«Many people only pretend to be people, but in fact they came from a galaxy far, far away» — these are the thoughts that come to me when communicating with some clients. Their letters can be so stunning, and business cooperation is so unpredictable that it resembles a twisted detective story.
If you are a freelancer with experience, then you know how many amazing surprises this work can bring. Let's try to make a hit parade of the most unpleasant things that freelancers have to hear and try to understand how to react to them.
You are not a real freelancer if you have never heard these wonderful words. Yes, you are lucky, because sometimes it happens that the client does not even condescend to this, but simply quietly dissolves into space. Since such wonderful spells as «contract », «contract » or «lawyer » almost do not work in our kingdom, it remains only to bombard the loss with requests and reminders.
The only way to prevent such a situation is to receive a partial prepayment before starting work (optimally 50%). This way you can reduce your losses even if the client suddenly disappears from the surface of the Earth. And sometimes you can even be miraculously lucky, because there are cases when a customer disappears immediately after an advance payment.
This answer most often comes from professional dreamers who adore the word startup and know for sure that their idea will soon take over the universe and will bring millions of dollars. They graciously share it with you and promise a good reward, perhaps even a share, but only when they achieve success.
Never get fooled by these fairy tales. In general, this is almost the same as the famous Nigerian letters of happiness. Do not let yourself be drawn into other people's games, no matter how tempting the prospects are for you. Focus better on your business and the need to earn your bread.
Every time in response, I want to say: « So ask your employees to do this work. ». However, instead, it is better to politely remind you of your merits, experience and skills, which, in fact, made the client turn to you.
Explain that the services of a freelancer, as a rule, are ultimately cheaper than a full-time employee, since they do not require investments in the maintenance of the workplace, insurance payments and tax deductions. To be sure, check the tariffs and prices for similar works again. You need to be confident in your skills and your price, and try to stick to it.
As for clients, here's a tip: if you want a cheap freelancer, then you will have to deal with not the best employees who give unpredictable results. A mercenary who believes that he has been offended with payment will try in any way to regain what he believes he is owed.
«And in the meantime I have to work for free for the benefit of your company? What the hell?» You say that your employees don't get anything either, but they show calmness and self-control. Yes, your employees may be counting on future remuneration and career growth in the company, but freelancers are completely different. We don't want a career in your company, just pay for the work done, nothing more.
Yes, endurance is a useful quality if you are engaged in charitable activities for a non-profit organization, but it is even harmful for the endless waiting for payments.
«There must have been a failure at Gmail, we did not receive your email with the invoice, so we will pay next month.». Most likely, in this case there is no point in arguing and proving anything — it's just a reason not to pay you now or at all. Especially if your mailbox has not received a notification from the mail service about problems with the delivery of the letter.
The best action in this situation would be to re-send the letter with a request to notify of receipt. Yes, there are email failures, but if this happens too often, then you should think about the expediency of further cooperation.
If the theory of karma is really true, then you must have sinned a lot in your past life if you got such a client. However, this is just a joke, such clients come across all the time.
Without any additional payment, of course. This happens quite often and is usually accompanied by the following statement: Why should I pay at all for a design that I don't like?»
Yes, this position makes sense, but you also cannot endlessly redo your work, spending your working hours on it, which must be paid. Where is the guarantee that the customer's mood will not change again and the next website design will not require rework again? Insist on reviewing the price.
Usually such a statement is accompanied by the words "I trust you!But in fact, this means that the customer simply does not really know what he really wants, and hopes for your telepathic capabilities.
But it ends with the options described a little above — « no, it's a little wrong, here and there it needs to be corrected, and in general it's better to start over ». Never start a project until you specifically determine and preferably document what result the customer wants to get from you.
Of course, these are not all the surprises that freelancers have to face in their work. We are waiting for additions to this list in the comments!
