Firing a Client is the Best Part of Freelancing
The freedom to control one’s work is absolute gold.
I’ve been a freelance writer for 13 years now. I’ve worked on a number of gig platforms and sold writing services directly through my own website. Occasionally, I need to part ways with a client. I’ve learned to recognize some warning signs that a business relationship lacks a future.
The warning signs had been building with one of my clients on a freelance platform for the last half of the summer. When I heaved the relationship into the garbage this past Monday, I wasn’t surprised to be doing it.
I had learned to give myself permission to end business relationships whenever I wanted. The final assault from the client Monday morning tipped me over the edge. I even said aloud, “You’re DONE” as I clicked the cancel button.
The gig platform I currently work on allows me to cancel a work order at any time. This dumps the order back to the client minus anything that I might have written. Although I had invested time writing content before canceling this order, I knew that investing more time in the project would be a bad play when the client sent it back with a huge page of revision requests and complaints. I had written dozens of assignments for this person and never received any revisions. Just acceptance and payment.