🚩 Red Flag Bingo · Six-Figure Freelancers

Nick Bandy

7d • General discussion

🚩 Red Flag Bingo

Every one of you has a client you should have run from.

You saw it. You felt it in your gut. And you took the job anyway, because rent is a real thing that exists.

Here's the one time I actually listened.

Guy reaches out on Upwork. Real name, real photo, real-looking company behind him. Good gig, too.

Then, pretty early on:

"Let's move this off Upwork — no sense in both of us paying their fees."

Which, fine. Normal people float that. But something was off and I could not have told you what.

So I looked him up on LinkedIn. Profile was right there. Same name. Same face.

Still felt wrong.

So I messaged that guy on LinkedIn and asked if he was hiring writers on Upwork.

👉 He said that isn't me.

Somebody had taken a real person's name and photo and was out there hiring freelancers with it.

The flag was never the off-platform ask.

The flag was the feeling I almost talked myself out of.

So let's play a game.

Here's the board. 👇

🚩 "This should be a quick one."

🚩 "We're looking for a long-term partner." (On a $150 one-off.)

🚩 "Send over a few ideas and then we'll talk budget."

🚩 "Our last writer kind of just... disappeared." (So did the two before her.)

🚩 "What's your best price?" — asked before anyone has mentioned scope

🚩 "It's basically done. We just need someone to polish it."

🚩 "We're like a family here."

🚩 "This probably won't pay much, but the exposure is great."

🚩 "Just a few small tweaks." — round nine

🚩 "I'm not very technical." — proceeds to rewrite all of your copy

🚩 "Can you hop on a quick call?" — ninety minutes, no agenda, three people who said nothing

🚩 "My budget is flexible for the right person." — the budget is $200

🚩 "We need this Monday." — sends you the brand guidelines Friday at 6:47pm

🚩 "Our CEO wants to weigh in." — CEO has not read it, will not read it, will have notes

Alright.

👉 How many did you get? Drop your number.

Now...

❓ WHAT DID I MISS?

Every one of you has one I didn't put on there. The specific line. The exact words that made the hair on your arms stand up — and that you ignored anyway.

Give me the line. Give me what happened after.

The best ones go into the official SFF Red Flag Dictionary and get pinned in here, with credit, so the next SIXer who hears it knows exactly what they're looking at.

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🚩 Red Flag Bingo