What are your Work Hours?
As a freelance writer you need to know your schedule, for the most part. This does not mean you have to work the same hours everyday, but you should definitely have an idea of what you are trying to accomplish. This will ensure that you get your work done, and that you also have the proper communications with clients.
Do you tell clients that you operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? If so, you are not alone. My first freelance writing website made it pretty clear I am always available to talk about a project no matter what time of the day it is. And while I have not used this site in a year or so it is still live and receives some daily search engine traffic. Last night, for the first time in a long time, I received a call from a potential client well after my regular work hours. In fact, it was close to midnight. Fortunately, I was still awake and had just powered down my computer.
The point of my brief story is simple: don’t tell people anything that isn’t true. While I don’t have a problem talking with anybody about a project I would rather not do so late at night when my computer is not on. After all, I want to give a high level of customer service and being in bed without a computer makes this a difficult task. I made a mistake by stating that I accept calls 24/7.
If you are in the process of building your first freelance writing website or already have one, make sure you are 100 percent sure of the information you include. I have seen many websites with the “24/7 lingo†and yours may be one of them. If so, you may want to think twice about this. You never know when somebody will take you up on your offer to talk.
January 21st, 2009 at 8:55 am
I actually make a point of not responding to work emails after 5 pm (or on the weekends). There is a chance that I might still be working but I try to save evenings and weekends for my own projects — rather than offering that time up to clients.
January 21st, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Offering to a client that he could call me past office hours (because it was a rush job) was one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made thus far. Not necessarily because I don’t want to be available to clients, but because he regularly and enthusiastically took advantage of that policy. (And it has been 4 months and I am still chasing him for payment, so he wasn’t a great client in general.)
That experience has definitely made me wary of offering the same thing to other clients (especially ones I’ve never worked with before) and it will absolutely ensure I won’t put something like that on my website.
January 21st, 2009 at 7:07 pm
Thursday – Good call! I agree that you need to set time aside for your own projects.
Lauren – I guess I am not alone? I know where you are coming from with clients taking advantage at times. Hopefully you will get paid soon enough so you can move on for good.