4 ms·

Why you shouldn’t take a client’s money

58 points by pauljarvis 11y ago

fragsworth 11y ago
Not everyone has so many contacts that they can really pick and choose. Going 1-2 months without work because you turned down a client and can't find another one can be really shitty.
- pauljarvis 11y ago
  Correct - when you can't pick and choose - you're picking to work with anyone so you can pay the bills. Nothing wrong with that. This is for when there is a choice that you can make.
- tomjen3 11y ago
  That is true, but it also means you really should work towards getting into that position partly by reducing your personal burn rate (ie spending) and partially by charging more since that allows you a longer famine.
  - pauljarvis 11y ago
    Exactly. The key to a long-lasting freelancing career: always spend as little money as possible.
- irrigation 11y ago
  I'm a cynical sort with a lot of experience in the industry consulting, and I can't help but view a lot of these pieces as heavily...embellished. Akin to "fake it to make it". Ala "I'm so overwhelmed with business at 30K per week....but would you like to buy some tupperware?" I understand the author is here, and hopefully people don't embarrassingly downvote this purely to try to act civil -- I think the embellishment is doing a massive disservice to the entire industry. It is often complete fantasy. I will also say that I found the claims the other day about the 30K+ per week consulting engagements, apparently chosen at whim, completely ludicrous (again, having worked with countless organizations). It has zero verification or believability, but is a nice draw for someone's new initiative.
  - pauljarvis 11y ago
    i can't speak for anyone else - but by the same token, i'm not embellishing anything. verifiable? no, because i'm not sharing my bank account statements. believable? definitely - most of my friends make about what i make a year freelancing, so it's not totally out of scope or outside the norm (i also never said i make $30k/week freelancing - some weeks i do, but others, i definitely don't). i've built a career and an audience by being very honest, even about my epic failures and shortcomings. i know you don't know me from adam - but luckily my audience and client-base does, and really they're the ones i cater to. my pricing is listed publicly on my website, and i wouldn't do that if clients weren't willing to pay for it (i don't have a sugar daddy or sugar mama to support me). i also appreciate that you voiced your opinion in an actually civil way! i hope it doesn't get down voted.
    - irrigation 11y ago
      The 30K thing was related to a post on here a few days back where an author claimed that they had their pick of "30K / week" engagements. As an interesting contrast with your policy, they claimed that they kept their rates hidden, thus allowing them to magically and endlessly ramp it up. In any case, I've long come to learn in the freelance industry that the more people talk about their success (which can be "so many clients I turn them away", or "I am now charging 50K+"), the more unlikely that success actually is. e.g. the guy who puts "published author" at the top of his blog likely has an Amazon Digital Delivery PDF book. The guy who talks about "top clients" had someone from Apple visit their blog once. And so on. The more bombastic about success someone is, the more incredible the claims, the more likely they're struggling for relevance, using the escalating accomplishments to create it. Again, this has been my experience in the industry, where when you look behind the curtain you find Lenny asking you not to tell anyone how he lives. In no way am I saying that about you, but just in general HN has been awash in "so much success I have to wear shades....now would you like to buy some tupperware?" type posts (I'm not being facetious with the tupperware thing -- it's people claiming boundless success, and then pitching something so petty that it puts it all in stark contrast), and I have to think it does a massive disservice to most of the readership, putting in their notice on this notion that there are endless lines of clients throwing money around for vague needs.
ffn 11y ago
So what about when you're just starting out, OP? When you haven't quite reached the Torvaldian heights of subject expertise in a niche, but you are somewhat competent with everything. What's the best strategy for finding / choosing gigs and building your brand then? Also, how long did it take you to reach expertise in your niche area?
- pauljarvis 11y ago
  1 - great use of "torvaldian" 2 - you can still be picky if you're just starting out and are able to (i.e. rent/food/etc is covered). this helps you define a niche that you want to operate in. niches are important because it's easier to become known or stand out in small group of similar people or companies (instead of trying to stand out for EVERYONE). to find gigs + build an audience, here are few other articles i've written: https://pjrvs.com/a/scratch https://pjrvs.com/a/scratch https://pjrvs.com/a/audience https://pjrvs.com/a/audience i've gone through about 3 niches in the 17 years i've freelanced (pro sports, valley startups, person-as-a-brand online entrepreneurs). each time it's taken about a year to reach critical mass (i.e. many more work offers than i have time for). each time i've been very focused on what i talked abut in original article here. hope that helps!
- tomjen3 11y ago
  Patio11, back when he still did consulting, charged 30k/wk, primarily by getting close to the value the business provided (e.g optimizing a signup flow on your customers Most Important Website is a lot easier to show will result in $MEANINGFUL_AMOUNT_OF_ADDITONAL_INCOME than building an entire rails app to improve developer productivity, ignoring that the first is easier).
  - irrigation 11y ago
    "Patio11, back when he still did consulting, charged 30k/wk" He says, adding heavy draw to an initiative. Absolutely nothing or anyone can validate those incredible claims, though. Every engagement was, to us, like the girlfriend from Canada.
    - 11y ago
jest3r- 11y ago
Article is kind of contradicting. > If they’re too new, they may not know much about their business or their audience yet. Isn't that what they're hiring you for? I mean your previous point about the right niche makes sense. But if your niche is healthcare and a new healthcare businesses shows up ... are they not leaning on you to provide expertise in that market? And wouldn't that help build your brand? > – but those are all much harder to do if a client is starting from a place where they’re making no money or worse, spending more money than they are making. This has nothing to do with "can't afford you". If the business truly can't afford you then as a freelancer you're doing yourself a favor by not offering discounts to accommodate. You're not doing the potential client any favors here. Otherwise most businesses actually do spend more money than they're making on marketing and creative, especially early on as they build their brand. You should definitely take their money. How else are they going to grow if you can;t help them at that critical early stage? Send them to get a free website first? You might as well start writing the obituary. Established businesses that are already making money hand over fist would typically already be happy with their freelance creative, but if they're willing to spend money on something new with you, then you must have done something early on that contradicts the premise of this paragraph in order to earn their trust. > If a client assumes that hiring you will completely turn their business around instantly, bring them bags of money every day, and skyrocket their brand into the stratosphere… As a freelancer, if your work is high quality, really good, award winning type stuff, then I would expect all potential clients would think you're a miracle worker. That's high praise. At that point it's your job to set expectations, not turn them away. While I do agree with some of the points, the author seems out of touch with reality - we regular folks don't have the recognition or word of mouth machine to be this picky. And at the end of the day it's all about setting client expectations. Not the other way around.
- pauljarvis 11y ago
  point #1 - there's a difference between a startup who's figuring those things out (and has the business acumen to know how business' work) and a person who's never run a business before. i'm talking to the latter point, since a freelancer can't really do everything for someone's business (like figure out their market, audience, how to run a business, etc). that's more of a business partner relationship than a freelancer. point #2 - this again is speaking to people who start business' without knowing how business' work (for me personally, i get a lot of leads like that). through experience i've found that until a person has a good grip on how their business works and how it can make even some money, the spend they'd have on a site design is wasted money (just setup a free squarespace or WP site). point #3 - there's a big difference between realistic expectations and totally unrealistic expectations. sure, good freelancers can make a business go from not awesome to very awesome, but it has to tempered with reality. i (the author) am a "regular folk" too. i've been freelancing a long time, so i'm in the trenches. the only reason that i have the word of mouth machine going is because i am picky with my clients :) cheers! and thanks for the comment.
ams6110 11y ago
A bit of a tangent, but as a freelancer who picks and chooses who to work with, have you ever been hit with a discrimination claim, e.g. you turn down a job, and next thing you know they are claiming you won't work with them because they are black, or gay, or whatever. How much do you need to document the reasons for turning away a client? Or is there some kind of "at will" protection that applies to freelancers?
- pauljarvis 11y ago
  preface: obviously i'm not a lawyer :) but there's no employee/employer relationship, and i would never turn down a gig based on religion, gender, sexual preference, etc. at least for me personally, it's never come up. it may also help that i rarely work with clients who live in the same country as i do (international law is typically too expensive to litigate for something as tiny as a freelancer saying no to work).
mtae 11y ago
Should be titled 'When you shouldn't take a client's money'. Or (text from the article): 'Why you might not want to work with a potential client'
- vinceguidry 11y ago
  The main problem is that someone isn't a client until you're taking their money. People ask me to take their money to help them solve their website problems, which are actually their business problems, which are actually their life problems. They do this when they find out I'm a coder, that automatically confers upon me a magical ability to fix their lives. This typically happens in the context of a bar conversation. I tell them, "no, I generally don't moonlight unless there's at least $5K involved, but, hey, as long as we're here, tell me what's going on and I'll see if I can help you." So we unwind their problems a little bit. Inevitably there's a lot of emotion stored up and I'll encourage them to release it with some 'tough love', letting them know that without either a good bit of capital or a lot more willingness to figure hard things out on their own on their part, they're not going to achieve their goals, and they need to acquire one or the other if they want to find success. Tears start flowing, catharsis happens, no, I still won't take your money. Accounting headache, you see. Tell you what, if you can do X, Y, and Z, to get this monkey off your back and learn something truly useful, then give me a call in a month and you can buy me a few beers and we'll talk next steps. I call this 'community outreach'. Happens roughly twice a month, ever since I started taking my laptop to the bar. Someone in a bad situation can always count on my Houston air traffic controller delivery of the hard truths of trying to make money on the Internet. Thought about building a business around it, maybe if I find the right partner...
amelius 11y ago
Sounds pretty obvious to me. Why on earth would you take on a job when you know beforehand that you can't satisfy your client's needs?
raminassemi 11y ago
Great read!

58 points by pauljarvis 11y ago

Not everyone has so many contacts that they can really pick and choose. Going 1-2 months without work because you turned down a client and can't find another one can be really shitty.

pauljarvis 11y ago
Correct - when you can't pick and choose - you're picking to work with anyone so you can pay the bills. Nothing wrong with that. This is for when there is a choice that you can make.
tomjen3 11y ago
That is true, but it also means you really should work towards getting into that position partly by reducing your personal burn rate (ie spending) and partially by charging more since that allows you a longer famine.
- pauljarvis 11y ago
  Exactly. The key to a long-lasting freelancing career: always spend as little money as possible.
irrigation 11y ago
I'm a cynical sort with a lot of experience in the industry consulting, and I can't help but view a lot of these pieces as heavily...embellished. Akin to "fake it to make it". Ala "I'm so overwhelmed with business at 30K per week....but would you like to buy some tupperware?" I understand the author is here, and hopefully people don't embarrassingly downvote this purely to try to act civil -- I think the embellishment is doing a massive disservice to the entire industry. It is often complete fantasy. I will also say that I found the claims the other day about the 30K+ per week consulting engagements, apparently chosen at whim, completely ludicrous (again, having worked with countless organizations). It has zero verification or believability, but is a nice draw for someone's new initiative.
- pauljarvis 11y ago
  i can't speak for anyone else - but by the same token, i'm not embellishing anything. verifiable? no, because i'm not sharing my bank account statements. believable? definitely - most of my friends make about what i make a year freelancing, so it's not totally out of scope or outside the norm (i also never said i make $30k/week freelancing - some weeks i do, but others, i definitely don't). i've built a career and an audience by being very honest, even about my epic failures and shortcomings. i know you don't know me from adam - but luckily my audience and client-base does, and really they're the ones i cater to. my pricing is listed publicly on my website, and i wouldn't do that if clients weren't willing to pay for it (i don't have a sugar daddy or sugar mama to support me). i also appreciate that you voiced your opinion in an actually civil way! i hope it doesn't get down voted.
  - irrigation 11y ago
    The 30K thing was related to a post on here a few days back where an author claimed that they had their pick of "30K / week" engagements. As an interesting contrast with your policy, they claimed that they kept their rates hidden, thus allowing them to magically and endlessly ramp it up. In any case, I've long come to learn in the freelance industry that the more people talk about their success (which can be "so many clients I turn them away", or "I am now charging 50K+"), the more unlikely that success actually is. e.g. the guy who puts "published author" at the top of his blog likely has an Amazon Digital Delivery PDF book. The guy who talks about "top clients" had someone from Apple visit their blog once. And so on. The more bombastic about success someone is, the more incredible the claims, the more likely they're struggling for relevance, using the escalating accomplishments to create it. Again, this has been my experience in the industry, where when you look behind the curtain you find Lenny asking you not to tell anyone how he lives. In no way am I saying that about you, but just in general HN has been awash in "so much success I have to wear shades....now would you like to buy some tupperware?" type posts (I'm not being facetious with the tupperware thing -- it's people claiming boundless success, and then pitching something so petty that it puts it all in stark contrast), and I have to think it does a massive disservice to most of the readership, putting in their notice on this notion that there are endless lines of clients throwing money around for vague needs.

ffn 11y ago

So what about when you're just starting out, OP? When you haven't quite reached the Torvaldian heights of subject expertise in a niche, but you are somewhat competent with everything. What's the best strategy for finding / choosing gigs and building your brand then? Also, how long did it take you to reach expertise in your niche area?

pauljarvis 11y ago
1 - great use of "torvaldian" 2 - you can still be picky if you're just starting out and are able to (i.e. rent/food/etc is covered). this helps you define a niche that you want to operate in. niches are important because it's easier to become known or stand out in small group of similar people or companies (instead of trying to stand out for EVERYONE). to find gigs + build an audience, here are few other articles i've written: https://pjrvs.com/a/scratch https://pjrvs.com/a/scratch https://pjrvs.com/a/audience https://pjrvs.com/a/audience i've gone through about 3 niches in the 17 years i've freelanced (pro sports, valley startups, person-as-a-brand online entrepreneurs). each time it's taken about a year to reach critical mass (i.e. many more work offers than i have time for). each time i've been very focused on what i talked abut in original article here. hope that helps!
tomjen3 11y ago
Patio11, back when he still did consulting, charged 30k/wk, primarily by getting close to the value the business provided (e.g optimizing a signup flow on your customers Most Important Website is a lot easier to show will result in $MEANINGFUL_AMOUNT_OF_ADDITONAL_INCOME than building an entire rails app to improve developer productivity, ignoring that the first is easier).
- irrigation 11y ago
  "Patio11, back when he still did consulting, charged 30k/wk" He says, adding heavy draw to an initiative. Absolutely nothing or anyone can validate those incredible claims, though. Every engagement was, to us, like the girlfriend from Canada.
  - 11y ago

jest3r- 11y ago

Article is kind of contradicting. > If they’re too new, they may not know much about their business or their audience yet. Isn't that what they're hiring you for? I mean your previous point about the right niche makes sense. But if your niche is healthcare and a new healthcare businesses shows up ... are they not leaning on you to provide expertise in that market? And wouldn't that help build your brand? > – but those are all much harder to do if a client is starting from a place where they’re making no money or worse, spending more money than they are making. This has nothing to do with "can't afford you". If the business truly can't afford you then as a freelancer you're doing yourself a favor by not offering discounts to accommodate. You're not doing the potential client any favors here. Otherwise most businesses actually do spend more money than they're making on marketing and creative, especially early on as they build their brand. You should definitely take their money. How else are they going to grow if you can;t help them at that critical early stage? Send them to get a free website first? You might as well start writing the obituary. Established businesses that are already making money hand over fist would typically already be happy with their freelance creative, but if they're willing to spend money on something new with you, then you must have done something early on that contradicts the premise of this paragraph in order to earn their trust. > If a client assumes that hiring you will completely turn their business around instantly, bring them bags of money every day, and skyrocket their brand into the stratosphere… As a freelancer, if your work is high quality, really good, award winning type stuff, then I would expect all potential clients would think you're a miracle worker. That's high praise. At that point it's your job to set expectations, not turn them away. While I do agree with some of the points, the author seems out of touch with reality - we regular folks don't have the recognition or word of mouth machine to be this picky. And at the end of the day it's all about setting client expectations. Not the other way around.

pauljarvis 11y ago
point #1 - there's a difference between a startup who's figuring those things out (and has the business acumen to know how business' work) and a person who's never run a business before. i'm talking to the latter point, since a freelancer can't really do everything for someone's business (like figure out their market, audience, how to run a business, etc). that's more of a business partner relationship than a freelancer. point #2 - this again is speaking to people who start business' without knowing how business' work (for me personally, i get a lot of leads like that). through experience i've found that until a person has a good grip on how their business works and how it can make even some money, the spend they'd have on a site design is wasted money (just setup a free squarespace or WP site). point #3 - there's a big difference between realistic expectations and totally unrealistic expectations. sure, good freelancers can make a business go from not awesome to very awesome, but it has to tempered with reality. i (the author) am a "regular folk" too. i've been freelancing a long time, so i'm in the trenches. the only reason that i have the word of mouth machine going is because i am picky with my clients :) cheers! and thanks for the comment.

ams6110 11y ago

A bit of a tangent, but as a freelancer who picks and chooses who to work with, have you ever been hit with a discrimination claim, e.g. you turn down a job, and next thing you know they are claiming you won't work with them because they are black, or gay, or whatever. How much do you need to document the reasons for turning away a client? Or is there some kind of "at will" protection that applies to freelancers?

pauljarvis 11y ago
preface: obviously i'm not a lawyer :) but there's no employee/employer relationship, and i would never turn down a gig based on religion, gender, sexual preference, etc. at least for me personally, it's never come up. it may also help that i rarely work with clients who live in the same country as i do (international law is typically too expensive to litigate for something as tiny as a freelancer saying no to work).

mtae 11y ago

Should be titled 'When you shouldn't take a client's money'. Or (text from the article): 'Why you might not want to work with a potential client'

vinceguidry 11y ago
The main problem is that someone isn't a client until you're taking their money. People ask me to take their money to help them solve their website problems, which are actually their business problems, which are actually their life problems. They do this when they find out I'm a coder, that automatically confers upon me a magical ability to fix their lives. This typically happens in the context of a bar conversation. I tell them, "no, I generally don't moonlight unless there's at least $5K involved, but, hey, as long as we're here, tell me what's going on and I'll see if I can help you." So we unwind their problems a little bit. Inevitably there's a lot of emotion stored up and I'll encourage them to release it with some 'tough love', letting them know that without either a good bit of capital or a lot more willingness to figure hard things out on their own on their part, they're not going to achieve their goals, and they need to acquire one or the other if they want to find success. Tears start flowing, catharsis happens, no, I still won't take your money. Accounting headache, you see. Tell you what, if you can do X, Y, and Z, to get this monkey off your back and learn something truly useful, then give me a call in a month and you can buy me a few beers and we'll talk next steps. I call this 'community outreach'. Happens roughly twice a month, ever since I started taking my laptop to the bar. Someone in a bad situation can always count on my Houston air traffic controller delivery of the hard truths of trying to make money on the Internet. Thought about building a business around it, maybe if I find the right partner...

amelius 11y ago

Sounds pretty obvious to me. Why on earth would you take on a job when you know beforehand that you can't satisfy your client's needs?

raminassemi 11y ago

Great read!