Elance Tips: Fire Your Clients
Why you became a freelancer.
Remember that day when you came home from your nine-to-five, sat down at the kitchen table, wrote down all of the pros and cons of going out on your own and took the plunge? You became a freelancer. There were a multitude of reasons, but one of those reasons was so that you didn’t have to put up with a bad boss who didn’t appreciate the quality of your craftsmanship or expected you to work for pennies.
It felt great to be free of that culture where you were working overtime every week at a salary that worked out to $15 dollars an hour while you were being billed to the client for 30 hours a week at $150 dollars an hour. You set out on your own and started billing $150 dollars and hour yourself.
Back where you started.
Then the reality set in. Your high dollar clients were few and far between. Soon you found yourself putting in long hours for not much money again. At least your boss appreciated you, right? Maybe you found yourself taking some of those Elance gigs that didn’t pay well. You were competing with people who’s standard of living was way below yours. You bid on (and won!) Elance jobs that you couldn’t afford to do in order to scrape together a few bucks by the end of the month. Finally, you got settled into a rhythm of being able to schedule the right amount of projects at the right pay and suddenly you were a successful freelancer.
Fire your worst clients.
So you’ve overcome the odds. You have been through the worst of it and came through. But there is always a nagging feeling that you’ll be back in that same spot, looking for that next job. It feels like you should hold onto every contact in the rolodex, but you shouldn’t. Now is the time to fire some clients.
Go through your Elance contact list and your network rolodex. Review each deal. Give each deal a grade for each of the following criteria:
- Was the client relationship good?
- Did the client provide a reference or feedback that can be used to market your services?
- Was the pay equitable to the effort?
- Did you enjoy the project?
Feel free to weigh each question as you see fit, and come up with a score for each project, from Elance or from your network. If you worked with a client more than once in the last year, grade each project separately and then average the scores. Arrange your clients from best to worst, and mentally fire any that fall into the FAIL category. Mark their file so that you remember not to do work with them (even when you are tightening your belt).
Reconnect with your best clients.
Now that you have rid yourself of the dead weight, it is time to do something positive for the future year. Write a brief e-mail to each of your clients that fall into the EXCELLENT category. Remind them that you are available to work and tell them that you will be contacting them on the following Tuesday to chat about their upcoming needs. Then call them.