Freelancery

When to say no: A budget mismatch

This is a lesson I have to re-learn every once in a while:

If you're working at the lower limit of your fee range, which happens to be the upper limits of the client's budget, step away.  Better yet, run.

When it's small potatoes for you, but a major deal for them, it will go south fast. You will lose money. They will be pissed off.  It will be a  360-degree stinker.

The dynamic is easy to understand. If you're working for bare bones fee on a relatively small project, your goal is to get it done. Be swift, be efficient, be a pro. Then move on.

But their goal, of course, is to get every nickel's worth of the astronomical fee they're paying. They want project briefs, target dates, ironclad agreements. More tweaks, more choices. They will want to re-think and over-discuss everything. They will never be sure if it's good enough.

You will do twice the work for half the fee. And they will still feel gypped. Bad juju all around.

Best work zone:  Top of your fee scale (where you're delighted to be working, and eager to bust one over the fence). . . and the mid-range of the client's usual budget. (Gee, he does really good stuff.  And reasonable, too.)

Your freelance tool box

What should you stock in your tool box?

You'll need optimism.  You must believe things will work out.

You need confidence.  Two sets of that, plus a spare.  And a back-up.  You can't work scared.  Clients will sense it and be uneasy.  Confidence will trump almost anything.

You also need your skill.  Whether that is drawing, making photographs, carving, designing, organizing, accounting, making people like you, or writing code.  Keep it well honed, oiled, and fully charged.

Everything else is secondary.

When my grandfather worked as a tool and die maker in the '40s and '50s, he was expected to supply some of his own tools. He brought along an oak tool chest packed with his dies, taps, mill files, micrometers, bits, gauges and other specialties of his trade gathered over the years.

Having your own gear made it easier to find work.  Machine shop foremen saw you as a solid pro, a guy they could hire and not worry about.  And for my grandfather, who went shoeless in the Depression, steady work was the holy grail.

His tool chest sits on my desk right now.  It is permanently smudged with shop grit and embedded machine oil.  In the drawers are the tools of my trade.  One stapler.  Thirty bulldog clips, a nine-year supply of paperclips, USB cables, pencil stubs, an extra mouse, linty post-it notes, 94 business cards.  My Mac OSX CDs.  Microsoft Word.  Strunk and White.

There's also a small card my grandfather left in the chest maybe 40 years ago.  A note to penciled to himself, in Russian.  I have no idea if it's a to-do list, cheat sheet, or driving directions.  But I'm saving it just in case.

I keep the chest for continuity, so I can say its still in the family and still serving an honest trade.  (Although my grandfather never quite understood what I did for a living.  "So who reads what you write?"  "Nobody, really," I said, "It's only ad copy.")

I like having the tool chest here.  Makes me feel workmanlike.  Like a pro getting a day's work done.

It's where I keep my optimism, and two sets of confidence.