A lot of freelancers get excited about international clients these days. But you can create a niche for yourself as someone local — a freelancer just down the street who is happy to meet in person with clients. For those prospective clients who want to make sure that they get a chance to get to know who they’re working with, working with a local freelancer can be worth a premium over working with someone who is only accessible online.

But if you’re going to promote yourself as the local solution, there are some facts that you need to know about.

The Always On Call Problem

Some clients are bad about considering you always on call — but when you’re in a different time zone, you at least get a reprieve when they have to go to bed. When you’re just around the corner, it can be easier for a client to be constantly asking for more. Of course, this isn’t just a problem for local freelancers, though it is certainly worse.

After all, if a client halfway around the planet has your address, it’s unlikely that he’ll just show up one day. I’ve had local clients who have wanted to see where I work, had a question and were ‘in the area’, and otherwise wind up on my front stoop. Continue Reading

View engaging conference lectures, interesting how to discussions, and high quality freelance advice via video here on FreelanceSwitch.

This week we look at How To Find Good Clients by FreelanceJam. Freelancers not only need to know how to find clients, they need to know how to find good clients. In this episode, the FreelanceJam duo Brian and Dave break down the strategies that have worked for them over their years of freelancing. From working the job boards when you’re starting out, to building a strong referral network, and marketing yourself so that great clients come to you. Continue Reading

All too often, freelancers look at their clients as one-off opportunities. They do a job, complete a project, and when payment exchanged, they wave good-bye and never look back. But regular contact with former clients should be an integral part of your freelance business.

Call it public relations or just good business practices, but treating your clients as part of your regular business network– not just as cash cows– can be a wonderful strategy.

Not only will clients feel that you care about them for more than just a paycheck, they will also feel more inclined to recommend you to their colleagues for future projects. The time you devote to nurturing those client relationships becomes a kind of investment that can lead to returns later down the road.

If the rapport is particularly strong, you can also ask clients to be active promoters of your services by having them write recommendations and testimonials that you can later use for your own marketing efforts. In other words, maintaining good client relations means more and better business for you.

Here are five tips for strengthening your business relationship with clients. Continue Reading

You just finished a six week long project. You thought it came out great, so you didn’t expect their email, telling you they just weren’t happy with it. Now what?

Park your emotions. It’s easy to get worked up from negative feedback, particularly for a freelancer who is naturally quite tied to their work. But separating business and emotion are key to success anywhere. It’s okay to get heated up, but just give yourself some time to simmer down before you react. Go for a run, sleep on it, or vent to a friend until you feel more level headed. Continue Reading

One of the most difficult things to deal with when working with a client is when they’re unengaged, absent, missing, and seemingly disinterested in the work you’re doing.

Developers and designers people crave recognition. We love hearing “this is wonderful”, whether it’s from a peer, client, or anonymous blog comment. Most of us want our clients to be eager to validate and review the work we produce immediately. After all, they’re spending a lot of money on you and staking a lot on your success or failure – shouldn’t they be obsessed?

If you’ve been freelancing for a while, you know how dangerous an unengaged client can be. A while back, one of our clients provided a laundry list of changes as we were ready to deliver him a finished product. The month leading up to delivery was a month of tacid approval and nodding of heads. Where was this coming from, and why are we just learning about it now?

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Who am I? I’m Allan, a designer who went from freelancer who was grinding out a meager living to co-founding a highly profitable web shop, now we build our own apps, we host conferences and workshops.

In order to accurately discern which potential clients should earn the time and focus of your company, it’s essential to employ the art of qualifying leads.

Qualifying is the act of determining which projects are the right fit for you. You do this by collecting some key information (from yourself and the potential client) and then gauging whether the endeavor is worth your while–with respect to the data collected. Continue Reading

Chances are, not all of the proposals you send out hit their mark. Chances are, a good number of them get rejected at the first hurdle and don’t even get read. Imagine, the nerve of some people. 

And there are really simple reasons as to why. There is nothing worse than being given the opportunity to bid on a potentially ideal project, to craft a detailed, comprehensive proposal – only to find that it hasn’t worked.

What are the most common mistakes consistently made in written proposals? Here are some suggestions on how you can improve yours. Continue Reading

View engaging conference lectures, interesting how to discussions, and high quality freelance advice via video here on FreelanceSwitch.

This week we look at Paul Boag: Get Clients to say ‘Yes!’ by Paul Boag. This weekend we’re sharing a great talk from Carsonified. In this talk at FOWD NYC, Paul Boag covers strategies for working better with design clients. Continue Reading

Here’s the scenario: you give up your job to take up freelancing full time. First, you work in grinding drudgery for a while, until you land a sweet client who not only loves your work, but wants you to do more and more, until you find yourself dedicating 40 hours a week to just that one client. It feels great: stability, steady income, the same work week-after-week, all the things you left your job for…. or was it?

If you’re in this position, or see your schedule starting to line up with one major client, then it’s time to assess the pros and cons of dedicated freelance work. Continue Reading

View engaging conference lectures, interesting how to discussions, and high quality freelance advice via video here on FreelanceSwitch.

This week we look at Dealing with Clients Who Want Discounts by leifalable. In this humorous video see how a freelancer handles a customer looking for low pricing. It’s funny to see a conversation take place that in for most freelancers happens via email. Continue Reading

Freelancing is all about building relationships, and the holidays are a perfect time to nurture those relationships.

Sending a holiday greeting adds a human touch to your cyber business, and keeps your name fresh in people’s minds. It’s also a great way to thank those who have contributed to your success.

Here are five ways – from  the simplest to more time consuming – to spread some seasonal cheer. Continue Reading

If someone came up to your clients and asked them, “What is that freelancer doing for you?” what do you think your client will say? Will they sing your praises or scratch their heads and wonder why they hired you in the first place?

While your clients can check your invoices for a list of accomplished tasks, invoices weren’t designed to explain why these tasks are important, nor do they justify the cost. A project proposal may contain these details, but this is written at the beginning of the project. Clients need to know what you’ve done for them lately – and they need a recurring reminder.

For your client to understand your value, you need to assert it yourself. You can do this by creating a “Monthly Value Report”. This document shows them how much you’re contributing to their business.

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