Resolution: Find Better Assignments

Resolution: Find Better Assignments

Can’t get clients to raise your pay? Tired of disastrous prose and rush-rush deadlines? Time to work on the client list!

To find better clients, you have to be able to recognize them. Start with an “ideal client profile” and resolve to make 2025 your best year in business—yet.

First, picture your ideal assignment:

  • pays well
  • pays quickly
  • frequent/ recurring work
  • reasonable deadlines
  • interesting topics
  • pleasant, interesting, or even fun topics and people

Write it out. Jot down all the aspects of your ideal assignment. Let your dreams run; don’t hold back. Read this every morning until your have it memorized. This ideal assignment should start rising to the top of your thoughts whenever there is a quiet moment.

Next, understand that you deserve this ideal assignment because of your

  • experience
  • track record
  • ongoing skills training
  • dues paid with less-than-wonderful assignments
  • reciprocation (being a good worker/ contractor back)

Then, start turning down the worst assignments.* Weigh each offer against that ideal your wrote down.

Use that time, instead, to solicit more rewarding work via cold calls, ask other clients for referrals, and look for ways to help people in your circles with advice, connections, or paid work. And when you’ve run through that list, update your skills and do the rest of your checklist for lulls.

Raise your rate to attract better-paying clients and better assignments. Your rate conveys a certain level of professional standard and value related to exclusivity. Clients who pay top dollar may be very demanding, but bargain-basement clients are more likely to be disorganized from the planning right through to the (very late) payment.

Finally, contact your favourite clients and ask them what you might do to serve them better. “What can I do differently for you this year?” Lindsay Van Thoen suggests you might ask, in her Freelancers Union post. “Then pick one thing and add it as a complementary service.” Not only will you have made an existing good client even happier, you’ll remind them of why they like working with you. Take that time to also thank them for being good to work with, and tell them “I’d love more clients like you. Please pass my name along to any you know.”

a hand draws a colourful "mind map" of interlinked circles on the cover of the Marketing Action Plan for Freelancers by Adrienne Montogmerie
For a worksheet to develop a profile of your ideal client and dozens of other tools and stories from successful freelancers, check out the Marketing Action Plan for Freelancers.
bright blue cover of The Chicago Guide for Freelance Editors How to Take Care of Your Business, Your Clients, and Yourself from Start-Up to Sustainability, by Erin Brenner
For more tips on running your freelance editing business, check out Erin Brenner’s guide from the University of Chicago. Available online or through your local bookseller!

We’ve already talked about raising your rates and collecting on those overdue invoices. We’ll talk more about how to “no your way to success” in the coming weeks.

Photo by qimono used under CC0 license. 

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