There are many upsides to being a freelancer.  Aside from being his own boss, a freelancer can perform his tasks when and where he prefers and he ca fix a reasonable rate for his services.  A freelancer can also work on his own pace without worrying about an employer constantly breathing down his neck.  Nevertheless, freelancers typically experience a variety of issues as part of his daily grind. In this article, we seek to expose the freelancer to a variety of nightmares which they may face and to provide with possible solutions for these issues.  These issues are real problems which every freelancer may experience at any point of their career.  

Clients Fail To Pay

Problem

We have heard of many stories from disgruntled freelancers who had negative experiences from their previous clients.  There are companies which can be good payers at first.  However, when the peak season came and after the writer has delivered so many papers, the client suddenly goes off the radar unable to pay up despite constant reminders.  With the number of freelancers who are fighting for work, this issue does not come as a surprise.

Solution

Depending on the nature of service and the amount involved, it is a good idea to secure a signed contract form your client before starting with the service.  If you are dealing with a client within the same country, a signed contract is a best defense against fraud clients. 

Convincing the clients to send payment upfront such as 30% as down payment is also a good idea.  A 30% upfront payment shows that the client is serious with the project.  Whether or not a client pays a down payment depends on the industry where the freelancer and the client belong.

For freelancers who write content and academic papers, we suggest that you find out whom it is who hired you in the first place.  Do you have a contact number or an email address that you can call in case of issues? Have you tried contacting them? If you rely simply on an email address as a way of contacting them, you should be aware of the risks involved in taking projects from them.  If you are provided with a username and password to their website, there is also a potential risk that they may close your account anytime.   This has happened to many freelancers whom we have interviewed. 

Since we also deal with corporate clients who send us dozens of orders per month, we just make arrangements to send them invoices at the end of the month or the quarter.  It is an agreement that we are most comfortable with because it saves both the client and us a lot of time instead of sending invoices everytime an order is placed.  By sending monthly or even quarterly invoices we communicate with our corporate clients that we are a team that is focused on delivering exceptional quality service.  Be warned, however, that this arrangement does not apply to everyone.  In our case, we are confident that our corporate client will not scam us because we have established with them that they need us more than we need them.  Our clients are aware that they need our team to help them if they seek to grow their business.

Demanding and Difficult Clients

Problem

Some of our clients are ESL students in California.  Considering that they are students expecting to get the maximum grades, they can be very demanding and difficult.  Some are very rude and disrespectful.  Some students have absolutely no regard for the freelancer’s time.  The difficult part is that our service belongs to an industry where freelancers are expected to be online whenever the clients need them.   Demanding and difficult clients can therefore cause a writer a lot of stress. 

Solution

In our case, the clients are informed beforehand of our rules.  When they login to our online portal, they are notified that in case there are revisions, they should give us a minimum of at least 1 day to complete it.  We also advise them that we don’t do refunds unless it is completely the writer’s fault or the writer ignored the client’s instructions.  Should the clients continue to be rude and disrespectful to us, the admin simply gives them their money back but we assure the writer that he will still receive his pay for the order provided the cause of the complaint is not a plagiarism issue.  In our dealings with the client, we emphasize that we have the best team of freelancers who are always available for their needs and we provide our service at the cheapest and most affordable price possible.  Should they be disrespectful they can find somebody else to work with.  Good luck with that!

Lawsuit Threats

Problem

New freelances may make the mistake of using available images online for their own blogs/websites.  This is not a good idea considering that these images belong to somebody who owns the copyright to these images.  When a freelancer posts these images to his own blog for commercial use, the owner of these images is entitled to a reasonable compensation.  When freelancers fail to pay for these images, they expose themselves to potential lawsuits.  This happened to us when we were starting and had no knowledge of the potential ramifications of the use of copyright protected images. 

Solution

We suggest that freelancers should avoid using images online which are protected by copyright.  If a freelancer seeks to add content on his blogs/website, he can get images from Pixabay.com or Pexels.com which offer free images for commercial use. The freelancer does not even have to attribute the owner of the image on the website.  Its pretty neat. 

Just like any business, freelancers also experience day to day problems and issues.  They serve as obstacles that the freelancers need to overcome if he seeks to grow his business.  Freelancers who are able to find solutions to these issues are poised to succeed and become rock stars of their business.