Should a freelancer refuse clients?

Cristian Level X³

September 20, 2016, 6:06 pm

13

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Should a freelancer refuse clients?

Ok. I've gotten to a point when I have a lot on my plate. I have a day job and I have a very busy freelance schedule, a schedule that's becoming harder and harder to maintain because I'm working a multiple "fronts".

Most of my clients come from SC of course but I also have a couple of long terms I'm doing business with for ages.
Problem is: I'm still getting new clients! Really, I'm getting overwhelmed. Thing is, I can't really outsource my services, for the most part, it has to be me, what I can outsource I'm already outsourcing.

I used to never refuse a client, I always accepted and figured out how to deliver later. Recently I was offered an administrator position as well as to re-design two old websites and switched them to Wordpress. This is a very serious local client that I know personally, really thinking to turn the guy down in the end.

What do you guys think? Should I just stop and focus on my current clients? Or should I accept everything that comes my way and figure out the problems later?

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TommyCarey

TommyCarey

Turning down clients is always bitter sweet. On one hand you have more time to focus on your current clients and you can do their jobs more efficient but on the other hand you are willingly turning down a paycheck because you don't have the time to work on it.

Have you ever thought of hiring some employees to come on and help you out? If you continue on this route you will easily be able to pay them hourly and above minimum wage. In time you will be able to have a dedicated team to work on all the projects and you can mess around with research and development, which is super fun

Last year I had way too much work than I could handle and I had to bring someone on to do some work for me. I paid him $12 an hour which is pretty good since he didn't have a degree and no experience. I trained him how to do what I needed him to do and he took the initiative to to learn more than what I was teaching him. After every day he would have a good amount of knowledge from what I taught him and the next day he would be asking 100 questions about SEO and Marketing. I could definitely tell he was doing his homework and over achieving

I told him it was a temporary position and he could stay on as long as there was work, but with SEO the client retention isn't great unless you have a contract, which we didn't for most clients.

You could also hire a cheap VA (Virtual Assistant) but they don't go to the extent that you would hope they would. You can get them to do basic data entry but that's about it

8 years ago

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EliteWriter

EliteWriter

I once tried to see if it was possible to set up a team, but I must have tried out 20 different people, who were either unwilling to work, or relatively unskilled, and so I ended up redoing the work after them. I decided that it is better to work on your own or quality will suffer. Just focus on the amount you can handle and stick to that. There are times when buyers are willing to wait a bit too.

8 years ago

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Cristian

Cristian

I already have some help working for me, but as I said only for the stuff I can safely outsource. Overall I had pretty bad experiences hiring local people, I'm not cheap and I definitely wasn't paying below minimum wage but for some reason people didn't want to learn my process and I always had to give them tons of modification because they were just ignoring my requirements.

This made both of us pretty frustrated and I usually ended the business relationship after a few weeks. I also tried hiring and teach friends (big mistake).

8 years ago

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EliteWriter

EliteWriter

Same here. I decided that it is best to do it yourself, or you end up getting your reputation suffering as a result of low quality work or lack of commitment from the people you try to hire. I practically never had a positive experience when I tried to outsource.

8 years ago

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Lynne

Lynne

Oh dear, well it is sort of a nice problem to have in that it sure beats having too little work right?

I really think that this is something only you can decide on how to manage it. You don't want to land up disappointing people and also getting so stressed is also not good for you.

How about finding a reputable seller here that sells similar services, yes like your competition and referring new customers to this seller, with your affiliate links of course!

That way you are still making money and you are still helping them by referring them to someone trustworthy? I think perhaps that is the best win win you might be able to find.

8 years ago

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EliteWriter

EliteWriter

I am in a similar position at the moment Cristian and I know how it feels. I put up a status message here about a week ago to inform anyone who might be interested to order that I just cannot handle anything new at the moment. Time is limited, and you need to prioritize. I decided I could not manage to keep up with any more orders, at least till the end of the month. So whoever contacts me at the moment, I am informing them that unless they are able to wait till October, I cannot take the order. I do not want to rush things and still lose clients with low quality work.

8 years ago

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Lynne

Lynne

I am still hoping you will catch up soon because I want to place more orders

I totally understand though, it is not easy to manage everything yourself and when you run out of time there is not much you can do.

I agree with you that it is best to do the job yourself than risk outsourcing. If you want a job done properly and 100% to your satisfaction you need to do it yourself.

8 years ago

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RaduV

RaduV

If you are a loner (like i am), and If you are sure that you can't handle their work then yes, the best way to do is to refuse or explain them that you will take them as a client after a certain period.
This way you'll maintain your level of professionalism and if they appreciate your work, will probably wait until you are available.

However, if you don't want to refuse them, try and hire some freelancers. This might be tricky and may require some testing prior giving them some real work to do but if your screening is done properly, you might find some good people with whom you may start a team.

I know for sure that there are groups of Virtual Assistants available, maybe you can consider them but you should be aware that not every time the quality of their work is good.

8 years ago

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vinaya

vinaya

Turning down a client is not very good for a freelancer, because when you turn down work, the client will never come back to you. However, sometimes we have to turn down down. I don't hesitate to turn down clients when...

the clients offer low payment
I already have many assignments on my hand
client wants the job to be done quickly, but I don't have time
client is too demanding
I am running out of deadlines
I cannot commit to the deadlines

7 years ago

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Barida

Barida

To keep your reputation safe especially when you have lots of work to do for other clients, it is always advisable to eject clients to avoid having issues in the future. One thing is rejecting a client in a polite way.

7 years ago

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Corzhens

Corzhens

I guess this is a good discussion for freelancers because the common impression on freelancers is that they will accept any job just to earn. I want to erase that image because it is partly true but we should not capitalize on that. When I started freelancing, I was offered a writing job that I didn’t know I would be paid. That was great. But later on, in another instance, I was offered a very low rate on an article that I was offered to submit. Oh well, do I need to say I refused?

6 years ago

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