(And then a 35% tip soon after)
Freelance writing is not a service industry in the traditional sense. Generally, you get paid for the project you do, as happens in a product industry. Less frequently, you get paid hourly for doing the work.
Those details are all worked out and agreed upon before the work starts.
So, if not totally unheard of, tips are unusual. They are not expected or budgeted for. Tips are not built in to the freelance writer’s business model, the way they are in waiting tables or driving for a rideshare company.
So I was surprised when I received a tip of (almost) 25% on a cover letter in my second month of activity on Upwork.
Granted, it was a small dollar amount. As a beginner, I was taking small jobs to build my work record and reputation on Upwork. The original contract was for $21. The $5 tip really represented 23.8% of the original amount. (Yes — my headline was intentionally sensationalistic!)
More important than the amount of the tip was the fact that … I got a tip!
About the same time, on a separate job, I got a 35% tip. ($10 added to a $28 job.)
I am not saying this to brag. Well, a little. But more importantly, I want to share my lessons learned. Because what I did to earn those tips was something every freelancer can and should do, on every job.
These suggestions don’t guarantee a tip, but these habits WILL help lead to a satisfied customer every time. (Well, almost every time.)
Set Clear Expectations
This seems obvious, but there should be structure and intentionality around each section of your communication. There are essential pieces to the process that clients will appreciate, and which will help create a successful experience.
Your first communication after accepting the work should include clarification of any details about the contract. This should happen even if these details were in the proposal or work description.
These details should include
– The client’s own description of what the final product will look like
– Your willingness to communicate throughout the process
– Deadlines / milestones
Once I established communication, I needed specific details that were not in the job description. So I asked them:
Notice also in the second communication that I worked to make the client’s responsibility lighter. They didn’t have to give me the publication’s guidelines, just the name of the publication. I am the freelancer, paid to do the work.
I am successful when I make it as easy as possible on the client.
But part of my job is — paradoxically — to be a little bit hard on the client.
Raise Questions and Concerns
For the press release, I had a host of questions to make sure I got the details right. Sometimes with my resumé and cover letter clients, I use a prepared form to gather that information.
In this case, writing an article about a student who was graduating from college in the summer before her senior year in high school, I just asked.
However, in the case of the cover letter, I felt pulled in different directions and I needed to push back a little bit to make sure the final project was ultimately effective.
The client had shared with me her answers to my questions, and her resume and experiences. Further, she had provided links to a couple of articles about cover letters. The ones that come up when you do a Google search.
They were good sources, and I had read two of them previously. I talk a bit more about this process with “Lois” in a different article, because it turned out that she was also a freelance writer in the social media / copywriting space.
In my experience hiring people, a cover letter was an important indicator of the character and skill set of the employee. I felt that she should emphasize really fascinating aspects of her personality and experiences, and so I told her this.
Ultimately, I lost this battle. This is okay, because she was the client, and I was the freelancer. Later we got to a place where she loved the final product.
Hence the 23.8% tip!
I didn’t get that tip for merely meeting her expectations. I got it for adding value. By pushing back appropriately, we both were confident in the quality of the final project.
A freelancer should neither be milquetoast nor maneater. A freelancer should be a partner in the creation of products that are important to the client or add value to their work.
Similarly, I was careful in how I communicated information about one vaping / marijuana client who wanted me to say their product was “safer.”
Communicate!
In looking back, I see that I exchanged 42 messages with Lois about her cover letter.
It was just about half that with the newspaper article.
I have dozens of other clients, some of whom have hired me for four or more separate projects. In none of those cases have I exchanged even six messages.
Sometimes the simplicity of communication happens because the client has a straightforward expectation for editing or writing a final product. Their instructions are clear, the corrections needed are few, and the product deadline arrives quickly.
Other times, the only barrier to sufficient communication is in the mind of the freelancer.
You must decide that you want to get the final product right, and your questions must be comprehensive, or even challenging. You must be present to give and receive feedback on the client’s schedule.
It’s the nature of the freelancing online world that your time zone is not really significant.
One recent client was building their site in Israel (I am from Cincinnati, OH, USA). However, when I noted some issues with their English on the website, I learned that this was indeed a worldwide effort.
I was offering to be of help. Which, by the way, got me an additional contract to proofread the site.
Anyway, the owners were fluent in English, but the site designers were not … and it turns out they were from The Ukraine.
Frequent communication develops familiarity and great final projects. Importantly, it can also lead to future work.
Summarize
The final communication I provide in every job accompanies the deliverable.
Here, I try to accomplish the following:
– Let the client know I am done
– Explain clearly what I did
– Explain what I did NOT do, when applicable
– Ask for feedback about the work
– Request positive feedback for my Upwork evaluation
– Suggest related work I could do in the future
It seems self-evident that the work is complete, but many clients are managing multiple projects. Exchanging a file does not necessarily mean that the project is complete. Stating directly that the work is complete helps the client understand their next step.
Explaining clearly what I did means repeating, almost verbatim, the expectations.
As an English teacher, I taught my students this structure for informative speaking:
1. Tell them what you are going to tell them
2. Tell them
3. Tell them what you told them
You are trying to demonstrate your skill to your client. This client only knows you from a series of short text messages on the Upwork app. By explaining how you met the expectations you help them see it clearly, and reduce the need for follow-up communication.
It’s also important to clarify what you did NOT do. This serves two important purposes.
– It suggests work they could hire you for in the future
– It lets them know their own next steps
In this case, they were developing a website that had not yet gone public. Normally I would provide affiliate and internal links when writing a blog post. In this case, those internal link addresses were not available. I left bread crumbs to help them find their way home.
Finally, I prompt for positive feedback and future work.
Busy clients sometimes overlook the importance of individual ratings.
Busy clients are also likely to get their next freelancer the same way they got you — by posting a job on Upwork. Reminding them that you can do some of that related work saves them a step.
In my case, it gets me additional work about once in every 10–12 jobs. A simple sentence can lead to a long-term freelancer / client relationship, predictable work, and steady income.
Will freelance for cash
Ultimately, your success as a freelancer will not depend on your tips. They are unreliable as a source of income. Job structures that depend on tipping result in a cheapening of labor and, often, maltreatment of service workers.
However, good communication can help make your freelancing career flourish. And a tip can be an unexpected, pleasant surprise in an otherwise challenging and impersonal gig.
By Jack Jose on .
Exported from Medium on March 25, 2021.