Sometimes, a client will come to you with a fabulous project: something that you want to work on that just happens to be open-ended and will pay a nice chunk of your bills for months to come. You go in very excited about the project and the money and generally it’s a good gig. But the ending might not always be what you want. Maybe the client puts a sudden end to the project. Maybe the client has been following your every step and taking notes in the hopes of handling everything in house as soon as he’s learned all he can.

These situations are not necessarily bad, but if you plan for them from the start of the of the project, you can make the final transition for the project much easier when it does come around.

All Your Eggs in One Basket

A six-month contract where you work only for one client can wind up being a good choice, at least in terms of income. But in terms of what you’ll be doing next, it can be less ideal. No client is going to want to schedule six months out on a project with you unless you’re very good, so continuing to market can be a tough call. At the same time, though, there’s always the chance that the project won’t be completed as planned, so you want to make sure that you can line up something else fast if you have to.

So what are the alternatives? Working more than full-time on client work when you’re already bringing in enough income is hard to justify. It tends to make more sense to keep up at least some marketing activities to make sure that you’ve got regular requests for work coming in even if you can’t take on every project. It may also makes sense to explore options like building up some other income streams while you have the cushion of a big client. Something like creating some stock work that you can sell online or putting together an ebook can ensure that even when this contract ends, you still have some income coming in.

Look for Opportunity

With many clients, there are opportunities if you just look for them. These opportunities may not necessarily look like more work and can even mean ending a project early, but they’re opportunities just the same. Consider a client who is taking notes on every step of the process as you work on a project. The client probably won’t say anything, but there’s a good chance that he wants to try to figure out how to do what you do, so he can handle it in house (and cheaper) in the future. He may even be thinking about trying to get out of the contract when he has what he needs.

So offer to teach your client how you do what you do, for an hourly rate higher than what you charge for just doing the work. There’s no guarantee how long a project like that will really last, after all, so why not eliminate any hard feelings up front? With some careful negotiating, you may even be able to turn it into a longer and steadier contract — maybe you provide additional training or support as needed. And maybe your client finds that he can’t mimic your skills and comes back to you because you worked with him to accommodate what he thought he wanted.

Keep an Eye on the Contract

One of the most important aspects of a freelance contract is how it ends. One of the biggest issues with a long-term project is that you can rarely use the same payment system you use for a short-term piece of work: where you might normally not hand over final pieces of work until payment is complete, that may just not be an option. On projects where certain parts of the project will be live long before the full project is done, a monthly payment or something similar is absolutely necessary.

Furthermore, you need to be aware of how the project can be ended, at least in terms of the contract. Many clients will want to be able to end the contract immediately, just by telling you, while often expecting you to give three weeks notice or something equally ridiculous. How the contract can be ended (assuming the project is completed) needs to be a fair and equal arrangement.

In this issue of Ask FreelanceSwitch, Travis King and Thursday Bram look at the budget selector and what to do when the client isn’t adhering to the contract.

Ask FreelanceSwitch is a new regular column here that allows us to help beginners get a grip on freelancing. If you have a question about freelancing that you want answered, send an email to askfreelanceswitch@gmail.com.

Ready! Fight!

Question #1

Is it helpful to put a budget selector on designer’s sites so that prospects can select their budget range?
What are the pros and cons of doing this?

How will it help weed out tire kickers?

-Behzad

Thursday: There are two schools of thought when it comes to offering prospective clients pricing information on your site. The first is that having extra information will help those clients decide if you’re the best freelancer for their project. The second is that pricing information can scare off clients, who don’t necessarily know what they’re getting for their money.

Personally, I prefer to give estimates for each project because there’s no guarantee that even similar projects will require the same level of work or time, so I don’t offer much pricing information on my website. That said, I think that, depending on how you work and what kind of clients you’re looking for, offering at least an idea of budget ranges on your site will work well. Those prospective clients who know what your work is worth will be more likely to bring you solid projects, rather than just kicking the tires.

It’s also worth remembering that for many of us freelancers, our websites keep evolving. Just because you offer a budget selector on your website right now doesn’t mean that you have to do so three months from now. Trying it out and seeing the responses you get can be the best way to determine how it fits into your estimating process.

Travis: The simple answer is don’t do it. Budget selectors reduce your services to that of fast food. Do you want fries with your web design? That will be $200 extra. Supersize that content for you, Sir?

The truth is clients really have no idea what most services cost. If you give them a selection they are just going to choose the least expensive option. So unless you’re offering a service that has a set rate, ditch the budget selector.

You are correct though, the only good thing a budget selector it that it does weed out some of the tire kickers. But there are much better ways to do that than with just a budget selector. Maybe let them know your minimum project amounts, or if you want an even better way to scare off clients, ask them to send you content. You’ll never hear from them again after that.

Question #2

I’d like to ask a question about contracts and contracting a client.

What I always doubted is since I’m living in Asia and don’t really know about the transnational heritage (or something like that) and I doubted about getting a contract to client – What if they don’t obey what was written in a contract like paying on time (lots of delay sometimes) and etc.? Yes they do agree with the contract but some were really stubborn and don’t even respect what was on the agreement they have signed.

-Yheng

Thursday: It’s been my experience that the grand majority of clients will follow through on a contract once they’ve signed it. When someone doesn’t, it isn’t an issue of culture; instead, it’s usually one of two things. Either something has gone wrong with the client’s business (whether or not he’s told you about it) or the client has decided to stiff you — and he probably intended to do so even before signing the contract. In the first case, you can often work something out.

It’s the second situation that tends to give freelancers trouble. If the client is in another country, getting him to follow through on the terms of the contract can be tough. You may be able to hire a collections firm in that country, but even small claims court is probably more expensive than you can easily manage. After the fact, it can be tough to enforce a contract. However, if you write your contract in such a way as to ensure that you’re paid before the client gets a full copy of your work, you can have a better chance of making sure he sticks to the contract. One option is to provide the client with what amounts to a sample of the project (for a website design, for instance, you might send screenshots) but not release the full project (the HTML and CSS files, in the case of that website design) until you’ve been paid in full.

Travis: Yheng my buddy…why are you letting clients disrespect you? You got to show them who’s Kung Fu is stronger.

And yes, yes, and yes to a contract. Whatever nation or people you’re dealing with, always have a contract.

There seems to be a different mindset for a client when he puts pen to paper and signs his name on the dotted line. From my experience they are much less likely to disappear into the ether when you have a copy of their John Hancock on file.

If you come up against a stubborn client that doesn’t want to adhere to the terms of the contract, you just have to be more stubborn. Don’t be a wimp and let them off with bad behavior. Be more like the Dog Whisperer and when a client is trying to take a mess on your business, grab them by the neck and yell PSSSTCH into their ear.

I had the chance to talk with another freelancer the other day: she’s been offered the opportunity to take on a six-month project where she’d essentially be working full-time for a single client. The money is good, but there’s a catch in the contract—a non-compete clause.

The Standard Non-Compete Clause

The idea behind non-compete clauses grew out of employers wanting to make sure that when an employee left the company, he didn’t take any clients with him. Most clauses are phrased so that the contracted employee can’t work in the same field for a specific period of time after leaving the company. It’s actually quite difficult for an employer to enforce a non-compete clause in a contract. They keep putting them in, though, in the hopes of limiting competition for even a short period of time.

When a Freelancer Sees a Non-Compete Clause

There are only two situations in which the issue of a non-compete clause should come up for a freelancer. The first is if you’re freelancing part-time while still working for an employer. If you have a non-compete clause in your contract, but you’re taking on similar projects as a freelancer that you do during your day job, you can wind up with a problem on your hands. Technically, an employer could terminate an employee who took that route and even sue that employee (although the cost is generally not worthwhile). The second is if you’re in the process of leaving an employer in order to freelance full-time. If there’s a non-compete clause in your contract, you might face some trouble about pursuing similar work to your past employer’s — although you can often work out a deal where they don’t enforce the clause.

You might have noticed that I used the word ’should’ when saying that there are only two situations where a non-compete clause comes up. That’s because there is a third situation which some freelancers face: when clients bring on freelancers for long-term projects, sometimes they’ll include a non-compete clause in the contract. It shows a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of the fact that a freelancer is an independent contractor, but it is, unfortunately, not unheard of. From what clients have explained to me, the idea seems to be that if a client is sub-contracting work to you, he wants to make sure that you can’t grab clients when you leave.

Responding to a Non-Compete Clause

Don’t count on the fact that such a clause is difficult to enforce. If you see a non-compete clause in a contract for a project you’re being asked to consider, either ask to have the clause removed or don’t sign the contract. A client might say that they have no intention of enforcing the clause, but the fact that it’s in there at all could be a problem down the road.

It is definitely possible to get such a clause removed from a contract. The freelancer I mentioned at the beginning of the post did just that: she explained to her client that signing a contract containing that clause would endanger her ability to earn a living after the project ended. After all, as a freelancer, a strict interpretation of that non-compete clause would mean that she couldn’t take on any project similar to what she’d be working on for those six months after the project ended.

There is another option that you can suggest if a client is truly concerned about the information you’ll have access to while working for him. You can add a clause to the contract stating that you will have access to that information but limiting or preventing your ability to use that information after the project ends. It’s still not an ideal option from the freelancer’s point of view, but if that’s what it takes to land a project, it may be worth it.

I had just generated three great leads. The first one I found in front of the Kombucha display. She’s helping her sister develop an online presence for her retail store. The third was behind me in a surprisingly slow checkout lane. We both expressed our satisfaction with the wait as it gave us time to connect. We’re meeting for lunch next week to discuss a social media strategy for his restaurant.

How was I able to do that? The mechanics of my behavior can be broken down into some basic principles you can use to promote your freelance business. Of course, you’ll have to infuse them with our own spicy blend of personality and expertise. I’ll try to keep the tips brief and answer any specific questions in the comments.

1. Be Friendly

I was able to connect with professionals in a grocery store because I stepped out of my comfort zone and started conversations with strangers. A few reminders as you bump up your friendliness quotient:

• Remember that most people prefer not to initiate conversations. If they’re not in a bad mood they’ll appreciate your effort and respond pleasantly. If they’ve had a bad day, they’ll probably shrug you off. Don’t take it personally. They might have loved you 4 hours earlier.
• Focus on trying to understand this new person, not sell to them. Yes, the end game is about finding new clients but having that as your only focus will cloud your judgement and make you seem, well, creepy.
• If you’re not at all naturally outgoing, that’s okay. You can still be pleasant and do your best to respond with more than one-word answers when someone else initiates a conversation with you!

2. Present Your Value

For most adults, the question, “what do you do for work?” comes up pretty early in a conversation. You’ll be tempted to respond with a short answer. “I’m a copywriter” or “I’m a graphic designer.” Don’t sell yourself short by passing up an opportunity to present your value to a potential client.

Instead of saying, “I’m a copywriter” you could respond by saying, “I help small businesses increase sales online.” Instead of saying, “I’m a graphic designer” you could say, “I help people remember their favorite brands more easily.”

Those are just rough taglines. The point is for you to move toward presenting your value in an attractive way. Doing so will help continue the conversation as your lead clarifies what you do and, hopefully, what you can do for them.

3. Have A Business Card

Internet natives hate business cards because they feel stodgy and backward. You, savvy freelancer, will not fall into the trap of thinking you’re above traditional communication techniques. You need business cards and you need to carry a few of them with you wherever you go. Feel free to call your business cards something else. Call them, contact forms, calling cards (super old skool!), engagement reminders, or whatever you like.

If you’re serious about promoting your business, you’ll make your contact information available in a simple format that is easily shared. For now, that happens with the lowly business card.

4. ABN

If we’re all separated by just six steps then it follows that every person you come in contact with is only a conversation or two away from somebody who needs to hire you. I’m not saying you should try to talk to everybody, but it sure would be interesting if you did!

Remember:

Always.
Be.
Networking.

5. Be Helpful

Take advantage of every opportunity you have to help others. That woman with a broken-down car on the side of the highway might be a small business owner who, after fixing her car, will need your help developing an online presence for her business. That neighbor struggling to carry a new couch inside his house alone might have a buddy looking for a web developer.

I should note that being helpful just because you’re trying to generate leads will never end well. Doing anything for the wrong reason leads to early burnout and a calloused soul.

6. Be A Resource

Present yourself as a resource. “I’m a member of a few different small business networks and I’d be happy to introduce you” is more attractive than the typical, “If you’re not buying, I’m not interested in you” conversation.

I highly recommend building a personal list of resources you can share with people you meet. I’m constantly adding to a list of online resources that I can share with new contacts. Having a list at the ready makes easy work of compiling a few links for a new contact. In many cases, being the conduit for the resources is just as valuable as being the resource yourself. You don’t have to be made of gold. Just know where to find it.

7. Follow Up

If you can get some sort of contact information, do so. Most people are comfortable with giving a phone number or email address after less than a minute of conversation. If you’re short on time and have made it through introductions and your value proposition, go ahead and ask for contact info.

Important: Once you get home, follow through on whatever promises you made during your conversation.

A simple trick is to write down whatever you promised your contact right next to the contact information so you don’t forget it. I like to make notes on the backs of business cards.

Generating leads for your freelance business isn’t easy but it doesn’t need to be like pulling teeth. Get out there, have confidence in your ability to provide good things to the world, and meet some people. The rest will become easier with practice.

Have a question? Hit me up in the comments and I’ll answer as many as I can. Thanks for your time!

Wondering about that second lead? That one was a vegan chef with an amazing sense of humor. I’m following up with her for non-business-related reasons.

Get more from Seth Simonds at his blog or hit him up for a follow on Twitter.

Or you might want to sell your freelancing business, and the buyer will want to know how you’ve been handling things.

In short, these are the times when you will need to explain what you do to others. Or you may need to tell others what you want them to do. At first, these tasks may leave you at a loss for words. This article will help you get your words back.

The first task in your explaining project will be to figure out exactly what it is you’ll need to explain. Here’s an outline of the three basic functions of a business, with questions to guide your thinking:

1. DO

This is everyone’s favorite. Here you’re describing what you DO for money.

Let’s say that you’re a website designer. You don’t just pull those marvelous designs out of your head and dazzle the clients with them. You probably have some sort of prototyping process. How does it work? Do you create your layout ideas in Photoshop, then save them as JPEGs and post them in your server space for the clients to review? Or do you go straight into the coding and post rough drafts of your ideas?

Then, once you’re past the idea stage, how do you build websites? Are you building them out of HTML pages or are you using a content management system like WordPress or Drupal? Do you have subcontractors working with you on site buildouts? What kind of subcontractors? How do you instruct them?

Then, once the site is done, how do you hand the files off to the client? What sort of client training do you offer? How about service after the sale? Do you maintain websites? Do you offer related services like search engine optimization and website hosting?

Now, I just threw a whole bunch of questions at you, and you’re probably scratching your head, trying to figure out the answers. The good news is that you’ve answered them already. Here’s where you can find the answers:

1. On your website. You may have a page devoted to describing your production process. Or you may have written a client’s guide to working with a WordPress-based website.
2. In your proposals to prospective clients. Proposals are good places to find descriptions of production processes and the service you’ll offer after the sale.
3. In your e-mail and texting exchanges with prospective and actual clients. Those question-and-answer fests are good places to find details on everything I’ve covered above.

2. GET

How do you acquire new clients or drum up repeat business from existing clients?

This is the marketing and sales part of your business. For the purpose of this article, let’s define marketing as what you do to get people to come into your freelancing store. Sales? That’s persuading people to buy what’s on your shelves.

I’ve previously written about what can happen if you pay too much attention to marketing and not enough attention to sales. (Hint: your freelancing business suffers.) So, I’m going to devote most of this section to sales.

Sales consists of two activities:

1. Defining your Ideal Client Profile and figuring out where you can find people who fit this profile.
2. Reaching out to them.

As you may have guessed, a lot of people really enjoy the first activity, because it doesn’t require talking to strangers and asking them for their business. Heck, it’s kind of fun to write a little essay on who your Ideal Client is. And searching online and offline for leads lists? That can add up to hours of not talking to the people who might hire you.

Then there’s that second activity. Reaching out to people. Talk about scary. But using a script will make it a lot less scary. In my own business, I use scripts for making cold calls. Scripts for making warm calls. And I’ve created templates for cold and warm e-mails. I even have a scripted method for answering my telephone.

Scripts come in handy if Introverted You hires a vivacious employee to help you prospect for business. After all, you don’t want Vivacious Vincent to get on the phone and not know what to say. Or when the phone rings and Vincent is closest to it. What would you want him to say in that case?

So, what do you want your business scripts to say?

Now, a word (or two) about marketing:

It can consist of everything from placing advertisements to sending a monthly e-mail newsletter. Any marketing activity provokes a flurry of questions. For example, let’s look at advertising. You can place your ads in media ranging from printed publications to websites. What will those ads say? What will they look like? What do you want people to do after they’ve seen or heard them?

Same goes for your e-mail newsletter. Who will be on your list? What are you going to say? Will you use an HTML newsletter, or are you going to stick with tried-and-true plain text. (One of my friends still uses plain text for her newsletter. And she says it works just fine.)

3. RUN

Now this is a word that gets no respect. Some people even call it “administrivia.” But let the following things go, and watch your business run into the ground.

Accounting: Do you use accounting software? If so, what kind do you use? What sort of functions does it perform for you? Invoicing? If so, what information do you include on your invoices? What do your invoices look like? Can your software generate checks? What do your checks look like? Who do you order them from? What kind of financial reports can you generate with your accounting software? And how do you use those reports?

And, since I mentioned financial reports, I guess I don’t have to tell you that they’re needed for filing taxes. How do you handle that fun-filled task? Are you a DIY kind of tax filer? Or do you use a tax accountant? How do you communicate with your accountant? Do you consult with your accountant at times other than tax season? (I hope you do!)

Administration: That’s right. You the Administrator. That was probably the last thing you aspired to be during your job days. But, take heart. In your freelancing business, there isn’t a lot of administering to do. Unless you need to do some long-range planning. Like writing a business plan so you can get a bank loan or investor capital. Or developing a professional development plan. The word “plan” leads naturally to the next question: What will go into those plans?

Legal: This isn’t the part where you’re going to sue someone. Or (heaven forbid!) be sued.

But even the freest spirited of freelance business has some legalities to comply with. For example, do you live in a city that requires that businesses be licensed? If so, how did you apply for your business license? And how often does it need to be renewed? What’s the fee? And what about professional licensure? Are there certifications and licenses that you need in order to enter or continue in your field? How is this done? What about security clearances? Do you need those? If so, how do you apply and keep them current?

Office and Business Management: Okay, you don’t work in an office anymore. Which means that you’re now your very own office manager. Ever had to purchase equipment for your studio? A telephone or a computer? Or how about office supplies? As Internet-savvy as we like to be, there are times when we still need to send a letter to a client. What does the business stationery (letterhead, envelopes, and business cards) look like? And where do you order it from? And how do you manage all those projects that your business gets involved with? How do you supervise the work of your employees? Or, if you don’t have employees, your subcontractors?

Okay, that’s enough. I’ve asked you quite a few questions. And you’ll probably think of others. It will take time to answer them, but here’s what could happen if you do:

Years ago, I did business with a small accounting firm on the east side of Tucson. This firm documented everything that it did, and I do mean everything. They had quite a thick procedures manual, but no one felt overwhelmed by it. Rather, they regarded it as The Book. They turned to it many times a day.

The Book allowed this firm to run so smoothly that the boss and employees didn’t have to work through the weekend before April 15. (In the United States, April 15 is Tax Day, the federal tax deadline. A lot of accounting firms go flat-out during the last week or two before this date.) Matter of fact, Tax Day at this firm was so relaxed that the boss and her employees came to work in pajamas. And TV cameras would show up to document the occasion.

Now, you may be wondering why I’m referring to this accounting firm in the past tense. It’s because it no longer exists. Boss sold it to a larger firm, and, I’m told, the completeness of The Book helped to increase the sale price. That’s where documenting your business processes can get you.

One of the most difficult parts of freelancing is the tendency of the freelancer to eventually lose joy for the work. You may have come, like me, from a gig that paid well but didn’t fully capitalize on your talents. You decided to start working as a freelancer in order to make money doing what you love. That’s what this is all about, right? Following your passions?

The struggle comes when, as with anything, the shine fades. But you have it extra tough as freelancers because you’re left without any of the protective structure of a formal work environment. This isn’t a salary position. You can’t have a bad day, get nothing done, and make your boss happy by doing twice as much the next day. An off day for you means no billable hours.

What happened? Wasn’t this supposed to be a wild ride toward financial freedom and fame for being an expert in your chosen field? For creatives, especially those who make their living by framing and finishing ideas, the grind of freelance work can slowly rip the joy out of the creative process.

How can you get the joy back? Whether you’ve been freelancing for years or are just starting out, I think you’ll find value in the following tips:

1. Simplify your process

Get back to the basics of your craft. Take away the client-focused “big picture” mentality and focus on the details how you get things done.

• For the web designer, try giving up designing in-browser and spend a week with a notebook and pen. Steep yourself in the world around you and get a feel for the way your design sensibility has developed since you first started. You might even learn something new about yourself as take a break from the big screen.
• For the copywriter, try to spend as much time away from your computer as possible. Perhaps limit yourself to an hour per day of online time. Sure, you won’t be able to fall back on your lightning quick typing skills to get projects out the door at the last minute. But that frenetic pace is part of what’s taken your joy. The idea is to dig down to the process that made you fall in love with your work to begin with. Surely you didn’t start freelancing because you hated what you do!
• For the consultant, try distilling your initial interview process into fewer than 5 questions and spend most of your time listening without trying to prepare an immediate response. It’s tempting to get sucked into constant rapid-fire interactions, especially because they seem so “professional.” Slowing things down and allowing for more robust answers will give you more room for deeper insights and, possibly, a reminder as to why you started doing this in the first place.

2. Change your location

If you can afford to spend the next month working from a villa in Rome, do it! The rest of us will have to content ourselves with working from a different coffee shop or switching coworking spaces. The point of changing your location is to alter the subliminal influences of a place that gain power over time. When you look at your current workspace, do you see a place where numerous late nights and frustrated phone calls take place? Do you sit in your office chair and get that feeling in the back of your mind that you’ve plopped yourself into more of the same old thing?

Dig your way free of the suffocating weight of your current environment and try working in a space that feels “new.”

3. Resurrect an old passion

Perhaps you once played in a band, took pottery classes, or went rock climbing back in the days when you didn’t have clients scheduled back to back? The freelancer’s workday is a blend of work and life like no other. You can use this to your advantage and push joy back into your work by adding joy in another part of your day.

For a creative, improvement in one area will necessarily help with the rest. Picking up that guitar again will hone your sense of rhythm as a copywriter. Taking pottery classes might cure you of your fixation on grunge web designs. Rock climbing and most other physical activities will give you a boost by reducing stress and increasing your stamina.

4. Set short-term goals

Remember when you were a dreamer? Now your work has extended its gnarled tendrils into every part of your life and you’ve stopped dreaming. I don’t have a quick and easy solution to bring your dreams back but I’ve found setting short-term goals to be a powerful way of helping me think more about my future.

When you think about your future, you’ll begin to consider possibilities and hopes that you may have forgotten. Setting short-term goals and reaching them will help you regain joy in your work by reaffirming your ability to use this work you’ve chosen to change your life for the better. For example, you may have dreamed that freelancing would allow you to be debt-free but life is complicated and you’re back scrambling to make minimum payments on your credit cards. A short-term goal in this case would involve paying one of your cards down by an additional $300 this month. Once you’ve planned and achieved that goal, you’ll have confirmation that you can indeed reduce your debt as a freelancer. Nice!

5. Get professional training

Join a professional society, start a professional club in your area, or sign up for classes related to your field. Why? Because iron sharpens iron and the freelancer who knows she has an edge in her field is the least likely one to frown at the idea of doing more good work.

Professional training will also give you another reason to get out of the house and talk to people. Until we start using James Cameron’s expression technology to move the eyebrows on our avatars, we’ll only find the true joy of companionship within range where deodorant matters.

What about you? Have you lost your joy for your craft and later regained it? If so, how did you do it and what can you share to help us find your success? Thanks for sharing!

Get more tips and creative inspiration from Seth Simonds at his blog or hit him up for a follow on Twitter.

“In How to Write Great Copy for the Web, author Donna Spencer will help you start writing content for the web that works! Learn about how writing web copy differs from other forms of writing, and how writing useful, functional and concise copy can both help persuade your readers, and also help with search engine optimization!

Whether it’s for your own site, or for somebody else’s, How to Write Great Copy for the Web will quickly bring you up to speed with some clever strategies that will make you popular with your site’s visitors, or with your clients!”

We know it’s hard to judge a book by its cover, so we’re making the first chapter and the table of contents available to download for anyone who is interested. That way you can decide for yourself if this book is right for you. We think it’s great for any sort of freelancer who wants to write web copy, be they freelancer writers who are new to the web, or web designers whose clients keep asking them to take care of copy—it happens all the time, so it’s a great idea to learn the skill and make some money out of it!

• Download the first chapter here.
• Get your discount by signing up for the Rockin’ List here—your coupon code will arrive within 24 hours.
• Purchase How to Write Great Copy for the Web here.

Update: Our $5 off for subscribers offer closes in under 48 hours.

One of the nicest things about freelancing is that you decide when to give yourself a raise. If you feel like you’re doing a great job, developing experience and becoming hotter property, you don’t need to wait for your boss to notice. You can give yourself a raise, and if your clients agree with your assessment, you’ll get it.

As a freelancer, you can give yourself a raise by increasing your hourly or per-project rates. This part is simple, but setting up the right preconditions for the change is a trickier process. How can you raise your rates while making sure you still get plenty of work?

Throughout this post, there are a few things I want you to remember:

1. There is zero agreement amongst both freelancers and clients about how much their work is worth. I’ve received quotes varying between $250 and $2,000 in response to exactly the same job ad, posted on the FreelanceSwitch Jobs Board. It’s clear that across the dozens of applicants, no two freelancers
   agreed on what their service was worth!
2. For any given service, one prospective client could have a budget of $500, and another a budget of $5,000, and everything in between. In many ways, it’s useful to think of your hourly rate as the price of a product. Some people will never pay more than $100 for a pair of shoes, while others regularly spend $500. The cheaper pair of shoes may be just as good quality as the more expensive pair, but in the eyes of the customer, the perceived value is different.
3. Raising your rates is fair practice. When a prospect accepts your pricing and becomes your client, they are accepting that the value you will outweighs your rates, allowing them to turn a profit on your work. If they didn’t believe this, they would have sought out a cheaper freelancer.
4. The market should set your rates. Your perception of your own value to clients is a guesstimate unless you test it. If you’ve never experimented with different rates, how do you know that your clients don’t feel like you’re undervaluing your services? They certainly won’t be the ones to tell you!

When to Give Yourself a Raise

One situation where you should always try raising your rates is when you are unable to meet the demand for your services. If you have enough clients to keep you busy 50 hours of the week – and you only want to work 35 – it’s time to incrementally raise your rates until supply and demand equalize again.

Another sign that you might be charging too little is if nobody ever mentions your rates as a sticking point. At the very least, you should occasionally have clients try to negotiate you down in price, but still choose to work with you even if you don’t budge. The saying “You can’t please everybody” is true—and if you’re pleasing everyone, something is probably wrong with your rates.

If you’re doing lots of work each week, are being paid for it, and still struggle to make ends meet, you may find you are charging too little. In the developed world it would be considered very unusual for a skilled freelancer to charge less than $25 an hour. After all, you’re not flipping burgers, or doing a job the average person could be trained to do in a week. You are a skilled worker and deserve to be compensated as such.

Another time to think about a rate rise is if you’re simply better than you were at the time you first set your rates. If you’ve been working 30+ hours a week in your freelance field for a year, you can’t help but have become more skilled than you were when you began. For better results, clients should expect to pay more, and you should expect to charge more.

There are also some situations where raising your rates might be a good idea even when your roster of clients isn’t full. While some freelance services—like HTML & CSS markup/coding—are in widespread demand, others—like programming in Ruby on Rails—are more specialized. There may not be a large enough pool of prospective clients to keep your hands full for 35 hours a week, but as a specialist, trying to attract more clients may not be the best way to increase your income. Instead, remember that your services are rare, and as such, can command higher rates.

Opposite to the situations described above, there are circumstances where you probably shouldn’t meddle with your rates:

In these situations you should stick with what’s working until you have a more solid base from which to experiment.

An Approach to Testing

My philosophy for finding your current ideal price-point is to raise your rates in small increments on a per-client basis until you find your sweet spot. The second half of the strategy is to make sure you receive feedback on your rates. This is so you can clearly observe how your rates are affecting your business.

If you display your rates publicly, in the Services area of your website or blog, clients have the opportunity to evaluate them in private. Ten people may consider your services and reject them on the basis of price without you ever knowing. This can be a great time-saver when you’ve settled on your rates and are confident in them — these are all people who may have otherwise requested a quote, only to reject it after they saw the bottom line. But the situation changes when you are trying to re-evaluate your rates. You want your client’s decision-making process to be open to you. This is why you should consider removing public pricing from your site during this phase, and discussing prices only after prospects contact you.

If you’ve put effort into an email exchange, or into preparing a quote, most prospects will take the time to write a response, even if they decide your service isn’t right for them. And most of the time, they will state a reason for deciding not to hire you. Keeping track of these reasons will be invaluable when trying to determine your current
‘sweet spot’ rates.

Giving Yourself a Raise

If you’ve decided to re-evaluate your rates and have made sure you’re in a good position to do so, here’s how to begin: the next time a new prospect inquires about your services, add $5 to your previously quoted hourly rate. If you are someone who charges by the project, increase your project rate by 10%. Try the same thing for the next prospect, and the next prospect, and the next.

Do you notice a change?

If you find that more people are knocking you back on the basis of price, to the point where you aren’t able to work as many hours as you like, you may need to return to your earlier, more successful rates, and work on building up the value of your services before trying again. However, if you find that you are converting at the same rate, and being hired just as much, this suggests that the market has accepted your new rate.

Because this process is based on small incremental increases, you can continue to repeat the process until you finally feel the market pushing back, telling you that you’ve gone a little too far. At that point, pull back one notch to your last successful price-point. For now, this is your current sweet spot. In future, when you feel you’ve once again increased the value of what you provide, you can attempt to advance further if you feel confident doing so.

Value-adding Can Take it Further

Earlier, I talked about how clients will measure your rates against their perception of the value you will provide them. By increasing this perception of value, you may be able to raise your rates further. Here are some ways you can add more value to your services:

Increase your skill. The most obvious method to start: simply get better at what you do. Learn new techniques, develop unique methods of working, and refine your style. More impressive work justifies more impressive rates.

Become better at expressing the benefits. This relates to the way you talk about and describe your service. If you can become better at the way you communicate the benefits of what you do, clients will see it as more valuable. Compare:

I write highly polished blog articles using impeccable spelling and grammar.

to…

My articles are highly optimized for StumbleUpon traffic, and have the potential to attract tens of thousands of visitors to your blog.

Both are important and desirable qualities, but the latter seems more unique and valuable.

By describing the benefits differently you might find clients are all of a sudden willing to pay more for your work, even though the final product is the same. The perceived value is different.

Create a perception of scarcity. People often associate scarcity and exclusivity with quality. Even something as simple as adding the following sentence to your service page can create a perception of scarcity:

Please be aware that, due to high levels of demand, there may be a waiting list for this service.

If you ever find yourself swamped with work and need to stop accepting new clients for a while, avoid taking your Service page down. Instead, add a notice letting prospects know how busy you are:

Due to overwhelming demand, this service is temporarily unavailable. Please contact me if you’d like to be notified when it re-opens.

Earn more prestige. Become well known enough for what you do and people will value you on much more than the apparent face-value of your work. People know that experts are always pricey, but usually worth it. If you can be truly perceived as an industry leader, you can probably charge your dream rates — and then some!

Tap into hot trends. A few years ago, a relatively new freelance skill emerged — SEO copywriting, in other words, the ability to write persuasive sales copy that would also rank in the search engines. Though any person with copywriting skill and a basic knowledge of SEO fundamentals can perform SEO copywriting, for a while it had a much higher price tag than ordinary SEO, because many small business owners were desperate to tap into the benefits. By being flexible enough to tweak their service to tap into a hot trend, copywriters were able to significantly raise their rates.

A Final Word

Adjusting your pricing is a vital strategy to increase your profits over time, but it shouldn’t be your only strategy. Otherwise, you’ll reach a point where it’s not working
as effectively anymore. For example:

• There may come a point where, to raise your rates any higher, you may need to start working with a different kind of client — say, big businesses with big budgets. However, these kinds of organizations often prefer to work with trusted firms rather than individual freelancers. Eventually you may reach a point where your rates can’t increase any higher without fundamentally changing the structure of your business.
• In the future, you may wish to work fewer hours to focus on other areas of your life that need attention. Perhaps you’ll have a child—or another child—or decide to go back to school, or write a novel, or go surfing six months out of the year. Who knows? Either way, regardless of what your rates are, cutting your hours by 10 or 20 a week will result in a significant pay cut. If you want to maintain your current standard of living, you’ll need to get creative.

In the rest of the chapter, I teach you how to create low-maintenance partnerships you can profit from, while doing very little extra work. You’ll also learn how to add new products and services to your business that eventually remove you from the equation — except when it’s time to collect your earnings!

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