My first client experience as a freelancer and lessons for beginners

Hello guys. This week we are going to get a bit technical because I realised my previous two posts were more personal.

I posted a picture on my Facebook page with the following caption I shared the same on my Instagram story too. This whole blog idea originated even before posting that. Here is the post for reference:

Dear Clients

•Freelancers are not your employees. They are offering you a service that you need or lack. Treat them properly.

•Their time is valuable, as much as yours is. Don't go around figuring out the same 'product/service' after weeks.

•Pay them properly in one go. Do not ship your payments in patches. This is not charity. And don't make them ask again and again for their money.

• Let them know how their product will be used.

• Give them multiple contact points for help.

• If they don't understand what you want, be kind and honest enough to explain again.

♪

I started freelancing officially only during the lockdown as I had some time to spare before I would need to work on my thesis and final year of my masters. I was enjoying my time in Coursera, Netflix and even YouTube but I needed to do something more productive. I decided to hence, freelance.

Since I was just a beginner, I didn't act choosy. I took whatever opportunity I got and tried to utilize it.

In such a hunt through the Facebook applications, I got to meet a referral point who claimed to be from a certain company. Why am I saying 'claimed'? That is the story.

The first mistake: I didn't research the company. Nor I tried to know about them or question the person in contact. The second mistake: I only had one person as my contact. I wasn't given any other means to contact the company. Neither was I explained about the company or what they do and how they do it.

My job initially was to create 240 number of articles with 500 words in a blog style. So, I did. And, I was supposed to be paid around Rs. 100 for 500 words. I started on Aug 9, 2020.

Another imp condition the person mentioned as part of the claim:

~ Payment threshold is INR 5,000/-. Deposits will be made 2-3 weeks after plagiarism check will be deposited directly to your Bank Account in YOUR NAME only. For international payments, we can deposit using PayPal or bank wire transfer.

The first warning sign: After starting this particular set of articles, the project was changed suddenly to 1500 to 2000 number of words. I was to create 83 number of these articles. Condition that accompanied was " All the articles should be written for 1500 - 2000 words each [attached here] and must be sent 100 article in ONE SINGLE EMAIL. Payment threshold is INR 10,000/-. Deposits will be made 3-4 weeks after plagiarism check will be deposited directly to your Bank Account in YOUR NAME only. For international payments, we can deposit using PayPal or bank wire transfer." Notice that condition was changed here.

An Advice from the expert.

Though I was allowed 60 days to complete these topics, it was not easy. Because it was about skincare and I couldn't get many topics very easily as reference on google and even if they were available, it was very little input to write that many words. So, this meant I had to work for 3 to 5 hours sometimes on one article for which I was to be paid only INR 400.

The third mistake: I still continued thinking this might be the fault of the client who was referring to the company.

Second warning: My referral point, let us call him that, changed his number, and went missing from WhatsApp. Though I'll be true and tell you that he did give me the new number and from there, all messages were exchanged only via texts. Normal 90's text.

Another mistake to add: Even after this, I continued. And I delivered almost 70 articles, via mail by the end of Aug itself, and started working on the new project for 2000 words. This continued till I completed 15 of those as well until, one of friend made me realised the company had none of the referral points contact in their site.

As disturbing as it was, it wasn't the only fact. The guy kept postponing my payment. First, (third warning), he began by asking for my PAN card, even though I didn't even need one for official payments because technically this was not a huge amount and I was just a student, But anyway let us say he was being genuine and so, I got that.

After that began the actual lying and he didn't pay me up until Oct 18, 2020. He released that payment because I was not providing the new articles even though I wrote them till September. After which, I completely stopped, assuming 90% that he was a fraud and I gave up thinking about those 7k as well. However, my friends and my sister helped me call him again and again to ask for the required payment.

He refused to take those new articles in separate parts (even though he did earlier and mentioned in one of our emails that I can send in parts of 10) and for what I deserved around 20,000, I got 7000. I refused to do more because I didn't want that cunningness to win and there was no way to be sure he won't go missing after I submit all the articles in one go. 83 articles, each of 2000 around words with almost NIL plagiarism, worth INR 33000/-, how could I trust someone who fooled me for 2 months for a mere 7k. I began earning to help my family and myself with the extra costs that was happening at that particular time. This type of delays from clients are not at all acceptable if they want a quality product and timely delivery of the same.

OK, so I let that guy cancel my next order and do whatever he wanted then on. I blocked his number, however I have his number saved. And I also went onto Facebook to report the advertisement or position asking for a content writer.

Let me know if you guys think I should release the company name or not, in the comments down below. Though it is my policy to not release any kind of names on my page or blog, if someone thinks it'll help someone, I surely will.

And if you are someone who hires freelancer, please don't do these type of things that hampers the trust and makes us question your genuineness.

Now that I am done with my crying, let us now look at what I have learnt through this:

Never underestimate your potential.

Never accept ridiculously small amounts that do not match your quality of product.

Do not get yourself played by not knowing about who you are dealing with. Research.

If you put yourself down, they will too. Of course, this logic applies to every part of life, even financial and professional.

DO NOT BE AFRAID TO ASK FOR YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY. IT MIGHT BE WEIRD AND EMBARASSING FOR YOU. However, IF YOU DO NOT ASK IN THIS WORLD, YOU MIGHT NOT GET IT. LEARN to speak for yourself and your needs.

I once attended a class by Saheli Chatterjee who we know mostly as Helly from YouTube, she definitely is a person to look up to for these kinds of advice and experience. Though currently, I am unable to invest as a freelancer, I did take her half idea of searching in Facebook earlier as well, but I was not much awake.

That is it for this blog guys, hope you all learn from my mistake and lesson. And, do not lose hope as a freelancer just because of a few bad clients. Might be that they are plenty but let us look for the real and good ones as well. On this similar note, if you enjoy my writing or you have some tasks that needs assistance, I can help you. I can do so in creative writing for your blog, your captions, on articles about skincare, makeup, and even my department, pharmacy. You can hire me as a freelancer for an affordable amount.

Thank you

Lunatica

#bekind

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