Be picky about clients. Payment risk is not equally distributed across all clients, all work, or all contracts. Exercising a bit of professional discretion upfront will save you grief later.
The ebook career.fork() that came out recently had more on this. Basically, you can learn to spot "clients from hell". There are certain traits that are the equivalent of pointy horns and a whiff of brimstone:
- excessive cheapness in initial negotiations
- "but we can just find a guy on odesk for $5/hour" (reply: OK, you do that, and come find me when it falls apart).
- no effort to understand technical issues. Of course, lots of good clients don't understand technical issues (that's why they hired you), but at least show some interest in what you're doing.
- unrealistic expectations (I want the next Facebook!)
- very vague ideas about what they want. "I need a website made!" Lots of good clients also have vague ideas, but its your job to help them figure out exactly what they need. Try sitting down with them with a pen and paper and listing what pages they need and an outline of the content for each one.
Now, some clients will happily sketch out Balsamiq type mockups, wheras others will just give you a brief list of the pages they need and let you work out the details. Both are fine. But if the client refuses this exercise, stay away.
My big surprise when freelancing was that most clients are not from hell. If you just avoid the jokers, there are plenty of good clients that value your work and pay on time.
Other tips:
- taking a deposit at the start is always good. It's like the client has "broken the seal" and will be more willing to pay in future.
- it's hard asking for payment. It's the social norm against asking for strangers for money. One advantage of paycheck employment is the only time you need to discuss money is in the interview. After the first few invoices, it gets easier.
- avoid getting desperate. When you only have one week's rent in your account, you might be tempted to take on a bad client. Easier said than done, but maintain a buffer of savings and start looking for gigs before your current one finishes.
- be a bit cynical. Even if the clients are the nicest, coolest people in the world, if your code is on their server and your money is in their account, it's quite easy for them not to pay you. If you control the code, and some of the money (ie, a deposit), you're in a much stronger position.
The ebook career.fork() that came out recently had more on this. Basically, you can learn to spot "clients from hell". There are certain traits that are the equivalent of pointy horns and a whiff of brimstone:
- excessive cheapness in initial negotiations
- "but we can just find a guy on odesk for $5/hour" (reply: OK, you do that, and come find me when it falls apart).
- no effort to understand technical issues. Of course, lots of good clients don't understand technical issues (that's why they hired you), but at least show some interest in what you're doing.
- unrealistic expectations (I want the next Facebook!)
- very vague ideas about what they want. "I need a website made!" Lots of good clients also have vague ideas, but its your job to help them figure out exactly what they need. Try sitting down with them with a pen and paper and listing what pages they need and an outline of the content for each one.
Now, some clients will happily sketch out Balsamiq type mockups, wheras others will just give you a brief list of the pages they need and let you work out the details. Both are fine. But if the client refuses this exercise, stay away.
My big surprise when freelancing was that most clients are not from hell. If you just avoid the jokers, there are plenty of good clients that value your work and pay on time.
Other tips:
- taking a deposit at the start is always good. It's like the client has "broken the seal" and will be more willing to pay in future.
- it's hard asking for payment. It's the social norm against asking for strangers for money. One advantage of paycheck employment is the only time you need to discuss money is in the interview. After the first few invoices, it gets easier.
- avoid getting desperate. When you only have one week's rent in your account, you might be tempted to take on a bad client. Easier said than done, but maintain a buffer of savings and start looking for gigs before your current one finishes.
- be a bit cynical. Even if the clients are the nicest, coolest people in the world, if your code is on their server and your money is in their account, it's quite easy for them not to pay you. If you control the code, and some of the money (ie, a deposit), you're in a much stronger position.