Developing Your First Client Crush
We’ve all been there. Some crushes crumb like fall’s leaves, while other crushes ring with wedding bells. No one wants a one-sided crush, those marked by longing and heartache. Your heart wants a path for its passion, not a roadblock. When’s the last time you developed a crush? We aren’t talking about a textbook crush, or even a bromance. This is the crush freelancers fret over, the client crush that keeps the blood flowing in content writers.
Crushing on a Client
Let’s get one thing out of the way. This post is in no way condoning or advertising client stalking or any sort of infatuation. If you are one of those crazies, you won’t get harmful advice here. The healthy way to crush on a client follows these three steps:
- Find the perfect client that is compatible with your writing style, your desired pay level, your writing interest or niche, and the workload aka hours at the keyboard you are interested in putting into a project.
- Find ways to keep them satisfied with your work so they continue to come back for more and develop a professional relationship with you.
- Find ways to keep them interested in your content throughout the blog posts, articles, white papers, brochures and social media posts you create for them.
Pumpkin, when you have found a client that fits your writing schedule, digs your writing voice, and allows you to flourish in terms of your interests, you will want to put a ring on it. That is the dream client, one that all freelancers drool over. Other crispy tidbits from clients worth more than giblet gravy on gobble day include:
- A client who is open to communication, easy to interact with, and capable of sharing their ideas and instructions in a cornucopia of ways, such as via email, conference call, recorded voice memo or in typed out documents.
- A client who is respective of you as a freelancer, and who understands the type of environment and wild working hours you have thanks to your ability to write on the fly.
- A client who respects you as a writer and agrees that your capabilities with constructing content are a step above thanks to your dedication to the craft of writing and passion for the word.
- A client who will accept your content and pay you without giving you grief.
Satisfaction Guaranteed
If you are bending over backwards to help your client see the light at the end of your content, only to find that time after time they are unsatisfied, this is the type of crush you want to get over. In the world of freelance writing it’s easy to be the welcome mat for clients, no matter how great the pay and the experiences you are gaining. If you find yourself in a situation where all signs point to “Go” but the client is never satisfied, stop it right now.
The goal of any crush, those romantic or professional, is to move toward a healthy relationship. If you have found the perfect client, do your part to go above and beyond the call of content. If the client gets hooked and is equally smitten by your writing and freelancing skills, then the two of you have a perfect formula for a long term relationship.
Miranda B falls in love with autumn year after year, hoping her crush for the season will make it forever fall. Until then, she commits to finding crush-worthy clients and developing four-season relationships.
