It’s been a while since we exercised our client-vetting skills, which is what this Is This Client Worth It segment is about. If we see real scenarios and how it turned out, we might get better at vetting potential clients. Let’s consider this scenario: The client reached out via an established contact. He needed a…
Category: Client issues
Client Red Flags Every Freelancer Needs to Know
I was reading through some old social media posts recently and came across discussion of a job posting that just plain sucked. In fact, I blogged about it not long ago right here. The issue was that the job poster, a household-name publication, was presenting a full-time employee position as a freelance job. Why? Because…
When a Client Breaches a Freelance Contract
We’ve all had our share of flaky clients. By flaky, I mean clients who: Disappear at payment time Reappear three months later to complain about quality (oddly about the same time you’ve threatened litigation/collection) Change the project parameters after you’ve done the work Revise more than twice (my record is 12 revisions) and get farther…
When is a Freelancer Not a Freelancer?
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Looking for writers with a background in digital news reporting to write for us on a freelance basis. We would need 40 hours per week and the hours would be 9-to-5. See anything wrong with that? You should. And your obvious follow-up question to the job poster…
Freelance, Not Employee: A Quick Guide
If you missed yesterday’s #FreelanceChat, you missed a good discussion on client boundaries. (Head over to Twitter and check it out.) It brought up a serious issue we freelancers have to deal with — how to know when a client is treating you like an employee. It’s certainly happened to me. One of those occasions…
Freelancing 2023: New Client or Waste of Time?
I love #FreelanceChat on Twitter. The topics are often solid and the discussion gets lively. (Every Thursday at noon ET.) In a recent open-mic chat, someone asked the question: How do you know when that client prospect is not going to hire you? That’s pretty important to know, right? Let’s look at this scenario and…
Freelancing 2023: Are You Reading Your Client?
In conversation with a colleague the other day, we were discussing a situation in which a business person had introduced a controversial topic and then had continued to push the topic with someone they wanted to do business with who was clearly not interested. As my colleague had said, “They need to learn to read…
Winning the Freelance v. Bot War
Anyone else tired of hearing how bots are going to wipe out freelancing? Chat GPT, BARD, whatever. None of that should be of concern to serious freelancers. While there is some truth to the rumor that bots could generate content successfully enough that some writers could be out of work soon, it’s not a done…
Winning the “Do you write this?” Freelance Interview
Show of (virtual) hands — how many of you have had conversations with prospective clients that go something like this: Client: Tell me a little about yourself. You: I’ve been writing in the XYZ industry/writing ABC projects for the last eight years. My clients include 1, 2, and 3 plus a few clients whose work…
Freelance Files: Is This Freelance Client Worth It?
Welcome to a new series on the blog. No matter where you are in your freelance writing career, you’re going to come across a client that seems like a great find on the surface. Dig underneath, however …. I hope with this series, we’ll be better equipped to vet clients — even existing clients —…