Yep you got it, till you lay back on a very comfortable couch in Budapest, Bahamas or where ever you are in you lovely holiday, I sit on my couch at home trying to do another suicidal move. After I talk about brief and wondering how is better, guided or freestyle is time to talk about a freelancers clients. I am pretty sure that all freelancers designers or coders get lot’s of email when they woke up in every morning, except their birth day or Christmas or late sex in the morning etc.
Of course 40% are “supporters” witch is not bad, they are doing a good job and I want to thank all of you for your nice emails and apologies for those that I missed to reply back; Then of course you get like 20% of features requests, interview request etc. 35% are job requests freelance projects, collaboration etc. and 5% are definitely porn.
So let’s start talking about the first 40% – “supporters” as I mention….and let’s be honest we can’t live without them, I can’t. Why? because they are really cute and I definitely think they tell those words honestly. Is not on anybody’s hand to open the Email put a title and start writing some nice words. I don’t remember doing such a thing and shame on me because I should do it every 5 minutes because of the huge amount of great designers I discover every day. Anyway to be honest those 40% make me pushing forward and bring me where i am now – nowhere. So in big lines you all need to know that I am the biggest fan of the “supporters”.
20% of features, interviews, publications etc. sounds cool huh….an it is, I am not complaining and I do my best to honor all the 20% of these kind of requests but I fail most of the time, and is my bad and I apologize for all of my delay answers or no reply, and for those who send weird requests or stupid emails or questions please loose it.
But here comes the interesting part, the 35% ; this represent any potential client and thing are really bad here. Why did they choose a freelancer? Oh boy that was a fast answer: Because is cheap as hell….they think…..but in this world are a lot of freelancers with different rates and styles. For example we all know that Indians are really cheap and they always do the thing on time and exactly how you ask it. Of course there are some exception and I know many of them but let’s go back to the point. From these 35% definitely 20% are Americans. Americans have this feeling that they can afford anything in this world if that thing lives outside of US, and they say it with a smile on the face every time they had the chance. Bad news in this world is not all about US. Don’t get me wrong I got some lovely clients from US, some that understand the culture of design and they know why me and not another freelancer from let’s say, a group of 5 millions designers.

So let me give you some examples. I receive this year 2 emails with these requests:

A: “Hello Stephan I am X from Y, USA and I have a project for you, to design 3 bogs template, no coding….bla bla bla…..how much?“
answer: “Ok, I will do this for….whatever $….bla…bla….bla….Regards S.” …….
A: “Oh, please excuse me Stephan but our budget is 100$, and I don’t find your price relevant….bla….bla….bla….hope we can collaborate on a future project…..PS. you are kinda expensive….bla ….bla….“….
answer:…no answer.

Now an European client
B: “Hello Stefan, bla…bla….bla…I am X from Y, EU and I need a design for a blog….bla…bla…how much….etc” ….
answer: “Hi X bla…bla…..the design costs….whatever $….bla…bla….bla….Cheers, S.”…….
B: “Hi………I am glad for your interest but our budget is 1000 euros…..bla…bla….maybe we can agree on this because I would love to work with you….bla…bla….“

And in order to sleep well tonight, i haven’t done any of these 2 projects.
Enough with all this bla bla, I think you get it. Then it comes the agencies, they contact a freelancer when they have a client that put’s his finger on a specific style and he wants that. The agency could not have all the styles and they could not do any projects without any other influence from outside, you can be the biggest agency in the world and you can not make it without any outside help. So the agency comes very formal and tell you all, they give you the brief the budget the time line etc. so you don’t lose you time with them, if you agree the condition you sign and you are ready to action if not you simply answer “Not interested“.
What I want to highlight is : the clients are clever, some of them are stupid but anyway, so they will try to get the best price, that’s the point right, they do the same with agencies. But all you need to know is your level, never go down and never sub estimate you because they know your level too, but they try; when a agency comes to you is 70% chances to need you because of your style and 30% because they are full, in both situation you are the boss, so don’t give up on your standards. I really good for you to have your own standards and to know what kind of projects you want to do. Some says if you try to do standards you will fail in hunger, and is true if you don’t have the skills or at least a big sales account mouth. You will need to accept 10 American projects on a month to survive. Select the clients, don’t work on any project because of the hunger for money, your portfolio worth more than 100 000 euros, so be careful with him. Now for the clients, be more careful on what are you looking at, be more careful on the freelancer portfolio and try to appreciate if is for you or not, if you can afford it or not, don’t waste your time and his time absolutely for nothing; Don’t look on an Afghanistan portfolio and then contact David Carson, because you will be surprised. Is true when they say, What you see is what you get, and you pay as is worth. Don’t come with the legendary excuse “On Template monster is cheaper” because no one will argue you, you are always right remember?
I could tell more stuff about how I think we should do thing as a freelancers, but I don’t want to get you bored or even worst to give you the impression that I am an expert. So take care wherever you are and keep the 5% for the bad days.