Category Archives: client relationships

advice, client relationships, freelance money

You Can Do It for Love, You Can Do It for Money

I’ll be the first person to admit that I’m quick with the ax when it comes time to get rid of a challenging freelance client. Life’s too short to deal with people who make it more difficult.

But I recently ignored my rule and stuck with a high-paying client simply because, well, he was high-paying—and in retrospect, I’m very glad I did. For the first time, I was able to turn a challenging client into a loyal, lucrative one who’s manageable, if still somewhat high maintenance.

Here’s the Reader’s Digest version of the tale. Challenge number one is that he’s overseas, so there’s a time-zone issue. Challenge number two is that his English isn’t very good, so we’ve had a variety of miscommunications. Challenge number three is that he’s very demanding, and needs stuff done RIGHT NOW or he freaks out. Challenge number four is that I often have to get to double-digit drafts before he’s satisfied.

Not the ideal, eh? But the fact was he pays great, so I stuck with it. Over the course of a few months, I was able to preemptively deal with every single one of those challenges:

  • Challenge 1: I make sure I check in with him at 7 a.m., and ask if he’ll be needing my attention that day, and if so, when. I check in on weekends if I know something important is on the line.
  • Challenge 2: I’ve learned to repeat back to him what he’s said for clarification, so there are fewer miscues. Like, “So, if I am understanding you correctly, you want me to revise Project B before writing Advertisement C. Is that right?”
  • Challenge 3: I know that I need to turn stuff around more quickly for him than for most clients, which is fine because he pays a premium. More important, I ask specifically what day/time he wants things—I don’t wait for the “WHERE’S THE PROJECT A OUTLINE????” email.
  • Challenge 4: I don’t care about how many revisions there are, and I don’t take it personally if he doesn’t like something. In fact, I’ll usually assume he’s going to hate it, and then be pleasantly surprised when he’s all hearts and flowers.

Would I want an entire roster of clients like this? Heck no! But the fact is that I’ve learned to tilt the love and money equation in my favor. And it’s going to make for a nicer summer vacation than I would have otherwise had.

Question: Have you ever stuck with a client from hell purely for monetary reasons? Were you able to make any progress in turning them into a better client? If so, how?

Jake Poinier answers freelancer questions at Dr. Freelance.

advice, Business, client relationships, editorial, featured, Marketing yourself, Sales

7 Negative Responses To Your Book Pitch & How To Avoid Them: Part 6

It’s time for more on book pitching with Diane Holmes….her latest is titled–

#6 “There’s a term for this encounter:  Death by Meeting.”

Translation: “This is the longest 5 minutes of my life, and it’ll never end.  The details in monotone just keep coming, and eventually someone will find my cold, dead body, because I’ll have died of boredom.”

Reality: You’re so focused on sharing every fact, every bullet point, and every footnote, you haven’t been watching the response you’re getting.  If you were, you could adjust what you’re saying, know when to stop talking, or try saying something more interesting.

Not everyone succeeds in the first sentence.  Some start out rough, adjust, and then win ‘em over!

Solution:  We’re not always the best judge of what’s interesting to others.  If you can’t get a sense all by yourself about the “excitement” factor of your pitch, you need to use your critique group, writing friend, and others to help you out.

When you practice pitching to another person, have them hold their arm parallel to the ground (in front or to the side, doesn’t matter), and then raise and lower their arm as they become more and less interested.   It’s a really simple way to understand how your message is coming across.

And it can be very encouraging to try to raise your friend’s arm.  Try out different approaches.  Tweak what you’re saying.

Diane Holmes
Diane Holmes

Diane Holmes is the Founder and Chief Alchemist behind Pitch University, an online website where writers learn to pitch from the literary agents and editors (and maybe even sell their book in the process).  http://www.pitch-university.com/

And yes, she was born in Texas.

advice, Business, client relationships, editorial, featured, Marketing yourself, Sales

7 Negative Responses To Your Book Pitch & How To Avoid Them: Part 5

Diane Holmes is back today with more in her series about pitching your book…enjoy!

 

#5 “You’re All Hat and No Cattle”

Translation: “Your efforts to wow me by using the shiniest, hype-filled words Hollywood has to offer (big cowboy hat) are no substitute for real content (a ranch with actual cattle).  Everyone these days is calling him/herself an expert of this, a guru of that. Many writers claim to have the next bestseller, a book bigger than Harry Potter, or a story that’s going to excite, thrill, dazzle, and otherwise look good in a Stetson.  Just show me the cattle.” 

Reality:  Hype doesn’t work.  TV shows first had premiers, then they had US premiers, then world-wide premiers, and now?  Yes, Universal Premiers!  Hype doesn’t impress us.  We can see through it.  So can an editor or agent.

Solution:  Compelling premise, compelling character, compelling message.  Write books that are compelling by their very nature.  Then all you have to do is share this information.

Pitching isn’t a trick.  It’s communication.

Diane Holmes
Diane Holmes

 

Diane Holmes is the Founder and Chief Alchemist behind Pitch University, an online website where writers learn to pitch from the literary agents and editors (and maybe even sell their book in the process).  http://www.pitch-university.com/

And yes, she was born in Texas.

advice, client relationships

When Regular Clients Become Unreliable

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Have you ever had a long-term regular client who suddenly became less reliable? Maybe their business suffered due to economic circumstances. Maybe they had to deal with a personal issue and were less focused on business projects. No matter how reliable a freelance writing gig might seem, it can always disappear.

Let’s talk about some of the ways regular clients might suddenly become unreliable and what you can do about it if it happens.

Ways Regular Clients Might Become Less Reliable

Here are some things an otherwise reliable client might do to suddenly change your working relationship:

  • They might cancel projects at the last minute.
  • They might decrease their usual order size with no advance notice.
  • They might simply stop contacting you or responding to emails (or phone calls).

The worst can be when a long-time regular client tells you on a whim that they can’t order for a month or two, but then they plan to get back to a regular order schedule. On one hand, it could be a worthwhile relationship to preserve, so you might try to accommodate. But that isn’t always the right thing to do. After all, you are a business owner too, and you have to put your own business interests first. If your business isn’t surviving, you can’t do your best work for clients anyway.

How to Deal with Clients that Become Unreliable

How do you deal with these situations? Given my last example, you have a few options:

  • Tell the client it’s alright, and that you’ll be happy to take them on again when they’re ready;
  • Tell the client that you’ll pursue other regular contracts to fill that void as soon as possible, and that means you likely won’t have availability when they’re ready to come back if they give up their spot;
  • Combine the two — pursue only one-off projects in the interim with the expectation that the client will come back to their regular schedule after a month or two.

Personally, I go with the second option. I don’t leave my schedule open with some naïve hope that a client is going to come back. If their own business is struggling now and they can’t order any more (as budgets are usually the concern), there is no guarantee that’s going to change in the short-term. And it would be foolish to rest the future of my own business on those hopes. So I find someone else. If they come back before I’ve found another regular I want to stick with, that’s fine. If not, too bad. I’ll refer them to someone who can work with them moving forward. That’s not to say there’s any bitterness about it. It’s just business.

Because clients can become unreliable in different ways, there are also different ways you can handle the situations. Some examples include:

  • Letting them know you can’t reserve their time in the future if there’s a break in the contracted work;
  • Discussing their future plans with them in more depth — find out if there really is a very short-term problem at hand where it might be worth sticking it out for a month or so;
  • Offering to adjust project specs to meet their new requirements without undercutting your own earnings or losing the gig altogether;
  • Being firm, letting them know that commitments followed by last minute cancellations aren’t acceptable professionally (because once they committed, you had to turn down other prospects), and that if it happens again you won’t be able to continue working with them;
  • Moving on and not looking back — especially if a client becomes unresponsive for an extended period (that can’t be explained with a brief emergency taking them away from work).

Are these the only ways to deal with long-time clients who become unreliable? No. But they give you somewhere to start and some options to consider. It’s one thing to like our clients and want to work with them to overcome their problems. But we also have to know when to do that and when it’s best to part ways — temporarily or not.

No freelance writing job is a sure thing. From large content sites that shut down or change payment models to smaller independent clients who can’t sustain the workload, gigs come and go. And it’s a part of our job to be prepared. So be ready to handle the situations if they come up, even if hoping they don’t. And never stop marketing your services and building your visibility to attract new prospects. Then when a sudden opening does happen, you’ll already have interested prospects waiting for a call.

Jennifer Mattern

About Jennifer Mattern

Jennifer Mattern is a freelance business writer and professional blogger who writes about freelance writing, social media, indie publishing, and small business. She also publishes e-books for freelance writers and is scheduled to publish her first nonfiction book, The Query-Free Freelancer, next year.

advice, Business, client relationships, editorial, featured, Marketing yourself, Sales

7 Negative Responses To Your Book Pitch & How To Avoid Them: Part 4

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Today we have part 4 of the series on pitching your book, by Diane Holmes….and by the way….you’ll be hearing more from her as she’s signing on to be a regular contributor at Freelance-Zone.com. We’re going to continue running the 7-part series, but you’ll also be hearing from Diane in posts about marketing and fiction over the coming weeks. We’re excited to have her as part of the roster!


#4 “Whoa, stop pitching!  It’s like drinking from a Firehose.”

Translation: “You’re gushing details and projects so fast it can only be measured in “gallons per minute,” and I am totally drenched.  Stop.  Please.  I need to dry off.”

Reality: More details aren’t better; they’re just more. And listing your works-in-progress without a breath doesn’t make you seem prolific, it only convinces an agent or editor that you’ve got a lot of work that hasn’t sold.

Solution:  Stop.  Focus.  You are here to talk about one amazing book project in a way that shines excitement and clarity on it.  If your conversation (not your rant or monologue) creates a positive impression about you, you might be invited to discuss other projects.   And again, stop and focus.

It’s not a race.

The agent or editor assumes that how you present your book is actually the best indicator of both how it’s written AND what type of client you’re likely to be.

Most writers will read this and think, “that is totally unfair!”  After all, we’re not presenters, we’re nervous, and it feels impossible to sum up our books (and deliver that summary in a verbal pitch).

It’s a pretty big burden to look and sound confident, present well, and give a summary that accurately encapsulates the project.  It is.

So, start by practicing being S-L-O-W.  Blurting information is caused either by nerves or desperation.  And it does no good lecturing yourself on not being nervous or desperate.  Emotions can be immune to logic!

So, for now.  Practice being slow.  Aim for clarity.  Remind yourself it’s a conversation.

Diane Holmes
Diane Holmes

Diane Holmes is the Founder and Chief Alchemist behind Pitch University, an online website where writers learn to pitch from the literary agents and editors (and maybe even sell their book in the process).  http://www.pitch-university.com/

And yes, she was born in Texas.

advice, client relationships, freelance money, Sales

Dealing with Ridiculous Client Expectations

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By Jake Poinier

Earlier this week, I received a freelance referral from a previous client for a web project — and an object lesson in dealing with ridiculous client expectations.

Nice guy, we got along swimmingly. We went through the sitemap for the new, improved website, I asked my usual rotation of questions, and it seemed like a good match of their needs and my background.

Then, about a half-hour into the conversation, he mentioned that my referral contact had thought the price would be around $1000.

I must have raised my eyebrows halfway up my forehead, because he quickly backpedaled and said something to the effect of, “Now, keep in mind, he had just thrown a number out. I’m a numbers guy, and just wanted to let you know my expectations.”

I resisted the urge to run screaming from the room, knowing there was no way $1000 was going to be even close for a 20-odd page site. We wrapped up the meeting in businesslike fashion and shook hands. I told him I’d crunch the numbers and have an estimate for him the following day.

When I crunched those numbers, they indicated a cost of around triple what he was expecting. I sent the bid anyway, with a mention that I realized the estimate was far higher than he was anticipating. Perhaps not surprisingly, my phone has not rung. But you know, I’m OK with that.

Besides the need to reject lowball freelance work, there’s another lesson in here: You should never, ever try to estimate the cost of someone else’s services. My previous client, in an effort to be helpful, had established a mark that would be impossible to hit, even if my rate was half of what it is. The best course of action is always to let your fellow creatives do their own math — or things aren’t likely to add up.

Jake Poinier busted out of his corporate chains to become a freelance writer and editor in 1999. He runs Boomvang Creative Group and blogs regularly as Dr. Freelance.