Just because freelancers can work any time doesn’t mean that’s what they’ll do. A lot of freelancers take off for the holidays. If you’re not one of them, that increases your value.

Availability is an asset to freelance clients, but many of them don’t realize that until it’s too late. If you’re willing to work through the holidays, make that a selling point and it could help you get hired.

How Holiday Availability Can Affect Clients

The long Thanksgiving weekend was an eye-opener for one of my clients. The company hadn’t prepared for the number of freelancers who would turn off their computers Tuesday or Wednesday and not return to work until the following Monday.

At the beginning of the week, they had some rush jobs that they struggled to get covered. And they really faced a rude awakening for expecting that they would have enough freelancers on-hand to cover a full workload at the end of the week.

Although much of their in-house staff was taking long weekends, it apparently hadn’t occurred to them to that freelancers would do the same.

But many did.

It resulted in a backlog for everyone. And it took the company over a week to get that train wreck back on track.

The burn was so bad the company called a meeting where we hashed out a new system for assigning and confirming assignments. Not just for the holidays, but overall.

And, they also begged us to forward our Christmas and New Year’s availability asap.

I’ll bet you if that company was to run an ad right now for freelancers, anyone who claimed to work during the holidays, would rise to the top of the list.

I’ll bet you the same is true for other companies who haven’t considered how the holidays will affect freelancers’ availability.

Be proactive and mention it when you respond to freelance job ads or market your services. It’s something that I’ve been doing for years, especially around any holidays. Because it’s one of those little things that can make a big difference.

Also Read: How Holidays Could Affect Your Payments