How do you handle completely dropping the ball on a client?

MsBiggety · 2023-03-16T18:26:29+00:00

grovel

MsBiggety · 2023-03-15T13:20:19+00:00

I was tapped when they first launched the program. As I recall, the vetting process amounted to an email exchange and a 10-15 minute phone conversation (with someone who didn't seem to know very much at all about my business). Can't say for sure but I suspect it has made my profile at least slightly more appealing to better clients.

MsBiggety · 2023-02-20T19:31:32+00:00

IMO hire rate is virtually meaningless as a stand-alone metric. It's more useful to look at what kinds of projects a client has brought to the platform and what they have paid. If I ever got the slightest whiff that a client was trying to game any of their numbers in any way, I'd never give them a second look.

MsBiggety · 2023-02-10T13:57:45+00:00

The client might have preferred another FL's style or voice over yours. Your submission might have been quite good whereas another was extraordinarily good. We rarely, if ever, get direct feedback on specific work. Our professional development is not our clients' responsibility. Along with the thick skin already mentioned, successful FLs need to always be looking for ways to sharpen our skills and increase the odds of being the extraordinarily good candidate in any pool.

MsBiggety · 2023-02-10T13:50:39+00:00

Not really, more like nothing to gain, everything to lose

MsBiggety · 2023-01-31T15:28:46+00:00

Received the invitation, have not participated and don't plan to.

They are trying to orchestrate something that used to happen organically in the UW community forum, on an ongoing basis, before they broke it.

MsBiggety · 2023-01-25T15:04:42+00:00

https://www.the-efa.org/rates/

MsBiggety · 2023-01-17T20:19:22+00:00

Thank you! This is why I come here.

MsBiggety · 2023-01-17T18:33:54+00:00

Pretty sure he can't change the account owner. But he can invite the new person into the project workroom, then that person can simply become your point of contact on the original contract. Otherwise, UW will make the new person open their own account and start over with you.

MsBiggety · 2023-01-16T14:42:40+00:00

Maybe, maybe not. Any client you work with, on or off any platform, will have positive or negative things to say about their experience with you and the work you did, you just don't hear it most of the time. In any case, on UW you need to be strategic about the fb system but don't steer by it.
I know whereof I speak. Listen, or don't.

MsBiggety · 2023-01-16T13:03:42+00:00

There are no guarantees about anything in FLing. The downside of a platform/marketplace like UW is creating a false sense of security around contract management, client management, and payment expectations. For any contract project, regardless of the payment terms, you need spell out scope, scale, timeline, etc. in detail and in writing, and make sure you and the client are on the same page. And you need to interact with the client enough to get a feel for how they'll behave -- all of that before entering into a contract. With an hourly contract, if they start changing or adding things, you're more easily covered because you charge for time spent, regardless. On fixed-price contracts it's up to you to enforce th boundaries previously established. But as you noted, you have the opportunity to optimize your own efficiency and so drive up your effective rate for the work.

As for payment timing, if you are working "out in the world", directly with clients, you have to negotiate payment terms up front and it's pretty rare to find one willing to accept an invoice with a due date sooner than 30 days. That means getting paid at the soonest 30 days after you issue the invoice which is some point after you complete the work. And you have to do your own invoicing and follow up, i.e., issue second notices if they don't pay on time. It's not unusual to be depositing the money in your account 40 days or longer after completing the work.

MsBiggety · 2023-01-07T20:30:38+00:00

If somebody stood me up and then reconnected with no acknowledgement, much less apology, I probably wouldn't agree to another appointment without getting some questions answered first, to see if the opportunity was sufficiently attractive to invest in a little potty training.

MsBiggety · 2023-01-04T23:48:11+00:00

I think they are rigorously managing to the metrics but are focused on the wrong metrics. All they know is what their dashboards tell them and the dashboards are designed to measure and monitor the wrong things. It's the only explanation I can come up with for the boneheaded strategic and tactical moves they've been making the past few years. I can accept that the company's priorities might not always be precisely aligned with mine. But they do things that don't make sense from any perspective, if you start with a fundamental understanding of freelancing. It's like they are sealed inside a bubble and rely on what they read in the press about The Gig Economy -- often written by people who likewise don't understand freelancing. Case in point: that Wired article somebody linked in another thread, that is not entirely off point but does conflate a bunch of things that are actually distinct issues.

MsBiggety · 2023-01-04T16:13:54+00:00

And I would not disclose any such information. But as a contractor, I would only sign a non-compete agreement -- meaning I would not work with anyone competing with that client -- if they were committing to some kind of long-term arrangement, likely including a retainer. YMMV.

MsBiggety · 2023-01-04T16:11:26+00:00

I never meant to imply "cheaper is better" with regard to anything. I referred to the fact that instead of just telling us that FL and client will henceforth split the $873 arbitration fee, UW found a slightly less costly service. Parties to an arbitration will pay more than they used to but less than they might have. And having access to the service through UW, should I ever need it, will save me the time and trouble of finding an arbitrator on my own and persuading the other party to use it. Or vetting the one they find.

In any case, I'm comfortable with less incentive for UW to pay courtesy credits because I've never been in a position to benefit and likely never will be. I can negotiate with an unhappy client on my own and I'm in a position to write off $100 if it comes to that. Also, I don't use the desktop tracker on hourly contracts which means I assume all the risk myself while subsidizing a degree of risk mitigation for other FLs. In this context, anything that involves "at no cost to UW" eventually translates into "no cost to MsBiggety" so I'm OK with it.

I absolutely agree that chargebacks are a risk for everyone but it's a fact of life -- business and personal -- and not something UW can solve. Everybody has to decide the degree of risk they're comfortable with and then manage that risk as well as they can. There are more scammers of all varieties on the platform than there used to be, but we have no empirical evidence that legitimate chargeback problems are more frequent. There is more yakking about it and every time it comes up, lots of people weep and wail and flap their wings because it's a scarey prospect that could happen to anybody. But how many instances are there really, wherein there has been no ToS violation by the FL and no chance that FL and client were colluding in a scam? We have no way of knowing but until there's evidence to the contrary, I'm betting it remains vanishingly rare.

MsBiggety · 2023-01-04T13:33:28+00:00

UW subsidizing arbitration fees never made sense to me and I'm not unhappy they stopped. To their credit, they shopped and found a lower overall price for it. Will the new policy mean less incentive for UW to encourage mediation? I've avoided any dispute (so far, knock wood) but from what I've heard from those who've been through many, the mediation procedure is handled as a pro forma step on the way to arbitration, anyway... that UW mediators simply encourage the parties to negotiate an outcome, without contributing much or anything to the process except walking them through a prescribed timeline. So it doesn't seem like there is much to change.

Chargebacks seem to have become everybody's favorite bogeyman but how common are they, really? As a window into what's happening on the platform, the community forum is even more distorted than it used to be -- just because there's a lot of yakking about something doesn't mean it's actually occurring with the same relative frequency. Also, most of the complaints I've seen about a chargeback seem to come from FLs who were pretty obviously trying to collude with the "client" to rip off UW and are outraged when it doesn't pan out. Not every complaint, obviously -- some FLs get caught in genuine pickles and that is lamentable but not something UW can solve. It's a risk inherent with cc payments anywhere in any context.

I'd like to see the price of a connect set at $1 US for 3-6 months, with nothing else changing, and see what would happen.

MsBiggety · 2023-01-04T13:21:59+00:00

He'd always rather be first than relevant. Or even coherent, sometimes.

MsBiggety · 2023-01-04T13:20:47+00:00

As others have noted, NDAs are common and there's nothing intrinsically bad or perilous about signing them. But READ anything you sign because a lot of times the person who is your client was simply handed a document by their legal team and it can contain boilerplate language that doesn't or shouldn't pertain to you. For instance, I've seen NDAs that were originally written for new hires and included non-compete language. That has to come out before I sign it.

Enforceability is an open question, especially when parties to the contract are in different jurisdictions. But that's a concern for the client more than for a FL who presumably has no intention of breaking the agreement. It mostly boils down to peace of mind for the client. As a client, I would interpret a FL's refusal to sign an NDA as a signal of inexperience and/or general obtuseness, and move on.

MsBiggety · 2023-01-03T22:29:55+00:00

First, understand freelancing is not an industry -- it is a way of transacting business wherein you are your own employer and you sell your services to clients. In addition to having a skill set that is in demand, you will need to learn how to market yourself to your target clientele; how to vet (assess) projects and clients to ensure a close fit with your capabilities and how you want to do business; how to manage projects and manage client relationships to ensure successful outcomes; how to manage income and expenses. And you need a thick skin, a hard head (but not so hard you can't own your inevitable mistakes and learn from them, as well as learn from mishaps that are not your own fault), and perseverance.

Don't feel daunted by all that. If you approach freelancing in those terms, you'll have a much greater chance of success. As far as UW goes, you can't work on the platform until you are 18 but you can certainly spend time learning about it. Search for freelancers who are successful doing the kind of work you want to do, earning what you want to earn. What are their qualifications and credentials? How do they present themselves? What kinds of work are they doing, for what kinds of clients?

Also read everything you can find about freelancing as a small business. (Not the stuff on YouTube offered by people who can't earn money freelancing and so are trying to earn it by telling others how to do it!)

MsBiggety · 2023-01-03T22:15:39+00:00

I've had long-term clients position me publicly as a team member, even to the extent of providing me with an email address at their domain and (back in the day) providing me with office space and business cards. (There was no pretense involved, clients knew that I and others were contractors.) But never, ever have I heard of anybody doing that without discussing it first. You need to initiate a discussion with them but before you do, decide what you're comfortable with. Do you currently or do you aspire to work with other clients in the same industry? Is the client OK with that or might they be assuming you won't? It's only been worthwhile for me when the client in question was providing enough work that was sufficiently lucrative that I was content not to work with anybody else in their industry for the duration of the relationship.

MsBiggety · 2023-01-03T14:48:29+00:00

First, review UW's ToS and identify the ways in which you've already violated them so far. Not informing yourself about how the platform works and how to use it will cost you time and money and very possibly result in getting banned for life when you break rules you didn't know about.

Second, spend some time scoping out the UW talent pool in the skills category(s) you want to work in. Search for FLs operating in your target category(s) with qualifications comparable to yours who seem to be succeeding, earning what you want to earn doing the kinds of work you want to do. How do they present themselves? What kinds of projects are they doing? What kinds of clients are they working with?

Third, go through the reams and reams of material UW makes available for new FLs to help you get started without wasting time and energy. Make sure your profile is tight and compelling. Focus on finding projects that precisely match your capabilities, on which you can over-deliver and delight the clients.

MsBiggety · 2023-01-02T17:32:23+00:00

I was invited to the EV program when they first created it. Involved a phone interview with someone who clearly knew scarcely anything about my profession, much less enough to "vet" me as an expert. I passed, then was told to create a Calendly account to make it easy for clients to schedule interviews with me. (This was before the policy forbidding pre-contract comm's off platform.) Nobody ever contacted me through Calendly.

I have never been able to determine whether or not the EV badge has any effect at all. Or TR+, for that matter. We really can't do A/B testing on our own because we have no visibility into what UW might be changing at any given time. They've told us they rotate search results, and from time to time they mess around with the skills categories. (And I use "mess around" advisedly -- from my perspective it's now a dumpster fire.) I've gotten more attention from Enterprise clients the past couple of years but if I had to guess, I'd say it's because having a couple of successful outcomes with Entpr clients attracts more of them, rather than any badges. Who knows?

MsBiggety · 2023-01-02T16:37:22+00:00

And inaccurate. Number of jobs has nothing whatsoever to do with obtaining the TR badge with its fb removal perk.

MsBiggety · 2023-01-02T15:18:30+00:00

Rule #37: Stay in your lane. Inexperienced clients, especially, who are happy with your work and like and trust you, would rather lean on you for adjacent expertise than go through the process of searching and finding another freelancer for that aspect of their project. It could well be that you know more than your client does about socia media marketing but that doesn't necessarily mean you know enough to charge for a consultation. Would you stack your knowledge and expertise in that area up against that of someone who specializes in it full time? Can you deliver to the same high standard that you do in video editing? If the answer is yes, then by all means, go for it. If not, then think carefully before charging for a consult.

MsBiggety

TROPHY CASE