Communicate effectively with clients to be successful in freelancing

Be it freelancing or any other profession, communication is called the key of success. Effective communication will always help you overcome the misunderstandings and handling the project in a way your client actually wants.

These points will help you keeping and maintaining a good communication:

1.Responsiveness

Be highly responsive while communicating with your clients. Poor communication might make your existing clients to write a negative feedback and potential clients to simply ignore your proposals.

Set a proper response time in your profile and make sure to follow it religiously. Response could be delayed in your off hours, so make your off hours clear in your profile.

2. Availability

Freelancing career becomes harder when you can’t make yourself available on the right time. It is good to sync everything in your smartphone so that you don’t miss anything. Response time decreases when you have everything synced on a mobile device. 10-15 minutes response time is good for potential employers, if you could make it less, even better.

3. Flexibility

Define your time zone and working hours clearly but be open to be available for emergencies. Little flexibility with your schedule will help you create a good reputation with your clients.

Even if you can’t be flexible with something specific, let them know by friendly emails. But avoid making them wait for a long time.

4. Timely updates

When accepting a contract it is good to be pro active in providing updates about the work. These updates don’t have to be frequent but make sure to provide an update every day or every alternate day.

If your client agrees and the project is long term, weekly or twice a week updates should be good.

5. Transparency

If an unplanned exception comes up, be transparent about it. Let your client know. If any issue comes up in your work, tell them honestly. It will create a trust over the time.

Last Modified: Mar 15, 2017