As you heard me mentioned at the very beginning of this course, rule number one as a freelancer, never call yourself a freelancer, because unfortunately, many people associate Freelancer with just a flake ad or some flaky person. They like to sit around the beach and you know, every once in a while they'll walk a dog on a freelance basis or do a manicure on a freelance basis. I can just pay them 25 bucks if I decide to use them. That's what you don't want to be seen as. And that's why this whole section on how to be professional is so important. You want to battle this perception the client or the prospect might have with you you don't want them to put you in the category of flake because flaky people, no one feels bad about standing them up because the flaky person stands us up.
No one feels bad about being late for the flaky person because the flaky person is always late. So you don't want to be seen as a flight. Now, I apologize here, I want to say, very upfront, I realize that there is sexism in the world, there's racism in the world, there's discrimination against different people of all sorts of religions and cultures. And based on where I am, I'm the beneficiary of that, not just historically, but specifically, I've benefited from it and life is unfair. And I get that. And sometimes, people can dismiss you saying you're not professional and really, they might not like something that you can't change race color, ethnicity, I understand that.
What I am suggesting is you don't have to do anything to make it easier for someone to scratch you off the list. Certainly all those discriminatory behaviors can exist in the world today, but so many people in the world they just want a specific story. Service done. And they may want it done in an hour or two hours or one week, they're not looking for a new best friend. They're not looking for someone to marry. They're not looking for someone that they're going to sit next to every day for the rest of their life.
They want a specific service done as quickly as possible, as painlessly as possible, as professionally as possible. And if you can do that, and you've shown your professional and you're not flaky, and you really aren't qualified, they'll quite often ignore all those other things, and focus on the fact that you are the best fit for them. So be professional in everything you do. I know it sounds generic and amorphous, but it really does come down to a lot of the specific things mentioned in this section.