How to Negotiate Freelance Project Bids Via Instant Messengers

Often when you have a career in home based jobs you will find yourself dealing directly with your clients. This can help to boost or add increasing harm to your reputation as a writer depending on your skills in dealing with social situations. Even if your conversations with a client is limited to instant messenger conversations, you will still need to retain a basic idea of applying reasonable social skills to any communications with your clients.

~Don’t interruptrn~Pay attentionrn~Repeat back instructions or requirements the way you understood themrn~Ask questions about confusing issues or instructionsrn~Ask for your client to also send you a list of instructions, keywords and other important project information to your email after your conversation is done

Executing the last tip on that list provides you with a supporting document to refer back to when working on the project as well as providing your client with a sense of security that you are taking their project seriously.

Know Your Worth

You may have past clients who contact you on your instant messenger and ask you to do a freelance writing assignment for them at what your rates may have been six months ago. For some freelancers this is one of the most difficult issues to deal with properly. An ethical freelancer will feel somewhat obligated to help out an old client who may have been their bread and butter months ago, but who do not have the budget to afford your current writing or living rates. Try to learn to replace any sense of loyalty you have with good business sense and you will begin to see one of the best things a freelancer can see, return customers who are willing to up their rates to have YOU as their reliable employee.

There is no fault in having good business sense. However, what is the best way to communicate that without sounding cocky or lofty? What is the best way to turn a lower paying customer into one who will pay the extra amount to have your skills and knowledge at their disposal?

A Real Freelance Writing Project Instant Messenger Negotiation

Although the clients name has been changed to protect their identity this is an actual negotiation as described above. I have also removed any specific info to this project to protect the clients interest. This conversation should show any freelance worker some effective negotiation skills on a freelance writing assignment project.
Client: Hey Joyr
Joy: hellor
Client: remind me how much you charge again for simple 500 word articles?
Joy: between 1.00 and 1.25 per 100 words depending on the difficulty of the topic or its requirements

You will not always get the chance to clarify right away in a conversation what your rates are. And even if you do, as in this conversation, you may have to revise that once full instructions are given. So it is a better idea to let the client know right away that your rates may differ from the original quote if requirements or instructions are incredibly lengthy.

Client: surer
Client: so for each keyword I provide I will need a packet mader
Client: a packet will consist ofr
Client: a 500 word piece for the actual websiter
Client: a 500 word article for the directoriesr
Client: and 10—-150 word blog posts with the keyword once in the title and once in the bodyr
Joy: okayr
Joy: now by blog post you mean short postings, not comments correct?

Clarifying anything that is questionable not only gives you the information you will need to proceed, but it gives the client confidence that you are absorbing their instructions and giving focus to their project. After the client provides me with a lengthy explanation and is wrapping up he asks if I am sure on all aspects.

Client: does that make sense?
Joy: it does but i think it will make more sense when i have all of the info, etcr
Joy: if there is something you have to provide me with to fully understand it would help to see it

If a client tries to explain things to you in relation to things they will send to you in the future, you may need to make it clear to them that you cannot adequately judge a project without all of the pertinent information.

Joy: great thanksr
Client: ok sentr
Client: read that over, I’ll be herer
Client: and we’ll sort it outr
Client: so—let’s talk price per packetr
Joy: ok

Don’t let this bother you personally. Although it has been made clear by now the pricing I would accept, it is still the clients job to try to negotiate. You have to ultimately be the one to either take control of the situation and decide if it is more time consuming then it is worth and let the client know, or you have to be patient, ride out the to and fro of any basic business deal, and await the response. From experience, taking the latter route is likely to have better results, happier clients and satisfaction for you at having your freelance project bid met to your specifications. Be calm and repeat your earlier assertions without sounding frustrated or annoyed.

Client: what are you thinkingr
Joy: well you had given me the word count and i usually always charge by word count, its the fairest way I’ve found for yearsr
Client: surer
Client: so can we do anything about a bulk discount since I will be giving you a ton of these to dor
Joy: Regardless it would be really hard for me to write for less then 1 dollar for 100 words.
Joy: My usual rates for the requirements would likely be around 1.25, so doing it at 1.00 per 100 is about the lowest I can do. I have done and will do discounts over 100 articles, but until then that would have to be the regular rater
Joy: it looks like one packet would be 2500 words total, so that’s 25 dollarsr
Client: ok and you can’t come down at all on those since they are all on the same topic?
Joy: not so much about topic for me as it is that other work i could do would pay at least that price, to do it for less would be a pretty ignorant business move on my part, but i also understand needing affordable outsourcing, so the choice has to be yours on this oner
Client: OK it’s not a problemr
Client: we could do the 25

Session Close (Client): Sun Nov 14 17:59:24 2010 -0500

Try to remember you do not have to sound off like a cranky miser when asserting that you do not work for a certain rate. Coming off as cocky or overly confident can be detrimental not only to the clients perception of you, but very depressive of your ability to open up and learn the new knowledge and skills constantly and consistently in the ever changing world of freelancer jobs.