Trust…

To say that trust is an important characteristic to nurture while working with a client online, would be an understatement. Building and maintaining a trusting relationship is paramount, and within the daily journey to the completion of your deadlines - a strong and mutually understanding work-relationship can do wonders for the enjoyment and sustainability in which your work employs.

So dramatic are the differences of a badly-matched client/contractor versus a well-matched one, I can draw you a chart of monetary appraisal, clearly showing the difference of a positive and negative work-relationship.

Over the course of the past two years of freelancing, I have harvested, and assembled, several strands of wisdom which are identified, in my brain, as the three golden rules of working with clients while freelancing:

Rule #1 - Trust your instincts.
Just like many of you, I wish this statement was not so avalanched towards truth that it could be considered a rule.  Many times when meeting with a potential client, whether online, on the phone, or in person, I will have an instant feeling of grave inevitability - as if I had found a message on the wall of a cave:

“This job is not right for me.”

I have thought this to myself whilst listening to the client’s request, and far too many times I have ignored the thought and agreed to take on the work in spite of the warnings.

This instinct, I believe, spawns from the mentality of a desk job. Early on, I carried many such instincts and values over from my work at my “day job”, and have had to painfully unlearn them throughout the many months since. Even in the smallest of design firms - the general mentality is that when more work comes in, as long as the client is willing to pay the desired amount, their work is taken on, with little regard for the standing workload of the staff.

This method, though irresponsible and stress-feeding, is a widely-accepted attitude in the corporate and non-profit world, and is accepted silently and submissively - with pursed, tense lips, longing for an evening of relaxation and alcohol consumption - by the company’s crispy employees.

The desired attitude for a freelancer, is a discerning - strategic one. Though conceivable in theory, the practical application of this discernment and evaluation process begins to fall apart when the freelancer’s wallet gets thin and the work begins, seemingly, to dry up. These “droughts” and in-between periods are hotbeds for stress-causing badly-fitted work-contracts.

My trick for avoiding these bad situations? I actually haven’t really found one. I simply try to follow the above rule as much as I can, NEVER do something just because the money is good (it is never worth it, as jobs you don’t care about, or share morals with, are ALWAYS the hardest, and most troublesome to complete), and try to be as honest as possible with the client when meeting - so as not to create false expectations.

Rule #2 - Good friendships DO NOT necessarily make good working relationships
“I actually just got out of a really bad experience with my business partner and ex-best-friend, so I could really use some work…” the Portland-based graphics designer was telling me. He was begging for any work I could throw at him as he had committed one of the most commonly-known, yet least yielded laws of business: Don’t get involved in business with your friend (or your spouse/significant other for that matter).

Now, please do not get an impression that my opinion is that work-relationships with friends or spouses are impossible, for I simply do not believe that. I do know from experience, however, that they are the hardest to cultivate for any extended period of time - as resentment and defensiveness quickly follows on either side.

Apart from the odd hobby photo-essay project with my fiance (an accomplished photographer), I stay away from combining the worlds of work and friendship.

Relatives, like friends, are easy to evolve into clients or work-partners because of the perceived value from fellow family members:

They see someone they can trust - who will probably give them a discount on your service.

You see someone who is conveniently close as a client, a good way to get another project on your resume, and someone who will probably tip your work well.

Can you see how the above two statements would conflict?

Rule #3 - Always send an email
Some would challenge this as a hard and fast rule, but I swear by it:

Each Monday and Friday, I meet online (via instant message) with one of my longer-term programming clients. During each of these adjective-ripe meetings, we discuss new changes, features that need to be implemented, and more.

At the end of our meeting, one of us (usually the client) will go through the items we had discussed and puts them into the to-do tracking system we use. This system automatically emails each of the to-do items to me in turn, and I archive these emails as I complete the items.

The system works quite well, and from that day forward, I always have an archived digital copy of the client’s request, with a time stamp attached to the email. Though I have never had to use these records within any sort of legal situation with my clients, I have, on select occasions, been tasked with sifting through my archives to find the email which confirms a client’s request. When confronted with a time stamp and record - in their words - of their request, a client will nearly always back off.

Tools of the Trade: My two favorite tools for working with clients online…

While these tools are somewhat oriented towards programmers/workers in the web field, nearly all of them can be adapted to fit any freelance duty:

PayPal
I am sure someone will have something to say about PayPal in the comments. Reports of bad experiences with PayPal are available for anyone who would like to read them online with a quick Google search. In all of my experiences with working with them for two years, I have not had a single problem.

Paypal is my bank, my credit (well…actually debit) card, my invoice system, my accounts-payable manager, and much, much more.

Paypal is a company who’s most prominent, marketable feature is the ability to send money - using credit cards, or checks, to anyone in the world - in any currency in the world - instantly. For a 3% commission, they will transfer any monetary amount (actually…there is a limit, though I will probably never hit it) to any email address (it helps if they are signed up with PayPal) for you the instant you click “Submit”.

I have a PayPal debit card which I use for nearly every purchase, every day. This integrated system keeps my bookkeeping simple, and I have not yet had a problem.

Basecamp: Web-Based Project Management Software
Basecamp is a project management software which, at one time, simply rocked my socks.

Since I have started to write more, and program less, the program has lost effectiveness for me, but my longest-standing client and I still use it, religiously, to keep track of changes and to-be-done items.

The system is web-based, hosted (meaning you can’t put it on your own server), and charges a monthly service fee ranging from $10-40 depending on your needs for access to the system.

A free account is available, if you just need to manage a specific process. Give the system a try before you buy, and see if it revolutionizes your work flow!

I’ve got my client, now what?
The next step, theoretically, is what you should be best at: Actually doing the work. This wasn’t the case for me, especially when I started out. I only half-knew web-programming at the beginning of my career (I’ve come along way in two years), and still don’t know everything. These situations are a great way to learn new skills quickly, though even now sometimes I will find myself needing to steer the project in the directions my skill sets compliment. For better or for worse: This seems to work.

But I say that needing to skirt and redirect everyone once in a while is ok. In nearly every situation I have worked in, the least comfortable yet most effective technique is the one which rings the most true:

Honesty really is the best policy when it comes to interacting with clients and setting deadlines. Setting too-soon deadlines, and missing them, is usually far worse for the client’s opinion of you than setting fair and moderate deadlines, and delivering early.

I hope this article has helped a little bit with those getting started, or those who just needed an injection of new ideas and/or validation. If you already knew all this stuff, I apologize.

Look out in the next few days for my next article in my “Working on the Road” series:

Part Three:  Being Suddenly Productive