Success isn’t complicated.
It often has less to do with hard work and optimization, and more to do with getting into a potentially great situation, and then not screwing it up.
And “not screwing up” often comes down to one thing: Communication.
A freelancer who masters communication is a freelancer who lives a life of abundance.
Here are 10 rules of communication for freelancers and agency owners. (A deeper dive into these principles and many more can be found in Art for Money.)
1. Your success in landing the client is inversely proportional to how exhausting your emails are. After you draft an email, examine it for ways that it could be shortened. Do that 3 times. Then send.
2. Clients are busy, and they have options. They choose the option that’s going to make their life easier.
3. Client-winning communication style is about clarity, brevity, personality. In that order.
4. Have a bulletproof method for creating scopes and quotes. Made-up quotes come across as exactly that. Once you say something, you can’t un-say it.
5. If you must adjust your quote because it came in too high, do it without undermining the original quote. Tell one story.
6. Emotions are beautiful but they have no business anywhere near a client negotiation. If you’re bursting with excitement to work with this client — great. Stay cool, lock down the agreement, complete the work, take them out for a drink. If you’re angry and you think the client is screwing you — fine. Stay cool, examine where the fault lies, and if it’s with them, don’t work with them again.
7. Do not attempt to appeal to a client’s sense of fairness or empathy. This is a transaction. If you want more money, deliver more. When you’re too busy to deliver more, raise your prices.
8. Do not perform, and for goodness’ sake do not exchange, any work before your contract is signed and you’ve taken a deposit. Committing such a sin will confirm the company’s suspicion that you are an amateur, thus informing their treatment of you from that point forward.
9. Sensitive topic = phone call. Attempting to have difficult conversations in writing is pure amateur activity.
10. Writing, speaking and emotional regulation are the keys to your freelance success. If you focus on improvement in those areas, you win.
“A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.” - Albert Einstein
