Asking to Be Paid Isn't the Awkward Part

Creative Highlight - Anita Austvika

We are the only ones responsible for how we respond to our own experiences, at the end of the day.

That's something I work on coming back to, especially when something stirs up frustration I wasn't expecting.

Recently, a situation resurfaced that is worth talking about — not because it was dramatic, but because I understand a lot of creatives, agents, and freelancers of every kind have lived a version of it.

Someone I know, who also works in the creative industry, asked me for a contact. Specifically, a photographer. They wanted the introduction, no strings attached.

Here's the thing about being an agent that people don't always think about: there's no salary. No payroll. No steady paycheck that shows up regardless of what gets booked. An agent's income comes entirely from commission — a percentage included on top of the work they support creating. The relationships, the vetting, the years of trust-building that make a referral valuable in the first place — that is the business.

When I was asked to hand over a vetted contact for free, I didn't say no. I said yes — with terms. I'd make the introduction, and if the project moved forward, my fee would be built into what was billed by the photographer, the same way it always is.

What happened next is something I've seen play out more times than I'd like to admit: the job was confirmed, but the agency fee never made it into the final invoice. When I followed up, the response was, essentially, “bill the client directly.” Which would have meant going back to a client with an already tight budget and asking for another 20% — after the fact, with no context, no warning, and no ground to stand on.

And here's the part that made it harder to sit with: the client wasn't a stranger. It was someone I'd see regularly. So there was this quiet calculation happening — do I push for what I'm owed, or do I let it go to keep things comfortable?

A lot of us know that calculation. And I know a lot of us choose comfort more often than we choose what we deserve.

But here's what I keep coming back to: asking to be paid for a service you provide isn't an imposition. It's not awkward, or greedy, or something to apologize for. It's the same principle whether you're an agent, a stylist, a photographer, a consultant, or a plumber. If your knowledge, your time, or your relationships are part of what made something possible, that has value. Naming that value out loud shouldn't require justifying your existence.

Somewhere along the way, a lot of us absorbed the idea that asking for fair payment makes us difficult — or that it will be received that way. So we wait for the email back, or these days, no email at all, cringing on the sidelines for a response to something we had the right to ask for. A lot of that comes from previous experience. And from it, some plant the belief: that being easy to work with means being easy to take from. It doesn't. It just means our value we bring gets quietly written out of the story.

I don't have a tidy resolution to this one. I made a choice, and I've sat with it longer than I expected to. But if there's a lesson in it, it's this: the discomfort of asking to be paid fairly is temporary. The discomfort of not asking tends to stick around a lot longer.

If you've been in a version of this — where saying what you're worth felt harder than it should have — I'd genuinely love to hear how you handled it.