Freelancefolder

21 Times for a Freelancer to Say “No”

Posted February 10, 2012 in Managing Clients

The ability to say “no” is vital to freelancers. While there are many good freelancing opportunities out there, there are also many bad gigs that every freelancer should turn down.

Sadly, I read about a freelancer trapped working for a bad client on social media nearly every day. But, we freelancers often accept jobs that we really shouldn’t take. We need to learn to say “no.”

In this post, I list twenty-one situations where a freelancer might need to say “no” to a prospective client. I also provide a sample response (as well as some discussion) for each situation. At the end of the post, add your own tips on how to say “no.”

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Do You Make These 5 Common Negotiating Mistakes?

Posted January 16, 2012 in How-To, Managing Clients

Negotiations are key for successful freelancers. Nearly every project starts with negotiations (or if it doesn’t, it should). Freelancers who can’t negotiate a profitable deal are at risk for losing money, or even worse, going out of business.

So, it stands to reason that negotiating skills are also important. In this post, I identify five common negotiating mistakes that freelancers often make. Read the post to make certain that you’re not guilty of making any of these errors yourself.

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7 Warning Signs That You Are About to Lose a Client

Posted January 9, 2012 in Managing Clients

Long-term clients are great for a freelancer’s bottom line. There’s nothing quite like knowing that you have a six-month or even a year contract for the foreseeable future.

It should come as no surprise, then, that losing a long-term client can be traumatic for a freelancer and devastating to a freelancing business. Losing a client that you were counting on for regular work can take many of us from feast to famine in no time.

In this post, I list some of the most common reasons why freelancers lose clients. You can use these reasons to help determine if you are about to lose a client. Also, I invite readers to share their own advice and experiences about losing (and retaining) clients.

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25 Tips for Avoiding Communication Problems

Posted December 9, 2011 in How-To, Managing Clients

Miscommunication is a huge obstacle to building a successful relationship. And, since freelancer/client trust is based on relationship–miscommunication can be a huge problem for freelancers.

Nearly every freelancer eventually faces a communication problem with a client. Even those of us who specialize in clear communication sometimes have problems.

In this post, I’ll describe some steps that every freelancer can take to avoid miscommunication.

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What Hoops Will You Jump Through for Your Clients?

Posted December 2, 2011 in Freelance Stories, Managing Clients

We freelancers go to great lengths to keep our clients happy. After all, we want to be known for providing excellent customer service. So we usually do our best to meet client requests–even that means jumping through some hoops to keep the client satisfied.

However, some customer requests are just plain unreasonable. This post describes some “hoops” that aren’t worth jumping through–even to make a client happy.

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First-Class Service: How to Spot What Clients Really Need

Posted December 1, 2011 in Managing Clients

Miscommunication is a peril that we have to work to avoid in our daily lives not just as freelancers, but as people. Often you may think you’ve successfully communicated with someone and understood what it is that they want or expect and it is not until much later on that you realize what they said and what they really want are not one and the same.

Maybe you have experienced this with a client while setting up plans for a project or service. It’s possible that at the time you felt the communication about what you are going to do and provide went well and that the communication was very open and successful.

Because of this you were even more frustrated and surprised later on while touching base about the progress of the plans to find the client unsatisfied. What went wrong?

Often it is a problem with the client’s expression of what they want, his or her visualization of their idea, the client’s understanding of the logistics of what is possible and of your field of work, or maybe a combination of all three.

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All About Deadlines

Posted November 23, 2011 in How-To, Managing Clients

Probably nothing else in the freelancing experience creates as much stress as deadlines.

If a freelancer tells you they are up against a deadline, then you know that it’s time to back off and give them some space so that they can get your work done.

We all have deadlines, but we rarely talk about them. Yet, there’s quite a lot to talk about.

In this post, we’ll look at deadlines from various angles including types of deadlines, how to negotiate a better deadline, how meet your deadlines, and what to do if you miss a deadline. I hope you’ll also chip in with your own experiences and tips about deadlines.

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Get Inside Your Client’s Mind

Posted November 22, 2011 in Managing Clients

Wouldn’t freelancing be so much easier if we could read our clients’ minds?

Then we wouldn’t need to hem and haw about our quotations, worrying if our fees are too high or that our clients can’t afford them. Or too low so that we look like sub-par freelancers.

Neither would we second-guess our work, wasting precious minutes and energy wondering if it’s good enough.

If we could read our clients’ minds we would know what to say so every project proposal we submit gets approved.

Every project we complete would be a huge success, and our clients would thank us for changing their lives forever.

Unfortunately, all this is not possible all the time. But we can get pretty close. With a little extra effort, freelancers can get a clearer understanding of our clients’ needs, problems, and desires–so our work can go as smoothly as possible.

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The Freelancer’s Holiday and Year-end Dilemmas Revisited

Posted November 18, 2011 in Lifestyle, Managing Clients

The holiday season should be a time of happiness and joy, but for many freelancers the holiday season brings with it some freelancing dilemmas.

If you’ve freelanced through a holiday season before, you may already be asking yourself, “what am I going to do about the holidays this year?” That’s right. It’s that time of the year! We’ve reached another year-end. (I hope your freelancing business did well this year.)

I’ve written about this topic before, but these problems are real, so the topic is worth revisiting.

Even freelancers who don’t normally celebrate at this time of the year are affected by the year-end activities. In this post, I’ll discuss seven dilemmas that freelancers face during the holiday season.

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