Test These 4 Strategies to Build Healthier Relationships With Your Freelance Clients
It is divine to freelance. And not only for the deliciously self-governing challenge of waking up every morning knowing that you are operations, sales, marketing, customer support, finance, the boot-strapped CEO, and sometimes even the collections agency. It’s also the unparalleled thrill that all the success and the profits are yours. Of course, all the sleepless nights and the occasional screw-ups are yours too.
If you’re a happy 9–5er who is tired of reading too many articles by too many self-satisfied sole-proprietors who blather about productivity wins they’ve learned out of the office, how to build and run their best online business and their flexiest of lifestyles, maybe stop now. On the other hand, if you’re an in-house creative dreaming about going freelance, but today are slogging it out back at the office under a mountain of countless useless meetings and getting ambushed into seemingly innocent and unbelievably time-consuming ‘do you have a minutes’, you may want to read on.
Working for clients as a consultant versus an in-house employee brings with it a number of new challenges. How to differentiate your skillset in a world where everyone is a writer, designer or photographer? How to make sure you don’t go crazy with too many competing deadlines? How to set the context for respectful relationships with clients? And of course, how to get paid on time?
Over the past few years as a content marketing solopreneur, I’ve learned a few things about getting, managing and keeping clients that may be helping for others thinking about hanging out their consulting shingle. And particularly, as a creative. Here are four strategies that will help you build healthy, respectful working relationships with your clients.
- Be generous with your knowledge and ideas early in the client acquisition process. Come on; you have tons of them and the instant you step in the shower, you’ll be bombarded with even more. When you make a living based on the value of the ideas and strategies you can share, it can be tempting to withhold any expertise or recommendations from prospects until you have a signed contract in place. But unless you are acquiring said prospect through a very strong referral, they will doubtless want to see how you propose solving the problems that they have. While it’s important to retain value for your strategic work, I’ve discovered sharing some of the goods in a discovery call and/or in your proposal or scope of work document can help your potential clients get a better sense of your approach, and determine if it’s a good fit for them.
This also helps you weed out the clients who won’t value you as a strategic, creative partner from those who actually appreciate how you think.
Of course, ideas aren’t cheap and it’s wise to figure out how much time=money you are willing to spend to acquire a new client. I don’t really do any marketing, besides keeping my website and portfolio up-to-date, so my cost-per-acquisition usually consists of the time spent in an initial discovery call and writing a proposal. The call is usually about 30 mins, but the proposals I write tend to be a lighter version of a content marketing strategy and can take between 2–6 hours. In some ways, they are a service unto themselves, which may sound like a lot of ‘free work.’ But I’ve never lost a single bid for a project. Not one.
The Takeaway: Figure out how much time (=money) you are willing to spend to get a new client. And then get a little more comfortable giving away some of your ideas to determine if you’re the right fit for each other.
2. Be aware that your first few actions with a new client will contribute hugely to your first impression.
I have a bad habit of being about 4–5 minutes late for my afternoon onsite meetings. I have no good excuse except that I put a little too much faith in the accuracy of Google Maps’ transit estimates, and don’t give myself enough of a buffer between midday workout/shower/making lunch/answering final emails and running out the door. I don’t wear makeup and am a longstanding member of the French girl messy hair faction, so this helps a bit.
“Five minutes,” you say, “isn’t the end of the world for most people.” Maybe true, but I would argue that when meeting with new clients, new teams, or anyone on whom you wish to make a strong first impression, the severity of judgement on your first few actions will be compounded more than usual.
Not to say that I feel it’s appropriate to be late with existing clients who already respect you, although I (cringe) have been known to. I’m just trying to emphasize the importance of being aware that, as the ‘new consultant’, you’re already being scrutinized heavily against your hourly rate. Every action is being carefully measured by your new clients. And who can blame them? We’re humans, and we like to spot patterns that will help us make better future decisions. “If she’s late, maybe she has a habit of delivering work late (actually, almost always a bit early), perhaps she is disorganized (my room yes, my business, not in your life) and I’m not sure we can fully trust her”. See how a number of incorrect assumptions can arise out of even 5 haplessly inconsiderate minutes?
The Takeaways:
- Be on time (even, early!) for all client meetings, but definitely the first few.
- At the end of the meeting, be sure to recap next steps for yourself and what you need from others to move forward.
- Don’t stop there! Follow up with an email that recaps these next steps and thank your client for their time.
- Make sure you have a contract in place (keep reading).
3. Write and sign a strong contract. When I was working in-house as a content manager, we were outsourcing a ton of content to a freelance writer with whom my boss refused to sign a contract. Maybe she was worried about overcommitting budget, I didn’t get it, but my hands were tied. Inside, I wanted to coach the freelance writer to push for a contract. Really, it’s not too much to ask to set some ground rules to ensure that both sides stay respectful. But she never did and no longer contracts with the company due to a silly misunderstanding.
The challenge without a contract is that some messy grey situations can arise between client and consultant that haven’t been anticipated or discussed. And when they come up unexpectedly later in the process, they can drive a wedge of resentment and incorrect assumptions between the two parties. As humans, we can all jump to the wrong conclusions and it’s best to iron out the niggly details while we’re all still basking in the excitement of the beginning of the project.
As an example, I love my clients but occasionally they forget that I write for a living (and not a pastime) and much prefer getting paid on time. To help gently guide the right client behaviours, I’ve begun including more rigorous contract provisions to penalize late payments by two percent per week. It works.
The Takeaways: Create a robust contract and get it signed as early as possible. Be clear about:
- Project parameters
- Process and timing
- Policy around charging for travel time (or not)
- Penalty for overdue invoices
- Expected turnaround times
4. Set Boundaries Wisely.
As a freelance creative, it’s so important to figure out how to manage your creative energy peaks effectively. And part of this is figuring out how to set boundaries on your time.
I know a freelancer who is always complaining that all her clients need their stuff done on the same deadlines. She also thinks that, by saying yes to completely unreasonable timelines, she is making herself the most valuable asset to her clients. What this designer doesn’t seem to realize is that she has the power to say “no.” Or even an “I’d love to, but early next week.”
You may be afraid that by pushing back, you’ll lose the project. But it’s actually a good test to run with your clients to identify if they value availability over skill, expertise or creative chops. Because if they do, they may only be working with you because you are free this week, not because you’re good at what you do.
This same freelancer almost always responds to work emails almost immediately, I’m not sure how she does it, but I don’t think it’s super healthy for her creative work.
When I schedule maker time — long uninterrupted stretches to do my creative, strategic thinking — I usually close my email tab. Or better yet, snap this silly silver machine shut and grab a nice Muji pen and paper and rev up my old-fashioned brain.
Always being super crazy responsive and saying yes to all client work whenever they want should not be your differentiator. That should not be what brings clients back to work with you. This approach will always have you running on a hamster wheel and worried about taking time off on the weekends or after work hours, in case your clients will no longer want to work with you if you aren’t always on.
I love my clients and try to help them as soon as I can, but I’ve learned that a little push-back to ensure that I have the time to do my creative work to the best of my ability helps instill more respect, and builds a sense of demand around your time.
The Takeaways: Always saying ‘yes’ doesn’t build a sense of demand around your time. Be bold and push back to give yourself a little flex room to ensure that you have enough time to focus and do your best. You can even explain this rationale to your clients, who should be pleased that you care enough to put time into quality work. If they don’t, maybe you shouldn’t be working with them anyway.
_________________________________________________________________
