Getting compared with peers rather than amateurs is a major step toward being appreciated.
It should be easy to do, but it’s not. As experts, we have the collective misfortune of, trying to sell the value of our services to clients who, by and large, have little to no idea about our area of work.
And because they don’t know much about it, they are also blissfully unaware of the challenges, nuances, or complexities within it. For example, only someone who has never translated much in their life would utter a sentence like “Why do translators still get work when there’s Google Translate available for free?”
On the other hand, people who know enough about our work to appreciate our value tend to know enough about it to also have no need to hire us – our peers, colleagues, competitors, etc.
I call that the expert’s paradox. Only people who need us are those that are practically blind to the value of our work.
Of course, there are ways to communicate properly and unveil enough value that even amateurish clients can see the difference between trusting you and trusting some guy on Fiverr.