This is just the most recent email I have got from a potential client who is complaining about a blog consultant they hired:
Hi,
I love the testimonial from Dr. Hayes. My friend just had her site redesigned and her web designer stopped answering/responding to her questions after the final payment. He didn’t teach her how to maintain the blog, especially how to add pictures to her portfolio page (which is highly important) for her business. How much do you charge to teach her just that one thing? Unless, of course, it’s more involved than that.
Thanks,
Lola
I am not sure who these freelancers are or what their plans are, but blog consulting surely is not something they are thinking about long-term. It is easy to compete with freelancers / consultants like these. If you’re willing to take the time to treat your clients right, you’ll stand head and shoulders above the competitors.
These are my 7 rules on how NOT to run a blog consulting or a freelance business by:
1. Looking for work at Elance and other job boards
This is not the way to go. A better way to get customers is to build your brand and showcase your abilities by for example having a blog. Every blog consultant or a freelancer needs to have a website where they can showcase their opinions, skills, knowledge and past projects.
This will differentiate you from the rest of the Elance crowd and it will give your potential clients a great chance to discover what you are about before they decide to hire you and will strengthen your chances to be chosen for the job.
2. Being a discount freelancer
I do not know where these freelancers who offer their work for pennies at Elance, Craigslist etc. live, but I find it hard to believe that someone can’t do something more valuable than sell their time so cheaply. It is damaging to professional consultants and freelancers who need to earn a living wage.
Inexperienced buyers may go for the smallest bids and end up like unfortunate people that end up contacting me complaining about what some freelancer did to their blog. The experienced buyer will always pay more to get the best quality.
As a blog consultant and a freelancer you should believe in yourself, you should value your time and ability and you should be a brand that charges premium prices. Never undervalue your work, do not bid small and do not engage in price wars with other freelancers. Have your price and do not discount it. But always make sure you deliver quality and timely work that compliments the rate you have set.
3. Not caring about your client’s happiness
Some freelancers have the “take the money, do as little as possible and run away” attitude. If you do work for your client according to the deal and if you make him / her happy, that client will not only give you a testimonial but also refer friends to you and hire you again for future projects.
Make sure your clients are happy when you work with them. The story your customer tells about your brand is the most important story and the great feedback and word-of-mouth comes from working closely with your client and ensuring they are happy with the end result.
4. Writing fake qualifications
Always be honest. You do not need to exaggerate your qualifications and your experience. Trying to work on something that is above your level is not the way to go, as the end product will not be satisfactory to the client and you will do more bad than good to your reputation. You do not need to accept work that you do not feel confident about.
5. Not meeting deadlines
Meeting the deadline is important. If you have agreed on a deadline that you both are happy with, you must make sure to deliver the agreed product and the agreed quality within the deadline. Meeting deadlines shows that you are trustworthy and that your clients can trust you.
6. Not caring about customer support
Try to respond to your clients as soon as possible after your receive their query. You must be as responsive and as cooperative as possible. Your client will like this and it will contribute to a much better client experience.
The same when you are contacted by a potential new client. Try to answer as soon as possible when you are contacted. Clients won’t spend a lot of time waiting for you. You must be prompt and responsive.
7. Not having very open and detailed communication
When being asked questions by clients, answer in a very detailed and clear manner. Make sure to be as detailed as possible. It is extremely important to openly communicate with your client. Before you accept the project, ask questions until you and the client are on the same page with the direction of the project.
Establish communication methods before you start the project (email, Skype, GTalk or whatever is preferred). You do not want to waste valuable time trying to chase down the client to have some critical questions answered and in the same way, your client wants to be able to get in touch with you. It helps that the client knows how to reach you.
Clients can help as well
Clients also need to realize that in most cases you do indeed get what you pay for. If you are looking for the cheapest option available when needing help with your blog, you should be prepared to experience problems. If it is just someone you find on one of the job boards or freelance bidding sites, and you get a very good offer, it might not be as good as it seems. If it is too good to be true, it probably is.
Conclusion
There are so many freelancers out there competing for the same work so by not treating your existing clients right you will not be getting many new clients and without enough clients to support your blog consulting business it will be a very unsuccessful venture.
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{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
I have done some freelance blog consulting and wow you are so right! I do error sometimes on selling my services for to little. I am never sure what to charge clients though for helping them. I mean it is what I love doing!
I personally haven't used any consulting whatsoever. I think all you need to know about blogging can be learned from a simple google search. There are plethora of tutorial on the web. But some people do need help because of their reason.
Your article made me wants to do some consulting as well!
I would think that consulting and possible web programming start at $80 per hour. You may think that you'll get more customers at a cheaper rate, but I believe customers that want quality will pay for it. You just have to target the right type of customers. I'm not a consultant or freelancer, just some of my thoughts.
Although I did formally do hardware and sw training for a food weighing company. They charged customers $126 per hour to listen to me for 8 hours a day for 3 days. It was my first job out of univ, so I had little experience but I knew the products. They paid me $18 per hour
. And this was oh… wow 11 years ago!
Thank you for this – especially #1 and #2. My rates for marketing copywriting haven't changed much in the past 4 years. Sites like elance have cheapened the value of the professional freelancer. But you're right, we need to set our prices and stick to them! Eventually, clients will figure out that they get what they pay for. And if they don't figure it out – then it's likely they are not clients that skilled freelancers want on their roster anyway.
Marko,
Way to go man! You're right, knowing how to connect and work with others is huge and if folks want their potential businesses to succeed, they better learn to meet deadlines, more importantly keep communication channels open.
Stumbled/reviewed/tweeted.
-Mig
This reminds me of the old saying, “Those who can't do, teach.” It seems to hold true in the blogging world since many MMO bloggers make so little and few “blog consultants” have real thriving blogs.
I hadn't thought about designers providing blog consulting as a followup service, but that's a good idea. I've designed a few blogs for others, but they sort of took off on their own. I can see where offering a package deal, design with followup, could be a great selling point.
Isn't most of this advice common sense?
You'd think so, but from what I can see it seems it is not. So better not to make too many assumptions and just get it out.
Marko,
As usual, an outstanding commentary on the scene… I have a person who charged big bucks for a whole makeover and simply has not come thru, good rep on the front end, great techno overtones, but a wash out on the road of life.
Special request: Please do take a moment to tell us how you do the next best thing with your cool blog… set up the email notifications… they are so completely cool, have the pic, the copy and great formatting, almost like being there! Thanks,
Thanks Charles. It's all done automatically via feedburner.com. Transfer your feed there and in “Publicize” in the menu you have the “Email Subscriptions” where you setup the RSS via email option. I hope that's what you meant.
Thanks Marko,
I will get over there, but think I have mine already on feedburner and just don't have that excellent HTML looking email format, – appreciate your input!
Chuck
You hit the nail on the head when you identified these people as “inexperienced” buyers.
Inexperienced buyers are between a rock and a hard place in this brave new world. On the one hand, they've been told how easy and “cheap” the whole “blogging” business is – on the other, paying top dollar doesn't always guarantee quality service.
It's indeed surprising how uncommon “common” sense can be!!!
Some people obviously don't care about having repeat business. How you can stop taking correspondence after you receive payment just baffles me. Sure some people might over stay their welcome but there should be some sort of follow up allowed.
It's crazy how simple business is. And it's crazy how many people are convinced they can short cut the hard work and find some “trick”.
Good advice to stay away from elance and job boards … if we were living in India or the Philippines, we could work for so little, too.
Ultimately, consultants need to brand ourselves not as consultants who will wring every penny out but as partners who can be trusted with an aspect of the business that clients are overwhelmed by, either because they're too busy to blog or don't know how, or some combination.
Clients need to know you care about their business just as much as they do.
I've always found that reading up on job boards and any related forums help me find new ideas and ways to approach the market. The other tips were spot on though.
This article is fantastic – it is so true that many of us who freelance our services sell ourselves far too cheaply. As a free lance internet marketing consultant, I have made this mistake many times. However, when I started to look at things from a win-win perspective, I realised that by charging more, I will be more motivated to deliver high quality work to my clients, which in turn keeps them happier and ends up getting me more work as well. That is exactly what I’ve done and the response has been amazing!! I wish I’d read this article before making the mistakes I have but at least I have learned the lessons… I hope
You cannot ask for anything else other than that you are always learning and improving. If you do that everything will work out fine for you.
Great article.
As you say, there are a lot of freelancers out there, but it’s amazing how few provide a worthwhile service. There’s no excuse. It’s not like it’s a hard thing to do. The secret is simply, professionalism.
Do what you say you will. Do it on time. Do it to the best of your ability. And, if possible, do a little more than was expected. Do all of this and you can virtually guarantee repeat business.
The only hard part is getting the job in the first place