My So-Called Freelance Life - Michelle Goodman [38]
Timing is everything. The tax prep sector is slammed mid-February through mid-April. The book publishing world goes dormant in August and December. Retailers, craftsters, and indie manufacturers are crazy-busy with the holiday rush from Halloween on. Likewise, clients may be more apt to make freelance assignments earlier in the fiscal year (that is, once they’ve had their annual freelance budget okayed by the higher-ups). Catch a company on a tight budget during the last fiscal quarter and you might hear that they’ve already shot their financial wad for the year. So learn your way around the business cycles of the indus-I tries you’re contacting and choose your moments wisely.
When it comes to follow-ups, I have a three-strike policy. If I’ve left three unanswered messages for one contact, I take that as my cue to cut bait. Pesky Freelancer is the last thing I want on my tombstone. Maybe I’ll have some better, more relevant portfolio pieces six to nine months down the line and will send the contact in question the relevant links then, along with an email congratulating them on their latest industry achievement. Maybe I’ll unearth a new contact at the company later in the year and try again. Maybe my original contact will crawl out of her cave eight months after receiving my initial missives and assign me a project (it’s happened). Or maybe I’ll just move on to bigger and better and not fret about it.
Let’s say you get a nibble. And let’s say that before you’ve even talked project parameters the client asks the fateful question, “What’s your rate?” Unless your fee is an unflagging $125 an hour or $200 an afternoon because you sell your time in sessions (say, as a speech pathologist, fashion photographer, or SAT tutor), don’t commit to a rate then and there. Suggesting an hourly rate or flat project fee without knowing the nature, complexity, and scope of the work is financial suicide. You can, however, offer up a price range:
“Depending on the complexity of the documents you want me to edit (consumer-facing web copy vs. scientific case study) and the level of editing required (light copyedit for grammar and consistency vs. heavier line-by-line revisions) my rate ranges from $65 to $90 an hour.” Or, “The website applications I’ve built over the past two years have ranged in price from $5,000 to $25,000 depending on project scope. I’ll be better able to give you an estimate once we go over specifics of the work you need done.”
Got it? In other words, “I promise to not commit highway robbery, Dear Client of My Dreams, but you’ve got to give me a little information about the work you need done before I give you some firm numbers.” Which is a perfect lead-in to a gentle “Do you have a specific project in mind you need help with? I’d be happy to go over the details with you and give you an estimate.” (We’ll dig deeper into estimating and negotiating project price in Chapter 11.)
How to Prod a Foot Dragger
Cousin to the client who wants to know how much it’ll cost before there’s even a project on the table is the client who says she wants you for an upcoming gig but drags her feet on giving you a start date or actually kicking off the project. Maybe you’ve already agreed to the project price and parameters by phone or email, but you left the start date loosey-goosey because the client didn’t quite have all her ducks in a row. And now you’re stuck waiting for your hopeful client to read the contract you sent her or send you the files she’s supposedly hiring you to test, index, or Photoshop. And waiting. And waiting. And starting to wonder if this gig is ever going to get off the ground or if you should line up some other work instead.
As this is an all-too-common freelance occurrence, I don’t consider any project with a new client—or an existing client who doesn’t have all the project particulars worked out—a done deal until I