So what do you do if you find yourself with a roster full of the wrong clients? Clients that see you as an order-taker rather than an expert who can get them achieve their goals?
First, ask yourself if you see yourself as an order-taker or an expert who can help them achieve their goals. Because it starts with you.
You teach people how to treat you.
When I first started freelancing, I felt like an imposter because I never formally learned to code. I didn’t feel like I know enough to call myself an expert. So why would my clients treat me like one?
Once I worked on my mindset and began to believe that I had more value to offer than simply changing a font color on demand, I started to raise my prices.
And it didn’t happen overnight, it’s been a slow progression from feeling like, “Yep, I can totally build you a website,” to “Yep, I can totally help you make more money in your business.”
Then, give your wrong clients the opportunity to become the right clients by re-setting boundaries.
If you’re anything like me when I first started out, I set no boundaries. No boundaries about when I’d be working or available for phone calls and meetings. No boundaries about how many revisions I’d do, or what I’d charge extra for or what was included.
Sure, I had contracts, but I didn’t enforce the provisions because I felt uncomfortable. As an employee, I’d been conditioned for so long to just do everything that was asked of me. Plus, I’m a total people pleaser and want people to like me.
I didn’t have the language or skills to say no, and that’s how I operated with my clients. Like a people-pleasing employee that wants everyone to like her. Every boss’s dream, but every freelancer’s worst nightmare!
Even right clients can become wrong clients when you don’t set clear boundaries.
Clients can’t step over boundaries that were never set in the first place.
So I had to start settings them. But first, I had to define them. When would I work? When would I respond to emails? Will I allow clients to text me? What constitutes an “emergency”? What’s included in the project? How many revisions will I do before I start charging?
So how do you start setting boundaries with existing clients with whom you’ve never set before?
Not by sending them an email announcing your new boundaries, but by giving them a choice when they are asking for something that steps over your newly-defined boundaries and doing it in a way that makes them feel super awesome and supported!
Here’s an email I received one day from one of my vendors telling me the price was going up:
“Hi, Shannon,
Wow, we’ve been working together for almost 2 years. We are so grateful for your loyalty to us and hope to continue supporting you for many more years to come.
Now that our team has grown (and continues to grow) to over 15 incredible women and our clientele is growing by 2 new clients a week, it’s time our rates reflect the value our team has to offer. But because you’ve been so loyal to us, we’re going to slowly increase your paying rate.
Currently, you pay $X per hour. For reference, current clients that start with a 10 hour/month plan pay $Z/hour.
Beginning in April, your hourly rate will step up to $Y. Then in June, the hourly rate will be $Z. That’s the top rate you will ever pay.
We hope you understand and please do reach out if you have any questions. Again, we appreciate all the support you’ve given us and are looking forward to continuing to support you in all your endeavors!”
What this email does extremely well is:
- Remind me that two years have passed since we started working together to prime me to expect a change.
- Thanking me for being a loyal customer, which makes me feel really good.
- Explaining that I’m going to be getting more value because there are more skills available to me to take advantage of.
- Telling me that a change is happening (the price is going up) and why (because I’m getting more value).
- Stepping me up into the new rate over a few months and giving me the assurance that it won’t increase again.
Imagine if instead of receiving this email, I got an invoice for my new rate with no prior notice or an email saying “Effective on this date, your new rate is X.”
Do you think that would make me feel valued? No way.
You could adapt this approach to new business hours and communication expectations. Or send your clients new service agreements.
But you don’t need to globally announce your new expectations to all of your wrong clients in an attempt to turn them into the right clients. You can handle them on a case-by-case basis.
The trick isn’t to say no when a wrong client wants to step over your boundaries – it’s to give them a choice.
It’s not “Here’s what I WON’T do,” and shut the door – it’s “Here’s what I WILL do,” and give your client a choice. Give them a chance to become your right client. You’d be surprised how many people don’t even realize that they’re stepping over your boundaries, and once you make them clear people are totally fine with it!
And if your boundaries don’t work for them, they will go find someone who will do whatever they want when they want, and you’ll be better off for it.
If all else fails, it might be time to end your relationship with your wrong client.
Before you go down this road, I urge you to take a look at yourself and your boundaries first and do the work to communicate them. Because if you don’t learn how to do this early on, your right-on-paper clients will eventually turn into wrong clients.
And if you ultimately need to end the relationship altogether, you can check out one of the best resources I’ve found for “firing” difficult clients from copywriter Jamie Jensen.
As you start to attract the right clients, you’ll phase out your wrong clients.
How to Start a Freelance Web Design Business
Now that you understand the secret to finding the right clients, but you find yourself with no clients (or the wrong ones) and a severe case of imposter syndrome, then I invite you to attend a free webinar, Behind the Scenes of My Freelance Web Design Business” where I cover how to overcome imposter syndrome, how to build credibility without having to build a portfolio and how to start making passive income with WordPress.
Today’s pep talk is brought to you by Bluehost. Go to www.shannonmattern.com/bluehost and get 36 months of web hosting for just $2.95 a month. That’s less than one trip to Starbucks a month – and if you’re anything like me, you’re at Starbucks more than that!
Then you can sign up for my Free 5 Day Website Challenge at www.shannonmattern.com/5day and I’ll show you step by step how to get started building your new website for your side hustle.
