I made a stupidly simple / free tool to vet your clients
Because I’m tired of explaining this to people
It’s astounding. Time is fleeting. Madness takes its toll. But listen closely…(Not for very much longer)
I’m going to teach you how to avoid a client Rick Roll.
Hiya. Hey. Hello. It’s been a while since I wrote a legitimate article. And why is that, exactly?
It’s my busy season. Clients, clients everywhere, and vetting them kind of stinks 🎵
I’ve also been trying to compile some tools and articles into an eBook:
However, I got a little too excited about this free tool, so I’m just going to share it. I also wrote this handy-dandy guide on how to work with your brand-spanking-new Client Vetting Matrix.
I do not ask anything of you, except that if you share this tool and use it, to keep the credit. No funnel, no email list, no spam.
Just don’t scalp my work, bro.
Now for my reasoning behind making this free tool:
I’m seeing a lot of freelancers stumbling through their project workflow.
They’re wasting an inordinate amount of time chasing future promises, blown-up scopes, unpaid invoices, nightmare-threat-level-work, poor communication, and diminished returns.
This leads to burnout, stress, confusion, frustration, unhappy clients, bad work, unhappy freelancers, and everyone has to deal with the fallout.
I want to help you with this, because I care, and I’m tired of sounding like a broken record: Vet your clients better.
Vet your clients better.
Vet your clients better.
Vet your clients better.
VET YOUR CLIENTS BETTER.
And, keep assessing the situation.
So please just read this stupid article and follow along with the Word Doc I linked above, here it is again.
Vet your clients better, because: All clients are not created equal
This is going to piss some clients off. I know for a fact that I am highkey shooting myself right in the crotch with a shotgun by writing this article.
But I need clients (not mine, they’re all rockstars and they know it) to know this very specific key actual fact that isn’t fake news:
We. Judge. You.
Oh yes, we judge you
As much as a client or a business vets freelancers, freelancers also vet their clients. Or they should, because if they don’t they’re noobs.
However, there are also far less “bad clients“ than there are people who cannot handle setting boundaries, and saying “No”.
Maybe, just maybe, the actual “‘bad clients” and noob freelancers who read this bloody article will now collectively realize their failings and digivolve into cool bros.
Maybe not. I don’t know, I may just be wicked optimistic.
Look at this goddamn matrix now, and follow the hell along:
Here is your Client Vetting Matrix. Open the goddamn document. Look at it, understand it, read it.
This is not rocket science.
Put in the company name, your point of contact and their email, the date this work is due, the rates they’re paying AND your rates, the type of work, and then sit back and really let it simmer.
Give yourself a number that you’re comfortable with, like it says at the top of the sheet. This is your cut-off point, your bare minimum.
I will not work with anyone below a 75, unless the niche is my fave, and they’re effervescent jellybeans.
Vet your clients better, because: If they’re impossible to work with, good work will be impossible
How is your interaction with your current client, or a client you are trying to close a deal with?
Are they sunshine, rainbows, and daffodils?
Do they call you at 3:00am your timezone to demand work, rite meow?
Are they unreasonable frothing heathens of pain and destruction?
Or are they wonderful jellybeans who make you happy to just talk to them?
Somewhere in the middle?
Fill in the goddamn cell with the paint bucket tool
If they’re a horror movie villain, they get a solid red fill in the “Bad, don’t fucking do it” category.
If they’re decent people but not effervescent cupcakes, fill in “Maybe”.
If they’re fantastic and make your day one million percent better by having interacted with them, give them a Gold Star “Awesome”.
Vet your clients better, because: TIME IS MONEY
Time and Pay are directly intertwined. If the amount of time you’re going to have to sink into this work does not line up with the pay you are getting, rethink this.
Be brutally honest here. Brutally honest.
Unbillable hours are still hours you work.
Unbillable hours are still hours you work.
Unbillable hours are still hours you work.
I sincerely feel that we — as freelancers — should be charging for the 456456 hour long random-ass meetings we keep being thrown into, that are mostly created to rehash points we’ve already gone over, nobody likes them, and nothing gets done.
But, we don’t tend to bill on hourly for that. Why is that?
Time is money, so why aren’t willing putting that into our fee structure?
I’ll tell you why:
Because we do not value our own time, and that’s crazy.
Fill in the goddamn cell with the paint bucket tool
Vet your clients better, because: You have to pay the goddamn bills, right?
Let’s say you take on a project that should honestly only take 10 hours to complete.
If the contract is sound, your scope is sound, feedback and communication are sound, approvals go swiftly: 10 hours is how long this should take.
You’ve quoted a client at $1000. I’m making up numbers here, stay with me.
That’s $100 an hour. Okay, cool, rad, awesome, swell, tubular, far-out.
But, the lie detector test said that was a lie:
You didn’t vet your client very well.
You haven’t been taking an inventory, mental or otherwise, of your interactions.
You didn’t say no when you should’ve.
You failed to create boundaries.
Now, the project is taking 25 hours, not 10.
That’s $40/hr.
Say it with me now.
That’s forty dollars an hour. Go back to the number above again, and see that one is a higher number, and please stay with me here.
I love you and I want to help you.
Fill in the goddamn cell with the paint bucket tool
Vet your clients better, because: Working for exposure is working for free — almost no exceptions
Okay we’re on the Opportunities section. Still with me? Good. Great. Radical.
Unless Sam Esmail is hitting me up to help him work on social media marketing for Mr. Robot, I probably don’t personally give any credit to the “opportunities” section at all.
You might, however.
“Maybbeeeee I’ll get a better gig from this client in the futuuurrreee” is probably a Don’t Fucking Do It.
However, “They definitely can help me succeed, I wonder how I go about working with them to create success for them and for myself in a mutually beneficial relationship” would be a “Maybe”.
A “Do It” on this section of the matrix means they’ve literally hooked you up with referrals, or are doing that, and it’s on paper that they will.
Humans being bros get a A++ on this section.
Fill in the goddamn cell with the paint bucket tool
Vet your clients better, because: If you hate the industry, your work will probably suck
If you do not like the niche, have no understanding of the niche, have no desire to understand the niche, etc, you will be doing your clients a disservice.
Sure, you can fumble along. Fake it. Whatever. Unless one of the other boxes outshines this one, your work will probably be shitty.
If you don’t like the industry at all? Like how I hate, hate, hate, hate Bank and Mortgage crap?
The work will be bad. It will just be bad. There will be no soul in there, man. And your clients deserve good work, right?
No, they deserve excellent work.
Fill in the goddamn cell with the paint bucket tool
Let’s bring the entire thing together:
Here’s a blank sheet. I don’t know if you noticed these two pieces, but they’re important.
Awesome: 20.
Good: 10.
Bad: 0.
Now that you have your sheet all filled out, it could, possibly, hypothetically, look something like this:
So, Yeet Industries got a 70.
Good lord look at how NICE John Cena is, though, how amazing the pay is, and how rad the opportunities are!
Is 5 points really going to make that much of a difference for me? Nope.
I may not like the industry, but lord knows now that I’m going to study like a fiend, hone my skills, watch 464949 hours of videos, read a ton of literature, focus all my attention on John, and yeet out the best possible work.
Okay, Kira. I’ve stuck around for your crazy rant.
The hell do I do now?
You use this tool to look at your current client repertoire, and to honestly, deeply, truly understand future interactions, future clients, and future projects.
By being Honest about who you are working with / who you will work with in the future, you will:
- Stop driving yourself crazy.
- Diminish a source of work stress.
- Do better work.
- Get — and retain — better clients.
This is like any other worksheet, it only works if you put in the effort.
How hard can coloring in a bunch of bloody table cells in a Word document be, though?
The hardest part is being honest with yourself.
Listen, I get it. Maybe you really just Need Cash Now. Maybe you’re a pissed off possible-client reading this Medium article of mine, foaming at the mouth.
But do you want to know something?
When we’re realistic and honest about the work we do for others, and what the work gives us, this becomes gratitude for the great things we have in our lives.
I am absolutely grateful for the amazing clients I have. I had to learn who to seek out the hard way, and now I’m smarter for it.
I am incredibly thankful for the clients who have stuck by me, who I’ve stuck by. I am insanely grateful for how wonderful these people, and their products and services, are.
By being honest, being realistic, setting boundaries, and taking care to pick the right projects to work on — and the right people to work with — you’ll have created your very own type of Lead Magnet.
A personalized one, where you attract like-minded people, that lift each other up.
I’m serious here.
When you start really being honest with yourself, and the work you’re doing, you’ll attract your best clients.
And do your best work.
Isn’t that the point of freelancing, really? To do amazing work and work with amazing people?
I don’t know about you, but being comfortable and happy is way, way, way more important than making tons of money at the cost of your sanity.
Life is too short to hustle for people that make you crazy.
But what do I know, I’m a liberal arts major, pfbbbt.
Special thanks to Renato P. dos Santos for his continued support!
Kira Leigh is a writer, gamer, digital creative, and small business owner.
Catch her here or on LinkedIn and send her a line if you want to work together.
