Anyone in freelance knows how odd things have been the last year. We don’t complain too much because we know how much tougher it is on lots of people. Even though we continue to make a living, it seems like the rules have changed radically and it’s hard to trust your instincts when the strategies you’ve used in the past seem to have stop working. It’s a real discipline to ‘keep positive’ and not ‘take it personally’ when leads disappear or the phone stops ringing.
Instead I’ve tried to create new models that can help me ‘understand’ how the world looks to prospective clients, so I can better match their needs and predict their behavior. I also try to keep my sanity by comparing notes with others including some of the most important people in my life. One, a female, has been struggling a little worse because in lieu of a new full-time job, she’s made the decision to re-establish herself as an independent consultant, and that means starting again, from the beginning. We have had dozens of conversations about what’s wrong with he marketplace these days. We’ve discovered a disturbing trend, here are the symptoms:
The dead lead – They contact you eager to hear prices and availability; sometimes they even sound desperate to hear back from you. You respond with a couple of questions to clarify the task. You never get response. They do not respond to emails or phone messages.
The disappearing client – this symptom reminds me of a performance I saw by an avantgarde dance company. At several points in the production, a woman would leap into a partners arms. He would hold her for a second and then say in a deadpan voice “I’ll be right back” and drop her like a bag of laundry. Thud.
So there’s this Connecticut theater that was excited about me coming and doing a show in the fall; I was going to rent the house and they would help me fill it. After the face-to-face, I emailed them to confirm the details of the agreement, so I could generate a contract. I got back a one line email that said, “We’ll be in touch in a couple of days.” That was 12 days ago…thud.
The one-sided love affair – I have a client ( a vacation resort in Mexico) that in the past has hired me a handful of times a year. Recently they got a new booking manager, who had been the assistant manager up to then. I decided it made sense to ‘woo’ her a bit, so starting in January I sent a number of gifts, some of them pretty darn extravagant. I didn’t expect a quid pro quo, but the odd thing is I have never even received a simple “Hey thanks for the gift!”. Again, she’s unresponsive to phone calls and friendly emails.
So what’s going on here? Well I think there are a couple of factors:
1. People are generally overloaded these days. If people had time before to respond, to formally reject offers, to let vendors know they’ve canceled projects, they simply don’t have time now. Everyday another project gets dumped on their desk, so they never get back to closing out things that are no longer urgent.
2. People are being asked to come up with ‘close to free’ solutions – a friend has experienced the following more than once: She goes to meet a prospective client, but instead of being handed an assignment, all they want her to do is tell them ‘what she WOULD do’ if they hired her. How would you fix this? Who would you call? This is exactly the kind of expertise she is offering, as a consultant. Basically people are working on projects up to the point where they are completely LOST and then reaching out to experts to ‘finish the job’. And they want it done for almost nothing because they’ve done most of the work. Compare this to calling a plumber to fix a sink after you’ve been working on it for 2 days (and possibly screwing it up worse). Does he give you a discount, because you’ve started the job? Not likely.
You can tell you are in one of these situations when you hear phrases like ‘we just have a couple of questions’ or ‘this should only take a couple of minutes of your life’ or ‘can you stop by, when you’re in the neighborhood’. Hey folks, when you’re unemployed, you’re never in the neighborhood, unless that neighborhood is your kitchen!
3. People are being asked to ‘get numbers’ for smaller and smaller projects – In the past, big projects were fully researched, but lots of projects were simply marked as ‘get it done.’ People didn’t call unless they already had the go-ahead to make something happen. Now it seems like people are being asked to research the cost and time-line for projects of all sizes. They are expected to ‘report back’ to a higher up or committee for each step of a project.
Years ago I formulated a life rule: Don’t take a ‘No’ from anyone who can’t give you a ‘Yes’. This is why: You end up having conversations without moving any closer to getting the gig.
3. People are being asked to do jobs they’ve never done before, without much guidance. As staffs get smaller, people are being handed assignments they just have no clue how to do. In response they are reaching out for help, but don’t really know how things work.
Twice in the last 2 weeks I have been contacted by high-profile universities, through my website. They ask about dates and tech needs – I respond by asking questions that can help me determine a price. They respond by changing dates or asking about customization. I respond to their immediate needs and again try to determine the basics of the event. After 5 to 10 emails they finally decide on a date and then announce that they only have a couple of hundred dollars. Ugh! After the second time, I realized I must be missing something, so I did a little research and found out that the person I was dealing with was a college freshman! Where are the RA’s or RD’s in this process? In the past this would have been someone’s job. But now it falls to the kids themselves to arrange these kinds of things.
So what can we do in response to these difficult times?
Be the professional – When working with people who don’t seem to understand how to act professionally, be the model. They may not learn anything, but at least you can continue to feel good about how you conduct yourself. Most of these practices were developed because they work and make people WANT to work with you in the future.
Systematize encounters with prospects – In the recent past if someone contacted me about a date or project, it was because they were pretty serious about seeing happen. Now contact is so easy, we can’t assume it means anything. The best you can do is develop a system for answering questions without getting emotionally involved. I try to imagine I’m working at a florist shop – someone calls to check the price of red roses, I tell them, hang up and go on with my day. I don’t take it personally if they decide to buy candy instead.
Now I am not suggesting being curt with phone or email inquiries, just unemotional and probably more professional. I really do want people to have a positive experience with me, whether or not now is a time they decide to use me. If that takes extra discipline on my end, then that’s just something I’ll have to learn.
So there it is my first rant on how tough it is ‘out there’. The good news is: it already seems to be changing. One friend was complaining about 2 disappearing clients, but in one week they both resurfaced and now she may end up juggling the two assignments. But we won’t complain…
Tags: clients, customers, leads, negotiating, new rules, post-recession
