Articles about Clients for freelancers

Do you have a client who likes to trickle in additional revisions after you’ve already started the changes?
I call this “nibbling”.
The client is not deliberately trying to infuriate you, they just aren’t organized.
But we must draw a line in the sand on what will be included, and what must be billed for as an additional round of revisions.

An analogy for dealing with clients who “dribble” their revisions…

Picture a group of people waiting at the bus stop.
People trickle in at different times, and wait for the bus.
The bus arrives, and everyone gets on, and the bus leaves with everyone together.
The bus may wait a few minutes for a few stragglers,
but once the bus has left, it’s left, it’s not coming back.
Anyone that misses the departure will have to wait for the next bus.

As the client trickles in their revisions, you keep a collated list of all changes,
and let the client know when the changes will be actioned,
and that after that cutoff, any additional changes will be billable under a new round of revisions.

Every project and task has a fixed number of revisions, to prevent scope creep,
and to stop clients from “nibbling” by requesting changes one at a time.

We manage number of revisions by…

A telling the client how many rounds of revisions they have
B Compiling multiple requests for changes into formal “rounds of revisions”

Think of each as a checkpoint in our process.
We use rounds of revisions to “draw a line in the sand” on completed work,
so that the client can’t keep drip-feeding unlimited requests without consequences.
Setting a fixed no of rounds forces the client to collect their thoughts and be more concise⁠.

Power freelancer move:

Take your most disorganized, technophobic client
(“Sorry I’m not good with emails haha”)
make them aware that disorganization will cost more,
watch them magically get organized and learn how to use email!

Oh by the way Nick, may I ask something, so I have this old client who just got back to me. Basically my task for him is linkedin carousel posts. I already did work for him before he even paid the invoice, now he’s asking for another work already and hasn’t paid the invoice. How do you approach this kind of stuff? haha. I’m just not so used to this kind of situation lol – Vlad

Hey man, set a boundary now, before it becomes an issue.
Once you’ve set a policy, it’s simple. it’s clear the client knows what to expect.
Problems occur when you change how t hings work without reason.

So generally, always avoid doing work before the invoice is paid.
If you have been working with clients for a long time, working on trust is sometimes acceptable.

But if it’s a new client, or if it’s one-off work,
you should always receive payment before starting the work.

Here’s a simple line that explains how this works to the client without objection:

“Hey Jane, Look forward to working on this for you,  I’ve attached the invoice for the work, I’ll get a notification once paid, and as soon as it’s cleared I’ll add this to the work queue for you and get started.”

This clearly communicates  you expect the payment before you start the work,
and that the timeline of the project depends on them making the payment,
and that the ball is in their court.

Obviously, this doesn’t help you right now since you’ve already done the work, and sent it to the client,
Therefore you have no leverage.

So for your particular situation…
Here’s a script of what I’d say exactly:

“Hey X, great look forward to working on this for you,
There’s an outstanding invoice we have to clear first before we can start the new job, I’ve attached it for you. Can you please square that up for me by the 21st, then I’ll start on the 2nd job, which I hope to have completed by the 24th. Thanks, appreciate the new work .🙂” (you can change the dates and amounts.)

But I’d actually take an alternative approach…

If you’re going to be doing regular work for him or her I would recommend pitching a retainer from the start.
Retainers bring you stability, predictability, and save you a lot of admin time drafting invoices and quotes for each small job.
Here’s a script I’d use to pitch a retainer.

“Thanks for sending me more work! If your happy with the first carousel,
For carousels I normally work on a retainer basis for X no of carousels per month at £Y,
This works out slightly cheaper for you than doing it ad-hoc,
Since I don’t need to quote you for each new carousel.

Would you like to set that up and I can get started?”

Bonus tip: Always have a way to instantly take payments via a link, such as GoCardless or Stripe etc.

If someone wants to give you money, make it easy for them, before they get distracted.

So there’s your options:

1. Ask him to settle up before you proceed.
2. Shift him onto a retainer model
3. If you can’t get him to go on a retainer, make sure you transition to payment upfront from here on in.
4. And if both of the above fail, make sure you do not proceed with more work until the first invoice is settled.

His responses to the above will indicate if you are likely to have future problems with this client.

Always give the benefit of the doubt to people the first time they miss an invoice.

Business owners are busy people.
often they get distracted or miss the email or just forget.
But reasonable people who intended to pay will respond reasonably.
Unreasonable people, who intend to scalp, or leverage you, will not respond well and will try to hold out to manipulate you.