A good client:

1. Has a budget for the project

2. Agrees to pay your fees without trying to negotiate a lower rate

3. Doesn’t try to change the scope of the project midway through the project and expect you to adhere to the original terms

4. Doesn’t take phone calls during meetings (and doesn’t make them)

5. Provides clear instructions for the project

6. Reviews your work within the prescribed time frame

7. Pays you on time

8. Recognizes and values well-written work

9. Thanks you for going the extra mile

Going the extra mile

When I started my business, I went the extra mile for a client when I purchased some data for him and negotiated with the supplier to obtain the information at the originally quoted price rather than the actual price, which was twenty times more than the original quote!

When I passed the data to my client, I let him know about my efforts in obtaining this information. I wasn’t compensated properly for my work in negotiating with the supplier because I believed going the extra mile would convince him to give me the opportunity to redesign and rewrite his brochure and his website, as originally proposed.

A letdown

My client let me down when he told me that his business partner would rewrite his brochure. A year and a half later, the wording on his website is still as awkward and clumsy as when I first looked at it. The new brochure is probably not much better.

I’ll still go the extra mile for a client when I feel it’s right and I’ve already completed a major project for them.

Lesson learned: Trust my instincts 

There was something about my client that I didn’t trust in the first place. When his marketing materials indicate his business is “the leading provider” and he’s been in business for less than a year, his credibility is destroyed. I should have taken that as a sign and walked away!

Earlier this year, I attended a Professional Writers Association of Canada seminar, Building your freelance business: Get the most of your marketing mix.  Here’s a few tips I learned about how social media can help you build your business and how I’m using them.

You need to have a strategy and a schedule for updating your social media sites, so the time you spend on social media is productive and it doesn’t soak up your time. 

Blogging – Talk about the things that are important to you. There’s nothing that’s more important than growing my communications business. My new blog – Writing for results - will include:

• Tips from workshops I’ve attended
• Help with writing and grammar
• Book summaries
• Marketing advice
• Help in negotiating and working with clients, and
• Anything else I’ve learned that has helped me with my business

I’ll save my political rants for my political association’s newsletter and Facebook. 

Twitter - Develop lists of people you want to follow on Twitter.  When I first started Tweeting, I would look at every Tweet that came in.  Now that I’m developing my lists, I’m more focused.  

Block off five minutes or so every four hours to Tweet. 

LinkedIn - Treat LinkedIn like a cocktail party. If people want to talk, then contribute to the conversation. Ask questions and provide answers so you can be a subject matter expert.

Just as you can see who has looked at your LinkIn profile, you can use LinkedIn to block when you’ve visited a profile.  A great tip for those who “stalk” former boyfriends or ex-bosses on LinkedIn. 

Don’t ask for LinkedIn recommendations from everybody on the same day. When your connections see that all your recommendations took place around the same time, they will know that you solicited them and they weren’t given freely.

Most importantly, make sure that your website and your social media sites – your blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter and other sites you happen to use – connect, so people can easily find you.