As my family prepared to move in our first home, like most people — we had lots to do in the house. To do it all would mean taking shortcuts and buying low-priced items. The result would be less than flattering. The job called for prioritizing to ensure we bought decent quality items. First up: windows. We needed blinds, lots of blinds or else I would go blind with the too many windows we had. (Seriously, the eyes are sensitive to sunlight.)
Next, bedroom furniture. Previously, we lived in military housing and chose to focus on the downstairs rooms rather than upstairs including our bedroom. The rest we added when we could or when we saw something that worked.
Good thing we didn’t do it all. It turned out those first few items we bought were my least favorites. The toddler-abused blinds need replacing. The bedroom furniture … I love its function, but not its color. I thought the wood would be a white wash wood. Instead, it was painted a bothersome faint white. We could paint it, but the colors wouldn’t work well in the dark-colored bedroom. Natural wood color works best.
This situation can happen when work slows down and it’s time to bring in new business. It’s tempting to take on every opportunity that comes along. It’s like a reverse of firing bad clients except you’re proactive. Instead of finding yourself working with a less than ideal client, feeling miserable and having to figure out how to get out of it — you skip all that.
I happened to be working on finding another client to serve when several opportunities came in. For one of them, warning signs alerted me to do serious due diligence. In the other, the prospect asked if I could write articles on X, Y, Z topics. I turned it down because I know those topics would require a lot of energy and most of it not good. I’d rather spend the energy looking for a client I can better serve doing work I enjoy.
Turning Down Opportunities
These signs give you the clues you need that a potential assignment or client may not work for you. Be careful when it comes to an assignment that scares you because you’re afraid to fail, not because something is iffy about the client. It may be an opportunity to grow.
- Boring. Think about your least favorite industry. Do you want to spend hours living and breathing that industry? When you work on things you despise, it takes longer and drains more out of you.
- Suspicious. You find little information about the company or person contacting you. The person may use a common email address, provides terse responses to your questions and reveal little else.
- Budgeted. I saved time for a prospect whose message implied she was focused on price. I gently responded if she was looking for a low-priced writer that I was not a fit for her. I don’t turn down all budgeted assignments. For example, I liked an owner and his business, so I came up with a way to quote a lower price that worked for both of us.
Digging Deeper
Sometimes the first or second contact isn’t enough to decide yea or nay. This is the time to dig deeper. Someone contacted me about writing a bunch of blog posts. First warning sign. The email address came from a yahoo.com address. Second warning sign. The “From” address only had a first name, but she signed her last name in the first message. Half a warning sign.
I searched her name, email address and company name (I had to ask for the company name as she didn’t mention it in the first email — another sign) and found nothing. At this point, I decided this wouldn’t work out. Rather than turning it down, I replied with more questions. Never heard back. Hmm …
When you’re not sure about an assignment, these actions help:
- Research. Look up the client, company, email address and whatever info you have. Don’t stop with the client’s website. Go to social networks like Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere.
- Ask. It feels awkward to ask some of the questions you need to ask, but how will you feel if you take the job and hate it? Request links to related sites. For example, I received an assignment to write for sites on generic topics. Ask for links to those sites.
- Probe. Make sure you get a full picture of the assignment. At first glance, one assignment sounds like writing X articles. Read between the lines, and it could easily be more than double the work because of other tasks involved.
- Check. Your network may know about the person or company. If you find out who has hired your prospect, contact them.
- Follow up. Don’t feel pressured to stop asking questions after the first contact. Ask more questions especially if the answers reveal little new info. (This could be a warning sign, or simply someone who is rushed and wants to reply quickly.)
What types of assignments or clients have you turned down? What do you watch for when a prospect contacts you?
Meryl, this is fantastic info! So true on all of the reasons to turn down work. Like you said on my blog, we were thinking alike when we both mentioned suspicious work. 🙂
I don’t mind budgeted work unless it’s obvious the client’s focus is strictly on the budget, as you’ve said. I had one client relationship flame out horribly when the client gave me two hours to finish a 5-hour project. Her main focus was on my hourly rate, and I really suspect her goal was to get me to work for free. Since she was someone I had to beg the check from a few times, nothing doing.
Lori, thank you. Re-reading this… I can see how budgeted could be read several ways. A budgeted project could very well have millions. Point being — lower than what you should get paid.
I imagine that 5/2 hour project was a nightmare. It’s over and you added another notch to the belt on what to avoid in the future.
I always look at interviews as a two-way street. I’m interviewing the client as much as they interview me. If I’m not interested in the topic, or I question the ethics of the business, I won’t do it.
Devon, excellent tip and definitely the way freelancers should handle interviews. Thank you.