Client Relations
How to Prove You’re Worth Your Rate
Have a look at Craigslist or visit a platform like Upwork, and you’ll see countless listings offering $5 or $6 per post. You’d be forgiven for thinking you could never compete with those prices. But let me share a little secret: you can compete and you don’t have to drop your rate to do it.
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How to Get Your Clients to Pay Faster
Freelancers love to extol the benefits of entrepreneurship to anyone who will listen. There are plenty of reasons to love working as a freelance writer. “You get to work from home in your pyjamas!” is one of my favorite selling points, for example.
Of course, freelance writing isn’t all rainbows and unicorns. Working as a writer is a real job and it comes with plenty of unique challenges traditional nine-to-five workers don’t experience. One such challenge comes when you need to get clients to pay your invoices.
In a “normal” job, paychecks are deposited into your bank account twice a month. For small business owners like freelance writers, cash flow can be a real headache. This struggle is particularly painful for freelancers just starting out, but even established writers often grapple with the ongoing nightmare of collecting earnings on time.
If you’re struggling to bridge the gap between invoice payments, consider the following tips for getting your clients to pay you faster.
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How to Pitch Articles and Repurpose Rejected Work
Finding the right editors to pitch often proves challenging, and rejection is a difficult pill to swallow. Use my pitching blueprint to learn how to write queries for your pieces and figure out what to do with a backlog of rejected work.
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How to Define Your Value Proposition for Clients
Tired of clients trying to lowball you for your work? Learn how to clearly define your value proposition, by addressing the pain points of your customers and providing a solution to the problem.
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Running Late: Communicating with Clients When You Miss Deadlines
Let me make one thing very clear: missing deadlines is bad news. If you make a habit out of submitting work to clients after its due date, you’re burning bridges, plain and simple. Think how you feel when a client pays an invoice a few days or even a week late. Not so great, right?…
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Writing Samples: Should You Provide Free Work to Potential Clients?
Plenty of clients think it’s appropriate to ask for a free sample of a writer’s work, but the issue bitterly divides the freelance community. Is it ever appropriate to provide a free sample, and if so, what stipulations must be met?
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Editorial Input: How to Handle Critiques Gracefully
Receiving really tough feedback from clients often proves immensely challenging—it’s hard not to take that stuff personally! Use these tips to respond gracefully.
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Waiting on a Miracle: How to Handle Unhappy Clients
Nobody likes to deal with unhappy clients, but you’ll inevitably encounter these individuals over the course of your freelance career. Use these tips to solve the problem and get your project back on track.
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