How to manage freelance clients - without burning out!
As service providers, creatives and everything in between, the allure of working for yourself is strong.
When we’re tied to our corporate desks working (mostly for The Man), our mid-meeting daydreams are fuelled by cravings for boss-less days working from our laptops on a tropical beach away from every annoyingly-nosey colleague we’ve ever come across.
And so, we take the leap.
We dive headfirst into being a freelancer or business owner or whatever else we want to call ourselves.
We’re suddenly living the life we dreamed of. Working in coffee shops, starting work at midday, taking spontaneous days off to go hiking in the woods.
But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows… We realise we have work to do, clients to manage, bills to pay.
Instead of one soul-draining boss, you feel like you suddenly have 5, 10, 15 of those same demanding bosses.
They might be dream clients with dream businesses who really respect the work you’re doing for them - but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s still work and you’re suddenly feeling like you’re under constant pressure to reply to their messages, answer their calls and be available whenever they need you.
Freelancing is great, don’t get me wrong. But if you’re in that phase where you’re feeling chained to your desk, missing the days where you could just clock off at 5pm and stop thinking or worrying about work - you need to keep reading.
Because we’re about to dive deep into how you can make managing clients the simplest, easiest thing in the world - so that you can claw back your #FreelanceFreedom and start enjoying your work again.
The client onboarding process
Realising that you are now the boss is a gamechanger.
Yes, your clients have expectations of you - they’ve hired you to do work, after all.
But you can also have expectations of them. And you can make the rules!
That doesn’t mean running into client relationships like a bull in a china shop, but it does mean that those first few interactions with a new client have the potential to make your client relationships awesome or sucky. And it’s up to you which you choose.
It’s true what they say about first impressions being important. And although we know we’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, we’re only human.
So here’s how to ensure your onboarding process builds solid foundations for a great client relationship moving forward.
Let’s get one thing clear: Dubsado isn’t a miracle worker.
Make your clients feel special
We all like feeling special, let’s face it. And your clients are no different. They don’t want to feel like another cog in a giant machine - that’s why they chose to work with you, not a massive agency or big-name corporate giant.
They want personal treatment, they want to feel heard and understood and like you’re an integral part of their business, no matter what work you’re doing for them.
So that means it’s up to you to make them feel that way. By creating an onboarding process that’s smooth, enjoyable and maybe even has an unexpected treat for your clients (if you’ve ever received a welcome gift in the post, you’ll know just how exciting it feels!).
Personalising your onboarding process is a really simple way to make clients feel valued, and can be as simple as adding your client’s logo to their contract or making sure automated emails are using their actual first name and not just ‘Dear client’.
Manage their expectations
Make sure your onboarding process is super clear about what clients can expect from you - and what you expect from them. Providing a service to a client is a two-way street so it’s important that you both know where you stand right from the outset.
In your welcome guide, it could be helpful to cover these points:
Your working hours - so that clients don’t try to contact you in the middle of the night or while you’re at your weekly pilates class
How clients can contact you - if you’d prefer to be contacted via email than phone call, make that clear. It’ll help you to maintain a work-life balance where you aren’t at the beck-and-call of clients 24 hours a day!
Where clients can find documents, work product, or anything else they might need - pro tip: if you’re using Dubsado (which you should be…), a client portal is the perfect place to store everything that your clients might need access to!
A timeline of your project - so that deadlines are clear and your clients know exactly what’s happening when
A reminder of what’s included (and not included) in your project - ‘scope creep’ is a pain, but having the scope of your work clearly laid out and available to your clients helps to avoid it
Managing expectations isn’t about being bossy and unfriendly - it’s about clearly communicating to your clients exactly what will happen during your time together, so that they know right from the outset and you can better manage your workload moving forward.
Make things simple
If you’re still manually emailing contracts, manually creating invoice PDFs, manually adding client information into your CRM (or, dare I say it, a spreadsheet?!) - you’re making things difficult for yourself and your clients.
And that’s going to frustrate your clients and make your life way more difficult than it needs to be.
Using something like Dubsado (yes, I know - I’m a broken record. But I LOVE IT and so should you - here’s why) takes all of that manual rubbish out of the process and makes things far easier for your clients too.
In your onboarding process, a client can complete a single form with all their information in - that single form can trigger the creation of a contract (which they can click to sign, by the way - no printer needed), an invoice, a client portal and a whole heap of email communications too. The client has everything they need in a digital, uncomplicated format - and you haven’t lifted a single finger.
(If Dubsado sounds like a life-saver (it is) but you’re already rushed off your feet with client work, I can set everything up for you… Fancy a chat about it?)
Managing multiple clients
So now that your onboarding process is stress-free, simple and sets clear expectations for you and your client, things are fine and dandy, right?!
Well, that’s the plan.
But this is where your work actually begins. Your clients are paying you to do something for them, so now it’s time to do that thing.
Simple enough, right? Because you love what you do and you’re great at it too. But the challenge comes when you realise you’re doing work for multiple different clients at the same time, juggling different priorities and also trying to find time to grow your business too.
So let’s talk about how to do all of that without collapsing in a burnt out mess at the end of every day.
Make the most of technology
If there’s any part of either your client work or your client management that can be made easier with the help of technology, do it.
Use automated recurring invoices so you don’t have to do them manually each month. Use calendar reminders to remind clients (or yourself) of deadlines, calls, or anything that’s coming up. Use a call scheduler to book client calls so you don’t have to email back-and-forth a hundred times.
One of the most game-changing things for many of my clients is having a client portal - somewhere that everything their clients could possibly need is accessible 24/7. So much time can be saved by your client having access to whatever they need, whenever they need it - without having to ask you to resend links or files or remind them of how to book a call.
And yes, I’m about to mention the D-word again - but Dubsado really can help with all of this! It can take a lot of the busy-admin-y-work off your plate so that you can actually focus on what you’re being paid to do.
Prioritise your workload
The combination of a calendar, a to-do list and as much automation as physically possible works wonders for managing multiple clients.
There are hundreds of tips and tricks and bits of advice out there about how to be organised AF and, in my experience, the only guaranteed way of finding a way that works for you is just trial and error.
If you’ve been clear about timelines and expectations during your client onboarding process, you should have a clear idea of your own deadlines for each project - and working back from those deadlines, you can time block your calendar to reserve time for each client’s work.
If you’re a bit fancy like I am, colour-coded calendars are a life saver. Decide a colour for each client, then block out time for each client’s projects - not only will you stay on track with deadlines, you’ll be able to see at a glance how much capacity you have.
And speaking of capacity…
Don’t overload yourself
Knowing your capacity as a freelancer is key. If you don’t know how many projects or clients or ‘things’ you can do at one time, you’ll end up over-booking yourself, over-working and under-delivering.
All of which we don’t want.
Figuring out your capacity can feel a little bit like guesswork to start with. And that’s okay.
What’s important is that you keep monitoring it. It can be so tempting to say yes to every project that comes your way (a girl’s gotta pay bills, right?!) - but if you’re overloading your capacity you’ll be delivering lower quality work and it’ll come back to bite you in the butt eventually…
Decide when you want to work - craving a Friday afternoon off to go paddleboarding? Block that out. Don’t want to start work until 10am so you can have a slow morning routine? Block that out. Figure out exactly how many hours a week you have to work on client work - and don’t forget to leave time for working on your business too!
Once you know how many hours you can dedicate to client work, the only missing piece of the puzzle is how long you need to spend on each client’s project.
And the golden rule here is to always overestimate!
If you’re assigning 3-hours for a project that will take 3-hours, that’s probably not enough… Remember that there are always distractions, unexpected things to deal with, and procrastination to tackle. Make sure you’re leaving more than enough time for a project, rather than chasing your tail all the time!
The secret to stress-free client management
Are you ready for it?
The real secret?
Are you sure?!
Okay, fine. If you haven’t already guessed by now, the secret to onboarding and managing clients in a stress-free, fuss-free, burnout-free way is…
(Come on, do you really not know what I’m about to say?!)
Dubsado & ClickUp
You already know they can change your working life. They can give you your time back, the #FreelanceFreedom you signed up for, your sanity back. And they can make your clients’ experiences of working with you so much better too.
It’s literally a win-win.
And if you add me into the mix to, to setup your tech tools and get them running absolutely perfectly without you feeling mind-boggled at the thought of what a workflow even is, it’s a win-win-win.
We all win.
Because Dubsado & ClickUp are great, you’re great, and together you can help your clients feel great too.
Finally convinced?! Good. Let’s get started!