Over the weekend I was asked to work for a new client. Client B was the subject of an article I wrote recently for a Client A. They liked the article so much (and liked working with me, they said) that they called me first to handle their new writing project. I was tickled.
The question of conflict of interest came up. Since I’d written their profile for someone else, they said, would it be a conflict to write for them now on different projects? Honestly, I don’t see how. The article I wrote was one profiling their company for a magazine. What they’re hiring me to do is write profiles of their customers for an internal marketing piece. What’s more, the article appeared already and I cashed the check for it mere hours before they called me. I based none of my article content on any promise or hint of future work (nor would I, but I’d avoid any appearance of such a situation just to maintain client reputations). Their article was written months ago.
But I did contact Client A to let them know. Look, if there’s a conflict that they see, I’m open to hearing about it. I may not agree, but I’d rather be safe, and courteous, than to simply charge in and let them find out on their own. While in my mind there’s absolutely no connection or conflict, they may have situations that have arisen in the past from these very types of circumstances. I do not want to damage my relationship with Client A, or their or my reputation, over another job.
Let me just say if it had been a case of working for Magazine A and Magazine B, I’d have a little trouble with one telling me I can’t work for the other – unless, of course, they contract with me for ongoing content in exchange for my exclusivity. If I write one article a year for you, that does not constitute an ongoing relationship. Each publication gets from me my best. I would never – could never – attach my name to a substandard product that was intentionally flubbed to make a client look bad. Uh uh. Remember, MY name is still attached to that.
In one case, a magazine told its freelancers they couldn’t write for a publication not because the content was similar – it wasn’t – but because its former publisher was now in charge of the new pub. That magazine lost a TON of writers, not to that new pub, but because of that restriction. They were lucky – a few writers I know were making noise about suing them for benefits since they were treating them as employees and dictating whom they could/could not work for. Talk about dragging your private squabbles out into the public.
In situations like this, how much professional courtesy have you provided clients? Where, in your mind, is the boundary between a conflict of interest and your career progression? And at what point do you allow past relationships to dictate future profits?
In general, I feel that freelance is freelance, and that excuses most of what would otherwise be seen as a conflict of interest.
I once had a client spring a non-compete on me after I’d already completed the first assignment. They wanted to make it retroactive, and it said that I couldn’t write for someone else on the same topics for a year or something like that. Plus, it was a badly worded clause, and could have been interpreted to mean much longer, as I remember. I made them change it, signed it, and then never wrote for them again!
Katharine, that’s absurd! So they basically wanted to force changes to your agreement on you AFTER the fact (and probably before they paid you) in order to hold you captive in a job that shouldn’t be exclusive in the first place?
What putzes!
Exactly — before they paid me. The topics weren’t anything I wrote on for current clients, but it still angered me. So even after renegotiating the contract, I still never wrote for them again. The whole thing made me too mad.
I don’t blame you at all. And I’m surprised no one’s questioned how they can treat you like an employee (dictating who you cannot work for while working for them) and not paying you benefits.