15 Minute Freelancer

31. Ask Me Anything About Freelancing!

August 13, 2021 Louise Shanahan Season 1 Episode 31
15 Minute Freelancer
31. Ask Me Anything About Freelancing!
Show Notes Transcript

This episode is a little different... instead of a single topic or interview, we're firing through as many listener questions as possible in 15 mins. Tidbits include:

  • How do you respond to vague client inquiries? (Clue: it's all in the intake process!)
  • How do you deal with clients ghosting you? 
  • How to talk about money with clients when you hate talking about money
  • How can a coach help your freelance business?
  • How do you give yourself a promotion as a freelancer?

Huge thanks to everyone who sent in a question.

Louise Shanahan is a freelance health copywriter and content marketer. She's on a mission to help others build a freelance business that feels easy and works for them – in weekly snack-sized bites.

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LinkedIn: Louise Shanahan
Twitter: @LouiseShanahan_
Instagram: @Louise_Shanahan_
Website: thecopyprescription.com

Wanna leave me a voice note? Go to memo.fm/15 and leave a question or comment.

Intro

Welcome to 15 Minute Freelancer, your snack-sized guide to being your own boss and building a business and life you love. I'm your host Louise Shanahan. My LinkedIn bio says I'm a freelance health copywriter. But for the next 15 minutes I'll be tickling your ears with practical strategies behind the scenes stories and nuggets of wisdom so you can create freelance business that works for you. Whether you're just starting out or you've been self-employed for a while, I'll be right here with you to help me navigate the ups and downs of freelancing life. So grab a coffee relax and join me for 15 minutes of freelancing fun. Don't forget to hit subscribe. 

Hello, Louise Shanahan here, back for another solo episode of 15 Minute Freelancer. Today I wanted to try something a bit different and do an ask-me-anything episode as a wee experiment, so I posted on LinkedIn and Twitter a couple of weeks ago and loads of you sent questions, so thank you! And by the way you can send questions any time. Sometimes there are some really good questions that come up, but maybe they’re not quite meaty enough to do a whole episode on, so I’m hoping I can cover off a few in this AMA format. OK! I’ve got a long list of questions, I’m going to set a timer for 15 minutes, and I’m going to fire through as many as possible. If I don’t get through them all, I’ll have to do this again.

Also, I just want to say before I start, where it was a public comment, I might mention the name of the person who asked the question, but where they sent it as a DM, I’ll just keep it anonymous, because I didn’t check if people wanted their names mentioned and I think it’s always important to check that kind of thing.

Ok. So here we go. In no particular order.

Q1: How do you respond to a vague client inquiry? Someone reached out but all they said was they wanted a writer for their website project, and it’s super vague. Any advice on dealing with ambiguity from clients?

Ok, good question. My first thought is that often people will be vague when they first make contact with you because they don’t always know what level of detail you need at this point in the process. They probably view this as just starting off the conversation. So while you might be left looking at the email or message and thinking, ok… how am I meant to know if I can help you? It’s just starting the conversation. So you need to think about what information you need in order to decide if you CAN help them and if you’re going to be a good fit, and you need to have a clear process in place for getting that information.

This starts with being clear about the kind of clients you work with, the kind of projects you do, what you don’t do, what the process is for making an inquiry and what happens next after they send an inquiry. You should control this whole process so clients see you as someone who knows what they’re doing, and also so that your life is easier and you’re not making up a new process every time you get an inquiry. People like being told what to do! If you haven’t been explicit on your contact page on your website, that could be why you’re getting vague inquiries.

So, do you want them to fill our your website contact form, fill out a client intake form in a Google doc, or Typeform or Survey Monkey, or just drop you an email? Are you giving them a link to go straight to booking a call? What details do they need to provide? What info do they need? Do you have limited availability, or a minimum project fee? The point here is to pre-qualify leads so you don’t waste either of your time going back and forth with someone that isn’t going to be a good fit. It lets them rule themselves out too – if you make it clear that you have a minimum project fee for example, anyone who doesn’t fit that budget shouldn’t get in touch, and when someone does get in touch, you know you won’t have to have that awkward moment later when you tell them your rate and they snap their laptop shut in horror. Not speaking from experience there.

There are loads of ways to set this up. Personally, I have a short form on my website, and I have email templates for my responses, – one for if I think they’re a yes and I definitely want to set up an intro call, one if they’re a maybe and I want a little bit more info before going ahead, and one if I know we’re not going to be a good fit. 

So, know what you need to know in order to decide if you want to work with someone, have a process for getting that information, and make that clear on your website. I hope that makes sense.

Q2: From the same person – what should you do when a client ghosts you?

Another good one. So I think this question was asked in the context of the previous question, where you’ve asked for more details and they’ve gone quiet, and I think if you have that clear process with your contact or intake form, that should put off the tyre-kickers, but ghosting is still a really common challenge more generally.

Maybe someone seemed really keen to work with you and then disappeared. Maybe you sent a proposal and they ghosted you. I’ve even heard of some freelancers getting a deposit paid and then being ghosted! 

And it feels really crap, especially if you’ve put the effort into a proposal or spent time talking to them. You don’t get any closure. You don’t know what happened. Some people will say “move on, it’s their loss”. And I generally agree with that, but I’m also a big softie and I think it’s worth giving people a second chance. Especially with the world the way it is just now – people are busy, stressed out, sick, burnt out, got kids off school, you know, it’s tough, so I don’t like to jump to the conclusion that they’re just rude. What’s that saying – don’t attribute to malevolence that which can be explained by stupidity? Or as I like to say, don’t attribute to rudeness what can be explained by busy-ness! Or disorganisation. So I usually follow up again, see what’s up, and then I’ll move on. 

That said, some people are just rude, and you don’t want to waste time and energy on people who disappear. If they want to work with you, they have to show up. Chances are, someone who is disorganised at this very early stage in the process is going to be a pain to work with when you get stuck into the project. So, be compassionate, follow up once if you had a good feeling about it initially, but then move on. Try not to take it personally.

Q3: How do you talk about money when you have chrometophobia?

Ok, this is a question from Giles, and I had to confess that I didn’t know this word! I hope I’m pronouncing it correctly. I believe it means a fear of talking about or thinking about or even touching money. This is not something I suffer from personally, but maybe I can take a more general approach to answering this question – how do you have conversations about your rates and talk budgets with clients, if you hate talking about money. I get it. It’s often the most awkward question. 

So what’s my advice…. I think it comes down to practice. The more times you have those conversations, the easier it becomes. You HAVE to talk about budgets on intro calls or sales calls, though you wouldn’t necessarily give a specific quote. Like I said earlier, if you can set the right expectation through your website, your contact form, your intake form – it shouldn’t be that awkward because they should have a rough idea of what to expect.

I think it helps to think about why you feel awkward about it. Do you worry they’ll think you’re greedy, or too expensive, or not charging enough, what is it? When we feel uncomfortable about talking about money, it’s often because of cultural norms about money being an unsavoury topic of conversation, so we end up with a mindset block around it. And there are loads of books and podcasts and business coaches that can help you with this. 

I used to hate these conversations when I first started out because I didn’t really know what the going rates were for different types of work so I wasn’t sure if I was charging a reasonable amount, and I also didn’t feel as sure of my processes or my portfolio as I do now. What’s helped me reframe it is to know that their budget is not my problem. Your client’s budget is not about you. I suggest trying to take the emotion out of it – tell them your rates and don’t feel compelled to fill the gap. If you know you do good work, you shouldn’t feel worried about stating the price. You don’t need to justify your rate to them, but if you need to justify it to yourself, just look at your testimonials, your previous work, your process, your experience. 

I think having some stock phrases or a wee script to use can be helpful. So when I’m on a call with a potential client, I’ll say, so we haven’t talked about budget – what did you have in mind? If they say they don’t know, I’ll say, ok, well the last project I did that was similar to this came in at about (and I'll give an amount), does that feel like an amount that would work for you? Amy Posner has some great YouTube videos with scripts for these conversations. Ideally you’ll just be working with people who already value you and your work.

It’s quite a big topic really – I’ve done some episodes that touch on this that you might want to go back to – ep 4 on pricing advice I hate, definitely ep 14 on anatomy of a sales call, there’s one on freelance finances, and another on raising your rates, I think all get into money mindset stuff one way or another. I’m not an expert by any means, but I know it’s hard. I hope that helps. If I completely misunderstood the concept of chrometophobia, send me a message and correct me!

Q4: Q I got through Memo – remember you can leave voice notes, comments and questions on memo.fm/15 too. So the question is how can a coach or mentor help us as freelancers?

Brilliant question – I am a huge fan of getting coaching to help you progress in your freelancing journey, take the next step as you grow your business, get over mindset issues like I just mentioned – all of that. A good coach won’t just give you all the answers, but they will help you figure out for yourself. They can kind of hold a mirror up to what you’re doing and saying, and shine a light into the corners of your business or your brain at the bits you maybe don’t want to look at, and help you figure out for yourself what your goals, strategy, plans, tactics should be. I am working with a business coach at the moment, shout-out to Kirsty Waite, and honestly the pennies are dropping all over the place in each of our sessions. I’m finding it’s really helping me get clear on what I want my business to look like in future and what I need to do to get to that point, and also to unpick some of the weird rules I’ve made up for myself about having to work really really quickly and not wanting to let people down. It’s like business therapy.

But there are all sorts of coaches and mentors. You could have someone help you with strategy stuff, or focus on a specific part of your business, such as sales calls, or money mindset stuff, or time management, or managing others, or you could have a coach who is an expert in your specific discipline – really the possibilities are endless. Maybe you have a specific challenge to deal with – a client situation that you can’t figure out, or a behaviour in yourself that you want to change, like always saying yes to too many projects, or struggling to feel confident when you’re marketing your services, or feeling a bit unsure about where to go next. A coach can help you with all of that.

If you go back to the episode where I interviewed Jen McKeown, who is a leadership and performance coach, she talks about how freelancers can benefit from working with a coach. I think that’s episode 24. I’m a huge advocate of getting coaching – as freelancers, we have to make up own professional development programme, and take ownership of our learning and how we run our business,  and a coach can absolutely help you with that.

Q5: ok, I think I can squeeze in one more. This follows on nicely from that previous question. When you've been freelancing for a while and it’s going well, and you want to develop yourself professionally, how do you think about giving yourself a promotion and taking your freelancing career to the next level? What support do we need and how do we figure out what to focus on?

Well, wouldn’t you know, there’s an episode on that too! In last week’s episode, Andre Spiteri and I talked about what happens when your business starts to grow, when you’ve got steady leads, and plenty of lovely clients, and things are going well – and you start to wonder what happens next. So that’s one to listen to, Andre had so many great insights to share. 

Working with a business coach might be another way to figure out what to do next. That’s what I’m doing right now. 

I love the way the question is framed – about giving yourself a promotion, because as I said, we have to take ownership of our own career ladders. There’s no boss to send you on a course, there’s no management job to apply for and get a promotion the way you would in traditional employment. So you have to decide for yourself. You might want to start refining the services you offer, or change what you offer. You might change the kind of clients you work with you might and I hope you will raise your rates. You might change your job title to something that more accurately reflects your experience and expertise. On a bigger scale, taking things to the next level might mean starting to build a team to support your business, or working with subcontractors. You might start offering courses or digital products. You might decide to work less, have a different work-life balance and focus on something else. The options are endless. I don’t know if that’s helpful, I’m basically saying you can do what you want! A coach can help. But also talk to your peers. Find out what they’re doing. Maybe join or start a mastermind, so you can learn from and get support from others who are in a similar situation. I have done some excellent masterminds in the past and I think the best ones are where you feel just a little bit out of your depth – it really pushes you to grow and be ambitious, and imagine big things for your business, and take your business and yourself seriously.

Ok. That was fun to jump around different topics for a change, and I hope this has been useful for you. I will definitely do one of these ask me anything episodes again, although I will try to make my answers a bit snappier so I can get through more questions. If you have any topics or questions for the next one, you can send me a DM on LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram, email me if you’re on my email list, or send me a voice note on memo.fm/15. Right, that’s it for this episode, thank you for listening, and I’ll see you next time.

Outro

You've been listening to 15 Minute Freelancer with me, Louise Shanahan, freelance health copywriter and content marketer at thecopyprescription.com. If you enjoyed this, please hit subscribe, leave a review or share it with a freelance friend. And if you've got a freelancing question you want answered on the podcast find me and say hi on Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram. Thanks, and until next time, happy freelancing!