10 Requirements for Working with Clients in Other Countries
Freelancers are given the opportunity to work for either clients within their respective areas or clients coming from abroad. Personally, as a freelancer living in Asia, I’ve worked only with clients who run their businesses a hundred miles away such as those in the US, the UK, and Australia. I’ve never seen their faces, heard their voices, and of course never tried visiting them at their offices since our only mode of communication is either the email or the instant messenger. Yes, the work is still being done from home as how it is with on-shore freelancing, but international freelancing has certain characteristics that makes it more difficult in terms of communication and security, and I had to learn this the slow and hard way.
Freelancing Limitations
It wasn’t long before I realized that international freelancers are actually limited in terms of communication and security when working with clients overseas. They can’t easily call them during the day because of major time zone differences. They can’t really sue non-paying cheapskates on the spot for non-paid work because the laws and procedures are different and, at times, inapplicable to their situations. It’s a sad reality, but every freelancer working with international clients should expect this and instead take precautionary measures to make sure that business runs smoothly no matter who comes knocking at his or her door.
Requirements for International Freelancing
It’s because of these difficulties that international freelancers should equip themselves to ensure their financial security and their reputation when working with clients in other countries. This can be done by making sure they follow certain requirements that I believe are necessary if they would like to succeed in freelancing. Since international freelancers are working in a global market, they need to remember that without these requirements, they not only will jeopardize their businesses but their reputations as well. Here are 10 requirements international freelancers should possess before getting down to business:
- Payment options – International freelancers should arrange their payment options before pitching job proposals and bids so that clients can easily send payments for their projects after receiving their invoices. PayPal, Xoom, Moneybookers, wire transfers, and other options are available for those receiving earnings from abroad, automatically converting the amount’s currency into the equivalent in local currency.
- Email and instant messengers – You can either register for a web-based email account under Google, Windows Live, or Yahoo or use the email account provided by your IPS. For instant messengers, there is Skype, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, AOL, Live Messenger, and many more for you to use when you need to contact your clients immediately.
- Online portfolio – With on-shore clients, you can easily showcase your portfolio items personally with the help of a professional portfolio book or laptop. With international clients, you only have your online portfolio to present to them so make sure you collate your prized works in such a way that it would look even more impressive than an offline portfolio.
- A reasonable hourly rate or price per project – Whatever may be the result after converting your client’s currency to your own, always stick to an hourly rate or a price per project that you are happy working with and that is reasonable. Personally, I’ve encountered clients who think that just because I’m from Asia they can charge me pennies for expensive high quality work. In the end, they turned out to be clients I never ever want to work with.
- Good communication skills – With this I don’t mean excellent native speaking and writing skills that can be compared to classical writers and poets. I’m talking about being able to explain to the client your project proposal, updating your clients with progress reports, and explaining to them why this can’t be done or why you think this would make a great feature to the project. Communication is vital to the success of a freelancer and truth be told, a lot of clients do appreciate being updated and informed, regardless if they have slight spelling and grammar lapses in their emails.
- Awareness of time zone differences – You know very well that when you start working, your client is already snoozing so you shouldn’t expect an instant reply from him regarding your questions about the work being done. Be patient, use time zone converters to schedule online meetings, and be on time so that you will be able to settle your issues, clarify questions, and complete the project before or on the deadline. You should also inform your clients the hours you are available (insert your country’s time zone) so that there won’t be any confusion and disappointments on their side as well.
- Confidence and professionalism – Every freelancer should possess confidence and maintain professionalism in order to prove to the client that they mean business and nothing more; therefore, be confident in yourself whenever you’re proposing to the client your ideas, rates, and your portfolio. Never be shaken by comments about your hourly rates, where you come from, your language, etc.
- Honesty – One of the issues that many international freelancers face is the misconception that freelancers who can’t be monitored directly are dishonest. To fight it, an international freelancer should remain honest throughout his entire career. Just because you can’t be seen by your clients doesn’t mean you can cheat, dilly-dally, and do whatever you please while charging your clients, especially if it’s on an hourly basis.
- An open mind to creative and cultural differences – There are many ways to solve this issue regarding creative and cultural differences. For instance, if a client thinks your work is too dull, you can ask or show a sample to get a good and clear idea of what he’s looking for. As for cultural differences, what may seem funny and harmless to you may be offensive to the other and vice versa, so be very careful with this aspect of communication as this can lead to burning bridges that didn’t have to be burnt in the first place.
- Security measures for non-paid work – Every freelancer should have a security measure to ensure that they get paid for their work. For instance, when a client has not paid me for my work after 3-4 days, I inform them of their dues through email and that if they do not pay me for the work after another 2 days, I will keep it and use it as an additional portfolio item. It doesn’t compensate me for the time and energy spent, but I can still benefit from it in this way.
The reason why I consider these as requirements rather than tips is because without one or all, you won’t be able to sustain a client, build a good online reputation, receive repeat business, and sadly get paid properly. If you want to be treated as a professional, you are going to have to take extra measures to prove your worth and to stand your ground whenever issues and differences come your way.
Share Your Thoughts
Are you an international freelancer? If yes, what lessons did you learn, tools you used, and tips that you’ve tried that made it easier for you to handle clients from abroad?
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This feels as one of the better articles I’ve seen on FS for a while now. Very useful, keep it up!
My thoughts exactly. Great article!
I have international clients though they are a small percentage of my business. I prefer Australian and British clients because I’ve never been cheated out of a dime working with them.
I do get money up front and that’s key to not losing money.
Adapting to the time zone differences is probably key. Be sure to answer their emails at the same time each day – and it would be nice to have everyone awake at the same time so conversations can happen quickly and my early mornings (EST) are the best for all of us. Some of these folks are among my best clients. It can be a very productive and lucrative relationship.
Woaw! Thank you for show me Xoom. In my country (Chile) Paypal is a pain in the ass (may I say that?) and I am currently using Western Union but the fees are very high and I have to pay (from my pocket) the fees. Thanks!
Hi Stef. Great post you have here! I do international freelancing in graphic design and accept payments through Paypal.
For security measures, I email an agreement for the client to sign and send back. This contains the details of the work and payment, among others. Having an agreement also adds to your professional image. I usually ask 50% downpayment, with the rest payable just before I deliver the final files. When working with a repeat client though, I no longer ask for a downpayment, just the entire fee when the work is done, considering that a previous relationship has already been established.
So far communication through email has worked for me and have not encountered much trouble with the differing time zones.
Oh man I should’ve used the Reply button instead of putting a lot of @’s. xD
Anyway, thanks Grace! Writing contracts and agreements is a must actually and I’m glad you mentioned it. I noticed though that some freelancers either don’t know how to draft a legal agreement or are too busy or lazy to write one for themselves. Any tips on how to go about this?
Email’s always a lifesaver when dealing with time zones. As long as you reply promptly (24-48 hours) things will go smoothly with your overseas client.
Hi. I use the following outline in my project agreement:
Name/Contact Details
Project Description (this is the scope of work. any additional work not in this description should be billed separately)
Completion Date
Estimated Project Cost (or exact cost if you price per project)
Payment Schedule (when you expect downpayment/full payment)
Rejection/Cancellation of project (your terms if the client decides to reject or cancel the project – forfeiture or deposit/billing for labor or expenses incurred, etc.)
Ownership (whether you transfer full copyrights or not, using the project in your portfolio or marketing)
Acceptance of agreement.
I prefer to use the term agreement rather than contract as it sounds less intimidating
. Hope this helps.
Great project agreement template you have there Grace, that was a good tip.
I’m about to get into freelance web design and was thinking what I could do to help prevent theft of my work and that really helps me with that. Thank you.
@Stephanie; Very nice article, you really gave me a lot of knowledge about how to go about my soon-to-be freelancing career. Thank you for the helpful post, it’s much appreciated.
Wow great article especially for the freelancers from Asia like me
what a great tip list, I will keep this post marked for sure! in my 7 years i still have yet to work with an overseas client! i always wondered what the experience would be like with the time difference, trends, etc… when it happens i will definitely be coming back to this post! thanks for the tips
I recently had a problem getting payment from an international client. It was an established company and they were willing to pay 100% up front. The only problem was the company was based in Nigeria. Paypal and Western Union don’t operate in that country because of the prevalence of fraud.
The client wanted to wire the money directly from the company’s bank account to mine. However, that meant I had to provide my bank account information. I was uncomfortable doing that because of the Nigerian connection. Even though everything seemed legit, I felt the risk was too high.
In the end, I declined the contract because we couldn’t find a “safe” way to transfer payment. Any suggestions?
As a company that also operates in South Africa, we used to face that same problem as well – with PayPal only very recently entering the market in SA.
@Susan, in future consider working through a website like Elance (who in turn works with escrow). That way the project will be done through the elance website, and the money from Nigeria could be paid into Elance’s Escrow account BEFORE the project commences. That way you know you’re bank account details are safe (you can withdraw it though a number of mediums without sharing it), and the Nigerian client knows that he’ll get the work or his money back.
One of the big drawback however is, of course, that you’ll have to pay a fee to Elance as well as to a payment gateway such as PayPal (usually amounts to 5%-7% of total project fee) – however, I believe that because of the added security and plain up-front honesty of the system, it will allow you to work with clients in African countries without stressing out about payment and fraudulent scams.
What do you think?
Yes, some clients in Uk thinking in Northen Europe , like Latvia, Estonia prices for hi end work will be like in poor region in India..
Hi guys! Thanks for all the great comments!
I’m sure this will help a lot of freelancers when dealing with international clients.
@Rian: Glad you liked it!
@delia: I’m glad working with your overseas clients has proven to be lucrative for you.
During the first few months I had problems with time zone differences as well but all I needed to do was ask when the client would be available online and I’d coordinate with him. It’s worked for me ever since.
@Pablo: Great! Don’t forget to take note of PayPal’s fees though when receiving money other than your own currency.
@Michael: Awesome! The experience of working for international clients is quite thrilling really so you should really give it a try sometime.
@Susan: Hey Susan! Hmm, that does sound risky. I’ve heard a lot of sad stories about money transfers that don’t go through WU, PayPal, or Xoom so I think it was best that you declined the contract. You could’ve gone through a whole lot of unnecessary trouble if things went wrong with payment.
Since there are countries who don’t have support from these services, perhaps it would be best to stick to clients who have access to them for now to avoid any problems. It would be nice to service all clients who come our way but the risks may not be worth it.
@Stephanie – I just replied to a previous commentator in dealing with African countries – I’d love to hear your views on this, especially considering that work on the African continent is exploding…
This reasons are twofold:
(1) Internet only really came to full bloom recently (thanks to fibe optic cables), and
(2) Lack of local skills – quite simply, farming and agriculture (if not wars themselves) used to enjoy more training than internet design/development. This is changing especially as these countries are waking up to doing international business from the their own homes.
Nah. Nothing I already know…if you have been freelancing already for at least 6 months you should already be aware of these things and solutions.
True but there are newbie freelancers who jump into international freelancing without one or three of these requirements, so I’d like to give them a helping hand through this article.
Very useful article. We are a UK based company and run courses in the UK for many overseas clients. Even though they are often large corporate clients in the early days of international business we had lots of payment problems. We now take Visa payments and PayPal is also widely used and re Susan’s question, Travelex is a good and professional way of getting the money transferred between countries. I found this article really useful – but payment has to be number 1 on most people’s list – as nobody wants to work for free !
Exactly why it’s the first on my 10-requirement list haha! Thanks for sharing your experiences Debby. It’s good to hear that your payment issues with your clients are no longer posing as a major problem for you and your business.
Great article.
I have been working as an illustrator for five or six years now, and I’ve been based in Canada since 2007.
Many of my clients are in the US. Even though we are very close, Canada and the US are different countries, and the US requires that I have an Employment Identification Number (EIN) for their own record keeping purposes.
I also have to provide my clients with a W8-BEN form when I bill.
I’m mentioning this because I think a lot of freelancers do not realize that while it is much easier to work with overseas clients now, there still may be legal forms and other things that you need to fill up, or procedures that need following.
A friend on mine got hit with tax witholding from the US because (and I may be wrong on this) the country he lived in and the US did not have a free trade agreement. Thus, his client was obliged to automatically hold part of his payment for the IRS. He eventually got it back, but it was a nasty shock for him.
I don’t know if there are similar restrictions in other countries (I never did have to fill out forms for anywhere else), but if anyone has had to, I would be most interested in hearing about it.
Oh wow that does sound scary. I’m glad your friend received his money back from the client.
Here where I live, emerging freelancers are actually a little bit more free when it comes to taxes as there is no tax law at the moment imposed on freelancers working for clients abroad. But even so we’re all required to do our homework and be aware of the procedures in case the president does decide to impose one on us.
hey! well im from mexico city and i am working as a interactive designer (thats how they call people from me university) & im having a lot of problems into getting my clients information, like..
they call me and ask me for a project, they pay me and give me the information 3 months after the payment suddenly they want their web site in 3 days because my deadline has over…
what should i do?! i’ve asked them to please send me the information but its almost imposible
i guess its a common problem for most of the designers bu i’ve never been thought to deal with stuff like that.
Great comments everyone! Keep them coming as this is a very informative discussion we can all learn from.
@Tiny Gian Studios: Thanks for the enlightenment regarding this. That sounds like a good idea (re: work & payment through eLance) but there are the fees to consider, which I find more expensive than that on oDesk. You can also try that outsourcing site if you want since the only fee there is 10% from the contractor’s earnings and you just need a credit card to pay the contractor.
It’s also good to hear that South Africa’s booming with online opportunities at the moment. Better late than never right? I’d love to hear how the progress is doing there.
Awesome article! I agree confidence and professionalism is important.
The few lessons I have learnt as a freelance graphic designer working with Asian, British, American and Australian clients (based in Australia).
- Have international bank transfer details on invoices (SWIFT code for Aussies)
- Set up a system with my bank (CBA) to take Visa and Mastercard (clients LOVE paying with credit card)
- Skype on my iphone. Set up a meeting time, log onto skype on your iphone and you can be getting a hair cut while having your business meeting!
- cultural differences… my asian clients tend to try to talk my quotes down, my american clients like to pay for design and do the printing themselves and my australian clients like to hand the entire project over. It’s amazing how culturally different clients can be…
This is great Sculley! Thanks for sharing. Preparation will always save you from a lot of trouble and wasted time.
As for cultural differences, it’s one of my biggest problems when freelancing with international clients. Most of my US and UK clients would reject my proposals/ignore my emails once they hear about my rates. I guess they can’t believe an Asian freelance writer could charge that much.
It would be nice if someone just handed over money and no one took a chunk out of it. I accept payment thru freshbooks.com via my credit card processor (cc echeck), paypal as well as sites that I work off of – elance.com being the best as far as I’m concerned. (All of these type sites are worth trying out if you haven’t before.)
The truth is that it’s really hard to do business long distance without losing a bit of it. I don’t begrudge any fees of less than 5% – especially after working thru rentacoder.com and 15% fees. Just find what works the best for you.
What works the best for my customers is usually paypal – mainly because they accept paypal as payment and have monies in their account.
Hello, I am from Moldova and I do freelance for just one year, I recieve payment trough moneybookers, from international clients. I never had problem with payment. Good luck!
I have to agree Paypal makes life easier for payments. I find one of the main challenges in multiple oversea markets is the time zone challenge. More often then not people get the conversions wrong.
Those 3 am calls are killer.
Wow 3AM?? That must have been really frustrating. Well, to avoid this you can inform your present clients nicely that you won’t be accepting calls or answering emails within this time frame (in their time zone) and your future clients beforehand that you have a certain schedule for calls and emails.
Since I communicate via email the time zones don’t affect my personal schedules and my beauty sleep. I prefer it this way.
Hi,
I’m from India. I faced some wire transfer problems from my UK client. He did the wire transfer, but money never reached me & money was sent back to his account & he was charged for that. I think that wa the fault of client’s bank, but sitting in India what I can do ? As a result client deduct that charged amount from my pending amount. In such cases we cant do anything sitting in another country.
So I have to drop the idea wire transfer. On the other hand, Paypal fees are much higher. Xoom provides a bit good exchange rates.
But as of now, I choose Moneygram. Its really good service, when the amount bit large. They charge fixed amount (not in % like paypal). Also the exchange rates are better then Paypal
But I’m still hoping to have a wire transfer, as its best among all payment options.
Banks here in the Philippines also provide wire transfers through Moneygram but I’ve never tried it before. I stick to PayPal because it’s cheaper here despite the low conversion rates and because I don’t receive my earnings bi-weekly.
I hope Moneygram works for you! I’m sorry to hear about the deductions.. hopefully it won’t happen again once you use this service.
@Grace: This is great! Thanks for sharing! At least now we have a basic idea on how to write good project proposals.
And I agree, “agreement” does sound more inviting than “contract”.
I have recently started my freelance web development career and have already experienced some of the 10 points mentioned here.
From my experiences so far I can narrow it down to the following:
* Deliver mind-blowing work, this way you will stand out from the rest.
* Don’t be feel intimidated to charge less, just to get the job, its normally the cheap skate clients who is also the hardest to deal with.
* Keep on innovating whether you a web developer or we b designer, discovering new markets, you have a potential market of close to 1 billion customers.
“Security measures for non-paid work: if they do not pay me for the work after another 2 days, I will keep it and use it as an additional portfolio item.”
How is that a security measure?
Probably the only way to secure payments for overseas work of small scale without a formal contract is protective payment scheduling, meaning that all the funds have to be transferred before the project is finished (at once or in batches, one of which before starting the work).
I found the article very useful and i believed that whosoever is following above points are successfull. As far as payment option one should rely on PAYPAL on primary level and start searching cheaper and secure way for the payment trasfer which ever available in home country.
I belive in
” It is difficult but not impossible to conduct strictly honest business.” :Mahatma Gandhi:
I think its the only code of ethic to succeed in freelancing business.
Stephanie ! all the best ! keep posing tips regarding freelancing …..
I feel there must be a professional format for work agreement and i should contained clear defination for project …so there won’t be any misunderstanding about the work and the payment as well.
BHAVESH DHOLAKIA
http://www.globalerainfotech.com
The great thing about the internet is that you can work from anywhere in the world, I live in spain but I am from the Uk I do not speak Spanish very well so my business is still with the Uk. I can work from Spain with no problems