I am writing this blog-post for people who love what they do and are getting well paid for it. When starting out to sell a skill that you love, it’s fun. You will take every chance that comes your way to perfect it. You will be less picky when offered an opportunity. The experience will be even sweeter when an opportunity is bundled with a good pay.

While you love what you are doing, you have values that matter to you. What believes do you hold dear to you?

With this said, will you take all the jobs you are offered if they are well paying and you are applying the skills you treasure most? They answer is absolutely yes. Now, this is where the catch lies. It will take you time to figure it out.

Of-course, any person who is morally upright, will never take a job that bridges on values irrespective of how sweet the offer is.i.e Producing Pornography videos.

Most of the jobs in this category are well paying because very few people will want to be associated with them. So, does this mean you are free to take any work so long as its not pornography? Well, the answer varies from one person to the other.

In this blog-post, I will highlight a couple of things that will make one give in to temptations to take a job that is promoting illegal and unscrupulous business.

Talk of good sales people selling snake oil. In this context, the content you are producing are used to sell snake oil- a product that does not exist.

You are only a Designer/Video Editor

The client will by all means, while requesting for your service avoid mentioning the kind of service that he/she is offering. He will clearly outline the skills he/she is looking for as well as share an example of the design or video they want emulated.

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Videographer at work. Photo by Kyle Loftus on Pexels.com

In most occasions, there will be nothing in the picture that will say they are planning to use it to sell “Snake oil’ to the unsuspecting people.

Going by how they are organized and convincing, how well they are paying, you cannot help but do the job. While doing the job, you will be tempted to do research on the product online to see if it exist.

In most occasions, it may or may not be existing. On the other hand, evidence of the product working might not be there despite the script claiming that is being used by thousands of people.

And as a designer or editor, you are like, why does that matter to me anyway, after all, I was not assigned to research on it!

You Receive an Offer At Your Lowest Moments

Everyone have their low and high moments in life. During this time of Covid-19, Freelancers pray that some business luck comes their way because they depend on gigs and direct business offers to prosper. If none of these are forthcoming, they are doomed. In this time, offers that does not align with your values come your way.

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Customers walking in the mall. Photo by Artem Beliaikin on Pexels.com

For instance, if you value privacy, and a client offers you a job to create a video or graphic for a product that promote hacking peoples private information for a good pay, will you take it?. Of-course you will. And then, you promise yourself not to do it again once you complete the job. In your heart, you are taking it because of the situation you are in.

You Are Just Facilitating

Most freelancers who have been in the business for a long period of time own agencies. When one owns an agency, they can accommodate lots of projects. In most occasions, when you own an agency, you are not directly involved in editing or producing a project, you just facilitate.

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Work space in an Agency. Photo by Cadeau Maestro on Pexels.com

So, as long as the financial bit is good, and as long as it is not pornography, most agencies will take the job-unless your agency is involved in producing adult content. And as an agency manager, you will be assigning the work to your assistant editors.

It will take a while before the agency manager/Lead Freelancer realizes that he/she is accommodating a project that is going against his/her values.

Conclusion

While there are more things that will blind an agency manager from seeing that the project they have just accepted is going against their believes and values, it’s always very crucial to maintain your stand as a leader. Have the discipline of counter checking projects first before accepting.

This way, you will be growing knowing that you are taking in contracts that are adding value to the users and are aligned to your values.

That’s where joy lies. When you get paid knowing that you have added value or created promotional item for a valuable product are happy and look forward to more.

And that is it from me. Until next time, take care.

“Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.”

 Albert Einstein

Follow me on twitter @cheptiony.

Need help with video editing or hiring freelancers? Contact me here.

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