Avoid Freelancer Burnout—Working With Clients
Why do freelancers burn out working with clients? Typically, it comes down to one or more of these five reasons:
Clients aren’t paying on time. You’re getting lots of business, but money isn’t coming in fast enough.
Clients want endless revisions and change their minds constantly.
Clients aren’t following the schedule for feedback. Jobs drag on forever while you await their response.
Clients are calling, texting, and emailing at all hours.
You’re getting too much business at once. You feel overwhelmed. You’re saying “yes” instead of “no” or “not right now”.
The Simple Answer to Client Problems—Confidence and Control
Here’s the answer to nearly all client problems—you need more confidence and control. Remember, you serve your clients, but you’re not their servant.
Sure, thanks… but how do you get there?
How do you establish and demonstrate confidence and control?
Some of it comes down to experience. There’s no substitute for having done something successfully many times. You’re confident you can do the task, and you have control over the outcome.
But as a freelancer, how do you establish confidence and control?
Processes Will Build Confidence and Control
At the beginning of your freelance career, or even if you’re well into it but facing burnout, you need established processes for how you work.
That includes processes for getting paid, dealing with revisions, scheduling, and client communications.
Once you have a process for any task, you don’t have to think about how you will do it. You’re going to follow your process. Do that a few times, and your confidence soars.
Many creative people back away from the idea of processes. They believe that being creative means inventing something new every time.
That may be true in coming up with creative ideas. However, when it comes to the business side of dealing with clients, you want repeatable processes that lead to success.
Once you build your freelance business on defined processes, it will be easier and much less stressful.
The Real Secret Behind Processes—Communicate Them in Writing to Potential Clients
After you’ve defined your processes, you need to communicate them to potential clients. In your first communications, you’ll want to let them know, “this is how I work”, in other words, your processes.
Do this early. If clients have major disagreements with these processes, you want to know now. They may not be the right client for you. For example, if they tell you they pay invoices in 60 days or expect you to include endless revisions in your estimate, they might not be for you.
The biggest reason that processes work is that clients know and accept them. Having processes is only half the story. Your clients need to agree to them.
You’ll need a written document, let’s call it How We Best Work Together, that outlines your processes. You can also think of this as your Terms and Conditions.
Once they agree to become your clients, you should have a defined onboarding process. This is where you learn about your new client and reinforce your processes.
On Twitter, I noticed that Aastha Duggal, a freelance social media manager, had a client compliment her on her onboarding process. One part of Aastha’s process? How the clients will communicate with her on Slack.
Your Process for Getting Paid
Payment terms used to be “Net 30 Days”. That was because you mailed your invoice, your client processed it manually and then sent you a check. That took time.
Today, clients can easily pay you immediately. That includes payment for deposits.
Think about how you want to get paid. Ideally, you want between 50% and 100% as a deposit upfront and the rest upon completion of the project.
Before you say, “My clients will never go for that”, you should know that many freelancers get paid that way. Why not you?
Your challenge? You have to work up the confidence to ask for it. State it clearly in your How We Best Work Together document. Be prepared to talk about it matter-of-factly.
Start with your next new client.
There are two critical benefits of getting deposits: you get money in the bank, and the client has an incentive to finish the job and get what they paid for. You don’t want clients dragging out projects forever. It’s not an efficient way to work.
Another option is to bill clients on a monthly retainer. Once you agree to a retainer, you can count on getting paid on the first of every month. I wrote about the pros and cons of retainer arrangements here.
A Process for Handling Client Revisions
Address client revisions upfront and then again in your estimates. When you first talk to a prospect, get an idea of their approval process. The more layers of approval, the more revisions will likely be necessary.
Our typical term for revisions: “Includes up to two rounds of revisions. Further revisions will be estimated if necessary.”
I wrote more about how to handle revisions and scope creep here.
The key is to have an explicit agreement on this BEFORE you start working together. Don’t wait until you’re getting endless change requests.
Also, provide an estimate for each revision before you do it and get approval to proceed. Is this a $100 or $1,000 change? The client needs to approve before you do the work. Don’t surprise them on the invoice.
BTW, even if you’re getting a 100% deposit for your initial estimate, you may still be invoicing for changes once you’ve completed the job. So, make sure you have estimates and approvals for all changes.
Create a Process for Getting Timely Feedback
Many freelancers complain about clients holding up projects by taking forever with feedback. This is an even bigger problem if you’re not getting paid until the project ends.
The answer: you need to create a process that includes a schedule, even for small jobs. It can be as simple as a sentence in your estimate: First draft to the client by Wednesday (date), client revisions back by Monday (date).
Again, the key is to review this with a client before you start working together. Let them know you work in an orderly fashion, you schedule your time, and you need agreement on feedback. Once they understand this, they’ll pay attention to what it says in your estimates.
I wrote about how to increase your billing with detailed estimates here.
Even if the client doesn’t have a deadline, create one for them. You want to do the project efficiently. That means the client has to do their part by getting you feedback in time.
This is even more critical for larger projects that are broken down into stages where each stage depends on completing the previous one. If your schedule starts slipping at the beginning, you’ll never make the delivery date.
You Need a Process for Client Communications
If you don’t want clients calling, texting, and emailing at all hours, you need to tell them the best way for you to work together.
Be prepared for some flexibility here. If you’re working with a larger client and they use a communications platform for everything, you may have to adapt.
However, most smaller clients don’t use those platforms, so you should tell them your preferences.
Typically, for your communications, you might ask for:
Everything on Slack, Asana, Trello, or whatever platform you use. You’ll set them up and show them how to use it.
Everything is by email.
Some people like the phone, but you’ll want to limit your hours. (My least favorite option. I think you should have written correspondence, so you have a record.)
Include this in your initial discussions and then in your onboarding process.
Here’s what Aastha Duggal says about her onboarding process:
“For efficiency, I avoid calls at all costs. I make a perfectly functional workspace on Notion, and we speak over Slack. Communication happens a couple of times a week on Slack—this includes updates or quick questions.”
Avoid Burnout—Communicate Your Availabilities
Freelancing is notorious for “feast or famine”—either too much or too little work at once.
Let’s talk about “too much”. We all know the cause of this—you promised more than you can deliver.
You said “yes, yes, yes” when you should have said, “yes, not right now, and no”.
I know it’s tough to say no to a client, especially if it’s a steady client that you enjoy working with.
But to save your sanity and have the time to do your best work, you must schedule. That may mean pushing back on deadlines.
Consider this: clients will often ask for a deadline because it seems reasonable. Perhaps it is reasonable, but it’s not carved in stone.
If you come back to them and say, “I’d love to work with you on this project, but the earliest I can deliver it would be (date). Will that work?” They might be okay with that.
The key is that you have to ask. You want to avoid burnout, missed deadlines, or substandard work. Protect your sanity and the quality of your projects.
Some freelancers have open calendars for their clients so they can see availabilities. Others do it project by project. The choice is yours.
Communicate Processes in a Friendly Way
The last point—try to maintain a friendly tone, even when you’re “laying down the law”. You’ll want to show the benefits of your processes to the clients.
Try to avoid talk of penalties or “do this or else” language.
Clients will appreciate that you have processes, know how to do jobs efficiently, and have their best interests in mind.
Look at what Aastha’s client said on LinkedIn about her onboarding process.
Learn more about avoiding burnout in my book, How to Start a Successful Creative Agency. It’s the essential business guide for graphic designers, copywriters, filmmakers, photographers, and programmers.
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Over 300 pages and 23 chapters, available at Amazon (Paper & Kindle), Kobo (ebook), Apple Books (ebook), and Gumroad (PDF).
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From Kobo:
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“If you're like me, and you were almost tearing your hair out, trying to understand how to reliably get high-quality clients for your agency, then this book is a must-read. Andy is an industry veteran, and unlike a lot of modern 'gurus' who can only provide regurgitated, surface-level advice, Andy is able to articulate everything in an easy-to-understand manner, that can fast-track you to success in running your own profitable agency. Highly recommended.”
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This chapter covers essential areas such as Clients vs. Projects, Corporate Clients vs. Small Business Clients, How to Create an Opportunity Document, Benefits of Finding a Niche… and much more.
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