Better clients challenge you. They support you.
They spread the word. They pay on time.
They pay more and expect more.
Everything else will take care of itself
if you focus on getting better clients.
– Seth’s Blog
Better Clients: Getting Some
It’s easy to say and hard to do. I worked as a freelancer in Proposal Land for almost half my career and my highly selective modus operandi was to accept work when it was offered.
Why? My first concern was always getting enough work. For a long period, I was also unaware of what better looked like. Didn’t it work like this everywhere? Then I was unsure of my ability to get better and still get enough. Maybe unsure of deserving it.
But better clients really *are* a joy forever.
Better clients challenge you. They support you.
They spread the word. They pay on time.
They pay more and expect more.
Even one of those traits would be worth selecting for; the truth seems to be that they often travel together. I’ll add one more.
Better clients make it easy to do your best work.
And who doesn’t get up in the morning wanting to do that?
Better Clients: Being One
The flip side of all this is the companies that hire Proposal Land freelancers. Maintaining specialized proposal resources in-house just doesn’t make sense if there are long gaps between bids, but hiring them is not like buying a widget. You can’t just pick one off the shelf at random and slot them into a gap. Well, you can, but you can get better help by being a better client.
Challenge them. Support them.
Spread the word. Pay on time.
Pay more and expect more.