After all these years, I like to believe I’m pretty skilled at avoiding red-flag clients.
Alas, I’m writing today to confess an unforced error, because I recently neglected to ask the 1 simple question you must ask every new freelance client:
What’s your past experience working with freelancers? [Read more…]
I met with a local group of freelancers for coffee last night. (Any Phoenician readers in the audience are welcome to join — it’s the Phoenix Copywriter Coffee League on LinkedIn.) At one point, one of my friends asked me a question that, I admit, I’m not very good at answering: “What are your favorite freelance projects?”
I hemmed and hawed, to the effect of “I dunno. No favorite. Anything but public relations.” Like a good reporter, she pressed me, “Well, what about websites vs. brochures? How about healthcare vs. high tech?” [Read more…]
In “4 basic questions a freelancer always needs to answer,” I talked about the importance of preparation in advance of a client meeting. Since every meeting, client, and freelance job is different — and your business is also unique — these aren’t “teacher’s guide” answers, but rather pointers toward formulating your own individual answers to key client questions.
A major caveat here: Your goal in a first client meeting is not to tell all about yourself and your freelance writing, design, or other services. It’s about figuring out how to help the client and making the sale, right? Ultimately, that’s about *asking* questions, which I’ll address in a future post. [Read more…]