About Tire-Kickers and Other Bad Clients
Posted September 23, 2012 in Managing Clients
“What is your real price?”
I had just responded to an inquiry about my writing services. The above comment was in response to my reply, but that wasn’t all.
The person sending the email was mad. He went on to scold me for daring to quote a living rate. He included his version of the “market” rate (less than 1/10th of what I had quoted). Then he stated that he should get a volume discount on top of that.
Some “clients” just aren’t worth dealing with. This was one of those.
Unfortunately, there are some bad clients who basically want to take advantage of freelancers. They hope that you’re too new, or too desperate for work, to say “no.”
Most freelancers struggle to identify bad clients and tire-kickers so they can avoid working with them. But telling a bad client from a good one isn’t always easy. Sometimes a client seems above board, and then everything starts to go wrong. In this post, I’ll identify some tip-offs that usually mean you’re dealing with a bad client. Then I’ll spend some time talking about tire-kickers.
7 Essential Professional Decisions to Determine Your Success or Failure
Posted September 19, 2012 in Getting Started
What determines freelancing success or failure?
Of course, there are a lot of answers to that question. Maybe there are as many answers as there are freelancers…
However, I’ve come to believe that there are seven vital decisions freelancers make that play a significant role in future success or failure.
In this post, I’ve listed all seven essential professional decisions along with some suggestions about each one. At the end, I invite you to share how you’ve handled each decision.
Five Freelancing Projects to Embrace and Five to Avoid
Posted September 17, 2012 in Managing Clients
Have you ever regretted taking a freelancing project?
If you’re an experienced freelancer, you probably already know that there are freelancing projects out there that should be avoided. The sad fact is that there are some bad freelancing projects out there.
Happily, there are also some wonderful freelancing projects that any freelancer would benefit from accepting. In this post, I’ll list five examples of the wonderful type of freelancing project and five examples of freelancing projects you are better off without.
Get the Money That’s Due to You AND Still Keep Your Clients
Posted September 12, 2012 in How-To, Managing Clients
You’re about to discover how to face the one task that most freelancers probably dread–collecting a late payment.
When a client is late making a payment, it can set off a whole horrible negative train of thought starting with “I’m not going to be able to make my house payment/rent” and ending with “Did this client hate my work?”
But worse than the negative energy that a late payment creates is the very real fact that, like most freelancers, you rely on receiving your payments in a timely fashion so that you can live.
This is true, unless, of course:
- You’re independently wealthy and freelancing is your hobby.
- You live with mom and dad and freelancing provides your fun money.
If those two points apply to you, you probably won’t care much about this post. For the rest of us, though, a late payment is a serious thing and a seriously late payment is a dreaded thing.
In this post, I’ll explain how you can develop a proactive process to minimize the number of late payments that you face. I’ll also explain what to do after a payment is late.
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