On Freelancing and Clients 6
There’s been a lot of talk recently about clients and freelance work: who clients are, how we sometimes act, how we should act when working with them1, how we shouldn’t care how we act, and general talk. There seems to be a spike in the level of interest in writing about this topic, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to throw my experiences and thoughts on to the heap.
The Clients
Clients are the meat and bones of any freelance business, of course. They can be odd, they can think they’re superior, they can think they know more than you and push you around (but are still, oddly, paying you to do the work they “know more about”), or they can be the best clients you think a person can ever have. I’d venture a guess that 80-90% of all clients people work with are ones that fall into the latter category. The other 10-20% can be bears and make you question why you ever went into the business in the first place.
I feel every person in the freelance business needs to be burned by at least one client in their tenure as a freelancer, just for the learning experience. In my case, it came early. Very early. Before Milk Carton Designs, even2. This particular fellow was bossy, demanding, thought himself better, and didn’t give me enough time to do anything, at all3.
One particular insult of his I think I will always remember: “No wonder all web designers have bad reputations.” This stung, and it still does today; I learned from it, though, and I grew. Today, it serves as a reminder of how far I’ve come and how far I can go. It also serves as a warning to stay away from those who exhibit the same traits and demands, for the betterment of myself and my business.
The Freelancers (including me)
Freelancers can be just as varied as clients. We’re subject to our own personalities, too, coupled with the stresses from work and our personal lives. We can be overloaded and cranky, overworked and stressed out. We’re not faultless. We’re human, too.
Being self-employed as a freelancer is amazingly stressful. There’s no job security, no promised income at the end of the week. One month you could be living comfortably, with some nice, cushy, fat paychecks; the next month, nothing. You’ll have to excuse us from time to time if we seem harried.
Our lives are out there on the internet, one search query away. Most freelancers I know are amazingly transparent on the web, as am I. It doesn’t take much to find out where I live, where I hang out, who I associate with, my thoughts and opinions, or even what I look like. Do I find the need to censor myself for the sake of my business? Not at all. What I say and how I act doesn’t affect my skills as a developer or designer, and I don’t think it should be expected of us to censor ourselves. I, for one, would love to have a glimpse into who somebody is personally, before I hire them.
The Industry
There are three types of people working in this industry: the experienced, the fresh, and the know-nothings. Let me just say this to potential clients to any company: Your 12-year old nephew (in this case, a “know-nothing”) that happens to know a little HTML they picked up from MySpace and will do your site for $10 is not a proper substitute for a professional web designer. Experience, training, and a proven track record should always trump monetary concerns (within reason). You’ll find you’ll get a better product in the end.
With that in mind, this industry is saturated and very competitive. It’s hard to break into, and it’s hard to get your foot into the door. Success is very hard to obtain, but very fruitful once you do.
And when you do find success? Congratulations. You probably deserve it.
Now stop reading this and get back to work.
1 Where “we” is defined as freelance web designers, freelance web developers, and other freelance web professions, but may also refer to anyone who takes on clients for a living as any type of freelancer. ↑
2 What? You think I’m kidding when I say 7 years experience in the field? :) ↑
3 Some of this is to expected. It comes with working for other people; they’re bossy because they’re your boss, I can understand that. However, this fellow took these traits to a new extreme, one I haven’t seen or experienced since. All of this and it was pro bono work. ↑
Venidici 10
It’s been a long time coming, but the day is finally here.
Silky, version 4 of Milk Carton Designs, has been up since August of 2005. At that time, it was certainly a very valid representation of my skills. However, almost a year and a half later, I’m proud to present to you the fresher and newest incarnation of Milk Carton Designs, version 5 (vV), named Venidici. Venidici is so named from a mashup of the Latin phrase “Veni, vidi, vici.” I got the idea to name this new design from, quite simply, the version number. When I saw what version I was on for Milk Carton Designs and realized “v5″ was “vV” using Roman numerals, it almost came instantly to me. Not much of a story, but I like the name. (And people tell me it may be an Italian word— can anyone verify?)
Not long ago, Milk Carton Designs celebrated its 2nd birthday (as one astute observer noticed). Over these past two years, Milk Carton Designs has become very much a part of who I am today. Through the ups and downs of those two years, I always had this. My knowledge, my work. MCD is very much alive to me, and this is my (belated) birthday present to it, a new skin. I’m hoping this fresh look will usher in a rich, new era for Milk Carton Designs, and for me.
As it stands now, there are still some bugs and unfinished aspects of the design. Feel free, however, to contact me about any bugs you may come across. I’ll give you a shiny star for finding ones I didn’t know about— maybe. Feel free to poke around, however. And please also feel free to leave congratulations, criticisms, accusations, hate mail, and any other form of banter in the comments.
Thank you to all who helped me with this new design, including Sissy, Meaghan, Andrew Krespanis, Jim Whimpey, and many many others I’m sure I’m forgetting. Thank you all.
Blogging Survey 5
Hey you. If you blog, in any way, shape, or form, please take Thomas’ blogging survey. Its not for any big important cause, but it’s pretty cool to see the results, so do it!
Random Shapes Member Interview 11
We just did my new member interview over at Random Shapes. Check it out, because, really, I’m a dork.
I’m in Random Shapes! 2
I applied to and got in the premier teen blogging network, Random Shapes. Random Shapes hasn’t been around a long time, but it’s starting to pick up a lot of recognition. The people in the network that I have met so far are awesome, so this should be a cool experience. Check out the site (either click the link above or the Random Shapes logo in my sidebar) and, if you’re the IRC sort, come to #randomshapes on freenode.
New Addition in the Sidebar 0
Added the links section. Some of my favorite blogs are there. Click them, read them, love them. :)
Scoble says bye bye to MS 1
So, apparently the one man who was able to put a semi-decent face on Microsoft has recently left his job. Robert Scoble has left to join Podtech as Vice President of Media Development.
While I don’t agree with some of the man’s opinions (for example, his “anti-marketing design” theory), I appreciated the role he played as an insider. He did what he was hired to do and showed the world the human side of Microsoft, or at least the blogging and geek world. I even read his blog once in a while to get the latest bit about Microsoft, when it struck me to do so and I wasn’t too lazy.
Best of wishes to him at PodTech, I suppose. He’ll still be blogging, I presume, so we’ll see how it goes, and we’ll see if MS pulls someone else up to replace him.
