If you give expert advise or opinion on your blog and readers love what you share, they will definitely seek for your expertise or refer you to other people looking for services that you offer. You will always get excited when a client contacts you and wants to hire you for your services. If you are not cautious, you will end up giving out all your services for free or at a throwaway price.
At end, you will feel sorry for yourself for trusting someone who contacted you remotely and asked for your services of which you provided them in good faith.
Some remote clients are heartless and rude. Once they get hold of the service they needed; be it video or voice over, they forget about you. Some will say they didn\’t use it. This is despite you making revisions and iterations based on their request. So, how do you ensure that you get your pay after working on and completing the project with a client you met on your blog?
Set your terms
Your terms should surround your PAY. Before anything else, focus on getting your pay-that\’s the reason you are working with them on the first time. Many freelancers and bloggers fear to talk about pay for the fear of loosing the client. Now, get this from me, crooked clients know this and they maximize on it. They will do everything to ensure that you don\’t ask for any pay upfront. And at the end you loose both your \’fingers and your chips.\’ Now, here is a brief on how I do it.
- Understand your clients requirements first – Every job is based on requirements. For example; if a client needs me to edit and produce his/her video, one of the first requirements is the footage and storyboard on how he/she wants it edited. If it\’s video creation, I will first find out what he/she will provide me with for use in creating the video. Once I have all requirements with me I will proceed now to the next stage of telling them the cost.
- Give them your rates –Now you have the requirements. You are an expert. It\’s time to give them your rates for the service. I usually give them my rates per minute of production. This will help them decide whether to work with me or not. If they decide to work with me, its a win.But, I don\’t get excited yet until I get paid.
- Set timelines – Encourage your client that you work on timelines. And let him/her set the timeline. This will make them commit as they will be rest assured you will working on the project and delivery will be soon. This is a good place to know if he/she is serious about it or not.
- Introduce your mode of payment once the timeline is set – once you have the timeline set, mention that you always want to be paid an upfront of say 50-70%. Give them options to make payment. If they doubt you, advise them to use freelancing sites like Upwork.com. They can also use escrow.com. Here both parties will be protected via the escrow payment protection system. Don\’t let them convince you to do the job first and get the whole payment later. That\’s an axe from far. Ran away fast.
- Decline any work/job without down payment – If the clients starts dilly dallying about paying you after you complete the project, simply say no unless they follow your terms. This is where you will get your first part of the bargain and your confidence on the project will be boosted.
- Do the job and ask for the final pay once he/she approves the last draft – Now, many freelancers loose their final pay because they quickly trust the prospect after receiving the first pay and end up give out everything on completing. Don\’t fall into this. Treat everything as business. Give and take. They pay you, you give them the final product.
Conclusion
With all this said, you will still be tricked into giving out everything without pay because some clients may send the pay as agreed, and when you deliver the service- they reverse the payment before it clears with your bank. At the end, they will stop replying to your messages and e-mails – and you LOOSE your pay.
If this happens to you, don\’t let it repeat itself. Tighten you terms based on your experience. At the end, you will be smiling all the way to the bank. Moreover, your list of serious clients will be growing spontaneously.
And that\’s all from me today.
Till next time; bye and take care.
If you need professional help on video, let me know by sending me an e-mail on connect@cheptiony.com
Follow me on twitter @cheptiony
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.