines. And as someone who have friends working as a call center agent and working on those kinds of shift, and a sister in the medical field, I didn’t want to risk my health.Plus, the pay is not different if I work day time or on flexible hours.
TRACKER
Since they usually have working hours, or even if you can work on flexible hours, they want to ensure that you’re actually working on their website(s) on the said number of hours they want you to work for them.When I started working online, I was working for a company with working hours, with tracker, and paid hourly. With that I develop a really bad habit of checking the time every 30 minutes. Can you just imagine me out with friends? Looking like in a hurry or need to go somewhere. Since then, I reject the jobs that wants time tracker.
PAY YOU FIXED RATE
These people pay your entire knowledge and skills all at once, so you must provide your salary not just as a SEO if they want to take advantage of your other skills. The problem is, if you give a higher rate, and because their mindset is that Filipino’s work cheap, they won’t go for your rate. They want one job scope rate, for a big job scope.If you’ll be able to clarify your job scope, and got a fix rate only for that. That’s good, but as someone who’s working online, is that practical to be just working and getting the source of income from one?
GET MORE, EARN MORE
With my current arrangements with my existing client(s) I charge per website. I can work on each website equivalent to full-time and part-time, if I have more than 2 clients I usually just ask someone to write the tasks that takes a lot of my time. With this, I can get more websites, more clients, more income. But don’t get me wrong, I do control the number of websites I accept to keep the quality of service I provide.FIRE YOU ANYTIME
I think this is the main reason why I don’t like to exclusively work for someone.As someone who have 99% of my clients outside from the Philippines, they can totally fire me anytime. Even with a contract. Yes, I can go after them. But it would cost me more to go after them, than just getting another job.
Imagine if I only work for someone for a Php20,000/month job where I am able to pay my expenses – groceries, bills, and savings. Do you think if they’ll fire me I could easily get another client? No.
Clients are not always there, not all clients are a match for me. So just to be practical I always have another client on the side just in case the other wants to quit.
Funny thing is, some clients wants you to take care of their 5 websites for a price of 1. If they’re a SEO company, they’re either just want to get rich and get more out of you, or they just don’t know that we here in the Philippines is not that cheap.
As of the moment I accept by project, I charge per website, per month. Not all wants this kind of arrangement, but a client or employer who thinks about their employee and not that greedy are totally cool with this kind of arrangement. And all of my clients are super cool!