Personally, I do not know much about American economics. With that being said, I have taken the time to stay up to date on the current situation in the United States. While it is hard to predict the future, a lot of so-called experts feel that a recession is on the way. Like most, this worries me for a number of different reasons.
Over the past week or so I have talked to a few other freelance writers, and they feel that the downturn in the economy will eventually have an effect on the freelance writing industry. I guess that I agree with this to a certain extent, but I do not know enough about the economy to make an educated prediction. Will the freelance writing industry slow down because companies and webmasters will no longer have the money to spend? This makes sense, but again, predicting the next turn is next to impossible.
What do you guys and gals think of this? Are you worried that things will slow down across all industries, including freelance writing? While only time will tell, hopefully some of you readers will have some better insight on this. I am not going to sit around and worry about the possibility of losing a lot of business, but it is obviously a concern for millions of people. Hopefully, things will get worked out before the economy slips even further. What is going to happen next? And will we (freelance writers) be affected?
If you are a freelance writer, it is safe to say that you rely on the internet day in and day out. Personally, when I do not have internet access, I begin to go through withdrawals. Although my ISP is reliable most of the time, every so often I am without access for a few hours.
Since you never know when your internet could go down, make sure that you always have a backup plan. For me, this consists of trying to stay ahead of all my work by at least one day. Why is this a good idea? Take for instance a project that may be due on Tuesday. If you complete it on Monday, you do not have to worry about rushing things on the due date. There would be nothing worse than needing to send the completed work to the client, but not being able to access your email. If you are ahead of yourself by at least one day, you can usually afford a brief outage without stressing too much.
Although technology and the internet are great, it can be frustrating when you lose access. As somebody who relies on the internet 12 hours per day on average, it is important to have access all day, everyday.
The bottom line: make sure that you never put yourself in a position where an internet outage could cause you a major problem with a client. Instead, try to stay ahead of your work. If for some reason you lose access for an extended period of time, you can always phone clients who are expecting to hear from you.Â
If you are a freelance writer, you are sure to lose clients from time to time. This happens to the best writers in the world, and it is not something that you can avoid. With that being said, you should not simply let a freelance writing client walk away. This is not to say that you should stalk them, but you should do a few things before ending the relationship.
1. Try to get an explanation as to why the client wants to stop doing business with you. Last week I had a client drop me, but he also explained in the same email that it was not my fault. The client was more or less a middle man, and the person on the other end of the deal was hanging it up. While it was a shame to lose this client, at least I know that it was nothing I did wrong.
Remember, a client may leave you simply because they have no work available at the time. This is quite common when working with webmasters. Once you produce the appropriate content for them, they may not need your help anymore.
2. Make sure that the client knows you are willing to work with them again in the future. Using the same example as above, I let the client know that while I was disappointed, that I would also love to be considered for future work. Believe it or not, if you show your interest, this will often times work out to your advantage in the future. This morning I woke up to an email from a client that I last worked with in May 2006. You never know when somebody will come back to you in the future.
3. If they tell you they no longer want to do business because of something you did, try to make things right before ending contact. After all, you always want to make sure that your clients get what they pay for. You may not see eye to eye with them, but you should at least offer to make things right before going your separate ways.
It is never a good thing when a freelance writing client leaves you. But unfortunately, this is sure to happen from time to time. Use the three tips above the next time a client tells you that they have no more work available.Â
