Make Your Own Lane: Choose Who You Want To Work With

It is your choice if you want to handpick the kind of clients you want to work with, knowing that the project will add value to your experience, learning and earnings or be at the mercy of clients who would choose to work with you.

Take Control

What may apparently seem like a great project may actually turn miserable, time consuming that lead to huge waste of bandwidth and unnecessary stress in the following cases: 

If the project owner (The client) is in control of everything

Looking to pay cheap or pick your brain for free. 

Asking for samples to gauge your competence while you have dozens of client testimonials that speak volumes about your good work

Ask yourself

How can a pitch deck or presentation or business plan sample of Real Estate industry tell the prospect how good you can do something similar for a company that deals with dairy products in a different geography altogether?

Turn the table

Clients who genuinely want good work on professional terms are open to suggestions and will never compromise on quality of work.

I have worked with clients who did not have the budget or who could not afford to pay my charges end to end, so they got a small part done by me to suit their budget and also build the required relationship quotient for future needs.

Top Four Tips – Client / Project Evaluation Prior To Engagement

I Timelines

If someone is asking for a business plan within 24 hours, isn’t that a huge hint about the client’s sensibility and sensitivity quotient?

a)   He is not even bothered about how you will deliver it.

b)   He is expecting you, though unspoken, to abandon all work you are currently doing for other clients and prioritize his assignment

c)   Even worse, if he is willing to pay more for this turn around – He actually believes there are people who will commit the impossible for a few dollars. He probably does this based on this past interaction with other freelancers who were willing.

II Take Charge

Do not give the power in someone else’s hands – You not only refuse such assignments upfront, you rationalize your decision of doing so by educating the client about the probable consequences of a quick TAT: 

a)   The project will be under researched.

b)   It affects buyer’s credibility to deliver such below standard work to an intelligent target audience.

c)   The client needs to use his best people skills to negotiate timelines with his audience instead of trying to negotiate turn around time with you.

Client is likely to value your work and perspectives, if what you say actually activates his thinking cell about how his decision to insist on incredible TAT can affect his end business outcomes.

III Try Paid Sample

It will be misleading to proceed with this assumption that all buyers on freelancing portals are low paying clients. There are many who are just being cautious due to past experiences or lack of domain knowledge or judgment to assess the right freelancer for their work. As a precautionary measure, they can give you small assignment before they let you do the big project

Do not be in that race to test who charges the lowest fees.

Do propose to do a quick paid assignment to be on the same page regarding quality work, timelines, competence.

Ask yourself again

Why do they need samples of other business, if you are willing to give them a paid sample for their own business?

IV Bid or Pitch

Bids are for newbies – who are new to online income, new to freelancing portals and new to the whole concept of trading skills.

Once you have a rough idea of what niche skills you have, where it fits in best, who is willing to pay for that, you know where to pitch instead of being limited to freelancing portals. Pitch is the fastest way to build an enterprise of your own,

Freelance marketplaces is your practice pad, a starting point and that is it. It is not your end all future. It is just one of the avenues/ revenue streams/ income options.

Try twitter platform to pitch your skills and drop a comment about  your experience for peer support

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