Been working with this guy for 6 months, always pays on the 30th. He sent the money on the 28th with a note saying he appreciated my quick turnarounds. Now I'm wondering if I should bump my rate for him or risk scaring him off.
I was meeting a potential client at a coffee shop in Austin last week and brought my toddler because the sitter cancelled last minute. The client spent the whole time making faces at my kid instead of talking numbers, and when I brought up my rate of $75 an hour he just nodded and said "sure." Has anyone else had a weird distraction totally throw off a rate discussion?
I keep seeing freelancers in here brag about a yearly 10% hike like it's some golden rule. Last year I tried that with my main retainer client in Portland and almost lost them because they felt nickel and dimed. Why does everyone assume a flat percentage works for every client situation instead of just negotiating based on the actual value you delivered?
I used to use all these fancy display fonts for headlines, thought it made me look creative. Last year a client literally said 'your reports look like a birthday card' and I switched to just Arial and Open Sans for everything. Has anyone else had a client's random comment totally change your whole design approach?
I had a project last March where I charged hourly, but the client kept asking for more changes. I ended up working 10 extra hours for free because I felt bad tracking every tiny revision. Next gig I switched to a flat rate of $500 for a 3-page website, and it went way smoother. I finished in 8 hours instead of 15, so I made more per hour. The trick was listing exactly what they got upfront with no surprises. Has anyone else seen better results with one method over the other?