21.04.10  Guest columnist: Tiffany Markman   |   The Stable Door - Part 2 'The client-contractor relationship - when's enough enough?'  |  This month Tiffany looks at the client-contractor relationship; in other words, what’s expected, what’s unreasonable and how to go the extra 15 miles without killing yourself, or snapping and chopping the client into teensy weensy little pieces.

This article is motivated almost entirely by a series of tweets that I regularly write, entitled ‘Hi Tiffany’. They consist of my paraphrasing bizarre, unbelievable or jaw-dropping client requests and enquiries into 140 characters, like this:

• 'Hi Tiffany. I know it's 5am - sorry - but I want you to have this info asap. I've mailed you. Won't you check that you got it?'

Don’t laugh. It’s real. I got it, via sms and voicemail, at 5am on a Monday morning. This is what some clients do. And feel well within their rights to do. Luckily, they’re the minority. Disclaimer: 95% of my clients are totally fantastic.

So I’ve chosen a selection of ‘Hi Tiffany’ tweets below, and I’m going to use each to illustrate a specific boundary of the client-contractor relationship, and where it begins and ends. Or, more accurately, should begin and end. Here goes.

• 'Hi Tiffany. Pls come to our office in Nowherefontein; I want to show you what we do. What's the project? Come through for a full day; you'll see.'

Issue: The cost of that first client meeting

As a rule, I don’t charge clients for the first consult where, hopefully, I’ll get the brief I need to quote on the job in question. If I get the work, fantastic. So far, it’s cost me an hour of my time. If I don’t, oh well. Next!

But in some cases, clients want a lot of your time at a first meeting. Or a far-out site visit. Or a set of interviews. Or a detailed consult. And suddenly, there’s more than an hour involved. Then, I do charge for it.

If you’re approached to set up an appointment with a new client, do whatever you can to get an accurate sense of how long they expect you to be there, and what the meeting is about. Even if it’s just a ‘shake-hands-and-show-you-round’ thing, that’s cool – it’s a first step into their world.

But you do need to know what’s involved and what they expect of you.

And don’t be shy to say, ‘My policy is one free one-hour consult within 30km. To come out to Skilpadvrekvandors for the day I will charge you a nominal consultation fee, which I’ll credit you for if we go ahead.’

• 'Hi Tiffany. We were hoping you'd bring a draft to our meeting today. What d'you mean, 'purchase order'? Can't you just rustle something up?'

Issue: Pressure to forgo your operating procedure

Some clients genuinely don’t understand how things work; i.e. that before you take the risk of working on sample copy, draft designs or layout ideas, you need a guarantee that there’s work (and money) in the pipeline. They’re shocked that things can’t just happen. And be ‘sorted out’ later.

Others are just trying to see how many free meetings, ideas and concepts they can squeeze out of you. But they’re a rarity. Thank goodness.

Either way, make it clear that once you’ve given client that first free consult/meeting, a cost estimate (CE) and some good initial ideas, some kind of commitment is required on both sides. That’s how business works. And once you’ve received a signed CE or PO, you’ll be happy to flesh out your ideas and start to get things going more concretely.

• 'Hi Tiffany. Pls work on this over the weekend, like you did last weekend. You've set a precedent. Anything less is sh&t service.'

Issue: Setting precedents, and getting out of them

This happens to me often, because even though I’m a hard-ass, I’m also passionate about what I see as ‘consummate professionalism’. So a client will delay and delay in sending me what I need to do a job, but still expect delivery by the date I (stupidly) committed to, or by their deadline.

Hence, working over weekends.

I should probably shift the delivery date, in consultation with client, when this happens – but I don’t, because I want to honour my commitment. And because I haven’t ‘missed’ a deadline once in the last six years. The end result? The client gets used to mountain-moving from me, and expects it.

Your solution? Be smarter than me.

When you go far beyond the call of duty for a client, make it clear that this is a once-off and that next time, there may be a surcharge for overnight or weekend work. You’re a freelancer because you want to manage your own time; otherwise, you may as well head back into that smelly stable.

Disclaimer: Sometimes I’ve been wanting to crack a company or agency for ages, and making big exceptions will help me to do that. So I do.

• ‘Hi Tiffany. Can you 'look at' my 400pp thesis and revert with edits by tomorrow morning, pls? It's due the next day.’

Those same clients who don’t understand that there’s a commitment to be made before a job starts to happen often also don’t get how long it takes to do certain jobs properly. They want 400-page edits done overnight; enormous decks of web copy written in one weekend; multimedia scripts produced within hours. And they want the perfection they’re paying for.

But to create work of a certain standard – a standard of which you can be proud – there are minimum amounts of time that must be made available.

I can’t tell you how often I turn down work because I know that I need x many hours to do it well and client can only give me x-10. In these cases, too, the budget often doesn’t warrant the re-shuffling and pressure. (Clients with a poor sense of how long things take tend to think you’ll charge R50 an hour, because, really, their mother-in-law could do it.)

Ultimately, though, it’s up to you.

You’ll develop a sense over time of how long different things take to do, how much you can feasibly shave off that if it’s a) big money, b) cool work or c) a fab client, and the minimum standard of delivery you can live with. But please try to be firm about that crucial minimum standard – your reputation’s on the line, after all. And if the job sucks, it’ll be your fault.

I hate writing conclusions. There’s nothing in them; nothing new anyway. So I’m going to end off unusually, with a little gift in the form of a ‘Hi Tiffany’. This one, for me, represents the kind of cash-strapped narcissism I abhor. And ignore.

• 'Hi Tiffany. I need you to do a job for me tomorrow. By midday. It's urgent. Cancel everything else. My other challenge is my budget.'

(If you’re interested in freelance coaching via a one-on-one online distance-learning programme that has changed the freelance lives of former delegates, drop me a line. There are special rates for Freelancentral members.)

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About the author

Tiffany Markman (www.tiffanymarkman.co.za) is a highly opinionated freelance copywriter, copy editor and writing trainer who has worked for over 180 clients in South Africa and across the world. She is an EMPOWERDEX-certified EME who hates misplaced apostrophes and dangling modifiers but loves pizza and pina coladas, and she can be reached any time on .