I was surfing the net the other day and came on this post on the Business Ethics blog. For those who don’t follow links the article’s about how sometimes you need to turn work down in order to be successful. It’s a good and important idea, but the author didn’t really go into all the specifics and I thought it would be a good idea to do just that.

So, how do you know when to say no to a job and when to say yes?

There are a few factors to consider: not least being can you do this job?

If you can’t do the job, then you’re doing nobody any good by applying for it. You’re wasting your time and the buyer’s and building up a bad reputation in the doing. Everyone loses. Since that’s just common sense, I’m not going to spend any more time on it.

So why should you say no to a job you can do?

The two biggest reasons I can think of are either you’re too busy, or there’s not enough pay. Lack of pay is an easy reason to understand for giving up a job, but what about being too busy? That one’s usually harder to admit to. You always want to say yes you can do just one more task. Sometimes you really do have to resist the temptation, because it won’t do you any good.

Let’s go through the scenario. You’ve got all the work you can comfortably handle and someone comes to you with another job doing something you like for a decent amount of money. You really want to do it, so you say yes. After all, where’s the harm? It’s a valid question.

The harm comes when you realize you don’t have enough time to do all your jobs up to your usual standard. Now you’ve got two choices, neither of them very good. You can either delay one job and turn it in late, but at least you’re doing a good job, or you can do all of them on time but they’ll be rush jobs and it will show. Neither option shows you in a good light and both of them are going to hurt you further on.

If you do hand something in late, that means this buyer’s not going to consider you for anything that’s time sensitive. There are enough freelancers out there that if you can’t deliver on time, they’ll just go to someone who can. You might get some work out of them, but not much.

That’s the better result, there are worse ones.

Let’s say you get everything done, but it’s error riddled and not up to your standards. This isn’t going to help anyone. Your buyers will all be angry and you’ll get a nice load of feedback which will reflect their satisfaction (and lack thereof). Right then and there you’ve cost yourself future jobs, not only from your current employers, but also from people who choose not to hire you because of this feedback. It’s not worth it.

This is something we’ve been hammering from day one.

You are your reputation.

Let me repeat that.

You are your reputation.

We’re dealing with remote work, so nobody knows anyone else except by their job history and what other people say about it. They know what happened, not why. The truth is they probably don’t care why either. It’s not their business, nor is it their problem. They need results. They need to see what you’re capable of doing and that it matches with what you say.

That’s why it’s so important to not over-promise yourself.

Whenever you’re offered a new job do take the time to consider whether the benefit of taking it is worth the cost. It isn’t always.

Say no when you have to.

Sometimes it really is the right choice.

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