How competitive is freelancing, truly?

In the event that you and I are both oral specialists, and Ahmed needs his shrewdness teeth pulled, just a single of us can get his business. The other one is in a tough situation.    

In other words oral medical procedure is a competitive business.    

Freelancing is different. It's sort of mystical.    

In freelancing you and I can both win. Actually when one of us wins it turns out to be more probable the other one will wind up winning.  Furthermore, that we'll bring numerous a greater amount of our "rivals" curious to see what happens, as well.   

One of the reasons for this is that when a client hires a freelancer, any freelancer, and that freelancer does a good job, the result is that the client now needs more freelancers.   

Think about a client hiring someone to make a website for their business. Now they require someone to write for it, someone to enable them to promote it, someone to enable them to get found on Google, and more.    

On the off chance that every one of them did a great job, soon the client may require help with customer service, sales, product development, legal, accounting, virtual assistance, video production, and much much more.    Another reason why freelancing competition is largely an illusion has to do with the trajectory of your most successful and talented competitors - you know, the ones you're most worried about…   

It turns out there's nothing to worry about because those people are almost always too busy to actually compete with you. If you were a client on Upwork, you’d see that the top freelancers seldom apply to your jobs because they already have as many clients as they can handle.   

Here's another thing you might never have considered: Successful freelancers often build their freelancing business into an agency - meaning they have so much work on their plate that they now hire freelancers to help them with all of it. That means that you can get hired, and paid, by your own “competition.”    

Even if they don't start an agency, good freelancers will end up giving clients away to other freelancers. They might do it because they're too busy with their existing clients, or they may do it because a client just isn't a perfect fit for them (keep in mind, successful freelancers can be extremely selective because getting new clients is as simple as drawing in a breath of air). I’ve personally referred hundreds of dollars worth of freelancing business to my “competitors” — probably much more than that, honestly.   

Next time you think you need to worry about how competitive freelancing is, maybe you'll think again, and remember that it's just a trick your mind plays on you.   

Here's the reframe: When a freelancer does a good job, they're not taking a piece of the pie off the table in a way that prevents someone like you from having a slice…    

They're making the overall pie bigger, giving you a better chance at getting some, and a better chance at getting more than you otherwise might have.  

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