H Reader,

Happy Friday!

All being well, you're receiving this on the day I move into my new house 🎉

All being not well, I'll be crying somewhere after a relentless eight-month buying and selling process. It's all good fun (it's not).

Anyway, here's a reminder that you can get involved in the Freelance Money Diaries (either bylined or anonymously!). I'm sharing a new freelance financial story every week in this very newsletter.

​Just fill out this form here. ​

Here’s what I’ve been up to this week:

👉 I wrote 4 pieces for clients (Klaviyo, Salsify, a CRM tool, and a WFM tool)

👉 I edited and submitted 3 pieces for a client I'm content managing for

👉 I packed up my entire house and did all the last-minute paperwork!

⏱ Approx hours spent on client work this week: ~20

⏱ Approx hours spent on non-client work: ~1

💰 Total revenue this week: £2,750

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Friday Freelance Tip​​ ✨ ​

In last week's newsletter, I talked about how I handle clients who question my rates. It mostly boils down to us simply not being a good fit — it happens. You’re not going to waltz off into the sunset with every single client who comes to you (or who you find and pitch).

So how do you check that clients will be good to work with?

I do at least three phases of pre-qualification with every client.

Firstly, I look for any potential red flags in our initial conversation — this includes either their enquiry email or the job posting depending on how I found out about them, but I also stay eagle-eyed during our first few interactions.

Red flags to look for in our initial conversations:

• They’ve never worked with freelancers before (more of an amber flag, as it might be a new company or they might just be starting with freelancers. But either way, I don’t want to have to teach a company how to work with freelancers).
• They aren’t quite sure of the scope or requirements (i.e. they’re fluffy and vague with what they want me to do. It can indicate that they aren’t sure what they want and will only “know it when they see it”).
• They need multiple stakeholders involved in the hiring process (this is sometimes par for the course with big companies, but I don’t want to have to jump through hoops for Susan in accounts, John in HR, and Evelyn in operations just to get the gig).

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These are just a few red-tinged flags I look for. There are other flags that are SO RED they’re impossible to miss, like the prospects who tell me when I need to be available to work or who need a turnaround time of, like, yesterday.

I share my processes, prices, and expectations early

Before I “hop on a call”, I make sure we’re on the same page with pricing.

The last thing I want is to end up 20 minutes into a call, excited about a project, only to find out the client has a budget that doesn’t match my rates.

I avoid this by sending my welcome packet before booking a call. This includes my processes, current prices, and boundaries (including the hours I work, how I submit pieces, and my average turnaround time).

I get prospects to acknowledge this with a simple “Please take a read and let me know if you have any questions”.

Discovery calls

My next qualification stage is a discovery call.

I try to keep calls in general to a minimum, but I actually enjoy meeting potential prospects “face-to-face”. I don’t know about you, but working behind a screen can feel isolating, so it’s nice to put a face to a name. It feels a bit more personal too, which leads to a stronger connection and (hopefully!) a longer-lasting relationship.

I have a set of questions I go through on the discovery call, including how we can best communicate, the scope of the project, and predicted timelines. But my favourite questions are about how the client sees our partnership unfolding.

Here are some examples

• How will you measure success/what does success look like for this project?
• How do you see my role fitting into the overall project?

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These simple questions can shine a light on how the client sees the partnership and what their expectations are for working with a freelancer.

I include a full list of questions to ask in a discovery call in Workflow Wizard, plus how to proceed after the discovery call to seal the deal.

For example, if they say success looks like “generating 1,000 conversions per blog post” but they don’t have a distribution strategy and are simply relying on the content alone, that’s a red flag.

Paid trial piece

Finally, I’ll work on a paid trial piece.

This is an opportunity for me and the client to see if we’ll work well together. I always make a point of stating that the first piece is a collaborative effort and it takes time to get to know a brand’s tone of voice and quirks.

However, this is the most practical way to see what a working relationship will look like with the client. You’ll quickly see how long they take to respond to questions, their revision process, and how long they take to pay invoices.

If a client disappears after you submit a draft only to rock up two weeks later with edits they need by tomorrow, you know it won’t be a good fit (well, it wouldn’t be for me, anyway).

How about you? Do you have any additional steps you take to qualify new clients?

This week, we have a B2B writer, who didn’t have their best year freelancing.

Where are you based? Croatia.

How long have you been freelancing? 8 years

What do you do? I’m a B2B writer in the HR niche, operating as a sole trader.

What was your 2023 revenue? An equivalent of $23K

What was your net profit in 2023? I ended up the year with a net loss of about €3,000. That was the worst year of freelancing to date.

How much did you take as a salary? I took out €800 per month.

How much did you pay in taxes? About €5600 in total for the year.

What are your monthly business expenses? It costs me around €400/mo to run my business.

Do you contribute to a pension?

Yes, the state mandatory one is €227 per month.

Do you have any hot money-management tips?

Don't buy a new car, an apartment, and renovate the said apartment all in the same year. It cost me €220 000, which depleted my accounts. I definitely needed all of these, but not in the same year.

Save 6 months' worth of expenses because you can go from making €10k per month to €775 in a matter of eight months. This happened to me. 🥲

As always, happy freelancing :)

Lizzie ✨

P.S. What steps can you take next?

Arm yourself with the resources, templates, and tutorials you need to find and pitch high-paying clients in 2024. Get £20 off the brand spanking new Pitch & Prosper program.

​Get Workflow Wizard, your handy library of freelancing templates, tutorials, and email scripts to help better your business.

Want to learn the exact process I use to write £1,000 posts for the likes of Shopify, Hotjar, CoSchedule, and Sprout Social? Access Create Better Content here.​​​

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