Yesterday was fruitful for a Monday, especially a Monday the day after a weekend in which I put yet another 500+ miles on the car. He helped drive, so maybe that’s why neither of us felt drained when we got home.
I managed a huge portion of the large project du jour, plus a smaller one. I’m thrilled because surgery is this Friday and I have to get ten steps ahead before I’m able to drop things and recuperate.
I haven’t had time to market (no excuses other than when the hell would I fit it all in?), so I’ve been following up with regular clients to see if they need anything small this week. There were a few potential clients I’d contacted that I won’t be following up on. These are what I call the lost causes.
You know them. They contact you asking for help with writing, stars in their eyes, and nice little projects that could be fun. Or they have projects that are a tangled mess, or they have no idea what they need versus what they want. They’re not going anywhere with those projects. Here’s why:
They don’t understand cost. You want HOW much for my Web writing? These people are often new to hiring freelancers, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be educated on what real writers charge. I had one of these recently – he went completely silent after I gave him my price. I didn’t follow up. It was obvious after six rapid-fire emails that the silence meant he can’t afford me.
They’re solving too many problems at once. Same guy, same nice project, only he brought up trying to solve a personal issue along with getting his project off the ground. Maybe it wasn’t my price that deterred him, but rather my advice that he separate personal and business. Imagine if I couldn’t solve his personal problems with my work? He wouldn’t be pleased with anything I did.
They want X, but outline Y. I had one client who was so sure she wanted a complete rundown of the state of workers compensation – in 750 words. No matter how I explained it, she would come back with “I don’t care – we want THIS.” So of course two revisions in she wasn’t happy – who could be? Where narrowing the focus would work, she wasn’t allowing it.
They don’t know what they want. If you meet with a client who says “What can you do for me?” and isn’t offering his/her idea of what their project is supposed to look like, you’re going to have more luck nailing Jell-o to a wall.
They tell you how you’ll be working. This is less of a lost cause and more of an attack of client insanity. I’ve had potential clients tell me when to work, how to work, what to be working on, when to be available for calls, how often I need to be checking in, and what they’re paying me. Right. Next!
What are some of your lost causes?
9 responses to “Lori and the Lost Cause”
Yeah, none of them are worth it. Next!
Best of luck on the recupe, Lori. Order some comedies from Netflix and heal well.
My favorite: They want X, but outline Y and then get mad because you didn't deliver Z. Funny, Z seems to have come out of left field, because it's completely different than X or Y. It's so frustrating that you almost feel like telling them to shove it up their A!
Hahahaha that's great, Wendy!
I've had several people seem extremely interested during their free consultation, promising to send outlines of what they want and we'll get started this week, blah blah blah. Then I never hear back. Even people that were OK with the price and had seen my work (which is why they contacted me in the first place).
I follow up a couple of times, but I try not to waste too much time on it because it's a lost cause. If things change in the future, maybe they'll get in touch again. If not, I can't waste precious marketing or writing time on them if they decide they aren't ready after all.
Wendy, you crack me up. That is hysterically funny because it's so true!
My most recent lost cause is one of those casual-friend-twice-removed deals. This woman I know through someone else is a self-styled CEO. Yeah – a wealthy suburbanite who starts a new business every few years and names herself the CEO or president. (Sometimes her husband is an officer, too.) Even after speaking with her, I can't decipher what she actually DOES. She "facilitates," "troubleshoots" and "manages" … but she has no employees to manage. Who are her clients? I don't think she even knows. It's impossible to write anything of substance when there is no substance to begin with. She wants to position herself or her company as an "expert in the field" but can't clearly define what that field is. It's like she wants to be everything to everyone, to "leverage" her "platform" (or something like that. I'm not fluent in businessese).
I tried. I really did. She ceased communication. The third party told me she'd been "disappointed" in what I'd come up with because it didn't sound like her. I know it was unprofessional of me, but I told the third party, "That was the point, since she sounds like a rich, controlling, untalented narcissist!"
Hope the surgery goes smoothly and you're 100% again soon, Lori!
I try to even avoid THINKING about such things, but then I just received an email from a guy that I did a brochure project for last year–and which he took more than a year to pay for in full.
So now, he has the cojones to email me and ask for help with a end-of-week deadline project? Sorry, sir, you'll need to queue up behind 1) re-sorting my sock drawer, 2) adopting a cat and giving it a bath, and 3) cleaning the lint out from behind the dryer.
Thanks, Joseph. I'll haul out the Eddie Izzard DVDs. That always gets me going. 🙂
Wendy, you seem to be having an alphabet attack. 🙂
Careful of that one, Paula. I know someone who has new businesses and partners every few years because he scams them and runs.
You must be dying to do that project, Jake. LOL I don't blame you. Unless he pays upfront, no way.
This person is more of a dilettante than a con artist. She's a "big idea person" who has the money to start things she probably never follows through on.
The funny thing is, having met her a handful of times, something always felt off about her. Maybe it was because each time I see her she has a totally different look, so it's hard to maintain a mental image of who she is. But I think it's that I sensed the narcissistic control freak hidden beneath the every-changing facade.
Hope surgery goes well, Lori!