Investing emotionally in your work
I've been a freelancer for five years, running my design 'agency' from a laptop in a converted garage. It suits my circumstances and lifestyle.
I have a family, so it was both exciting and stressful in equal measure.
In that time I've worked with some substantial clients and startups, offering brand strategy, design consultancy and production for both print and digital campaigns. (I built up a decent rep in the industry before going solo).
Investing lots of time and emotion in my clients businesses. I genuinely care and want them to succeed. And the work I've done has helped them do that.
Yet, I've been treated pretty badly by nearly all of them. Advice ignored, process ignored, invoices unpaid, emails unread, ghosted. The lot.
What COVID-19 has brought me, is clients deciding to take all digital assets in-house themselves. To the detriment of all the work done. Totally ruined.
Brand values went out the window. The phrase, you can take a horse to water comes to mind. I'm pretty disillusioned with it all tbh. They just don't care.
Has anybody got any tips for developing a harder skin?
Thinking about packing it in and starting something new.
To combat the "invoices unpaid" concern, I always recommend collecting at least half the estimated payment up front before any work begins. This has a couple benefits:
I actually do that as part of my terms for substantial pieces of work. It's the small one-offs or recurring work pieces that get ignored.
I've thought about outsourcing, but struggle to let go. Possibly part of the issue.
I understand your hesitation, for sure. I used to worry about putting sub-contractors in direct contact with my long-term clients (for a different business than Cohoist). Fortunately, I haven't had any complaints and there I haven't seen any evidence of them poaching my clients. I'm not sure if that's luck or the norm. It seems like most sub-contractors wouldn't want to bite the hand that feeds them, but maybe I'm being naïve.
I'm more concerned about them doing a poor job.
Yea, it takes work to find the right people. It has to be structured like a real interview process. Here's how I do it:
If you still have doubts, give them a fake assignment or two before introducing them to your real customers. Something like this:
It's a bit unconventional, but it helps you see how good they really are and could save you a lot of money down the road. The lifetime value of a lost client is likely a lot more than whatever you paid the person for the fake assignment.
Just my thoughts - it's really up to you.
Thanks for the advice. 👍