How Often Do You Tell Your Freelance Writing Clients They’re Wrong?

By Dan Smith

I’m going to generalize here. I know this won’t apply to every freelance writer, but from my experience, it applies to most.

When you first start out as a freelance writer, you try and do your utmost to please your clients and not annoy them in anyway.

Sure, this is something that you should be trying to do right throughout your career, but when you’re first starting out, you’re trying to keep your clients smiling constantly.

Usually, this means bending over backwards and jumping through hoops.

If they want a revision, you make it.

If they want a complete rewrite, you do it.

If they don’t contact you for a while, you don’t question it.

Simply put, you do whatever they want.

Naturally, this mentality stays with you to a certain degree as you develop as a freelance writer and although I’m now more forward if I don’t hear from a client when I’m due payment, for example, up until recently I very rarely questioned their comments.

Over the past few months, however, this mentality of ‘the customer always being right’ has slipped somewhat — but in a positive way.

It might have taken a while to get to this point, but I realised that I’m the one in the position of authority when it comes to the pieces I produce and although clients are more than welcome to provide comments on any writing I produce — and I’ll happily make amendments — the truth is that just because they have a comment or have made a point, it doesn’t necessarily make it a valid one.

And for most clients, they appreciate a proper response that doesn’t just say “points taken on board, revisions made”.

The perfect example of this happened in early October. The agency I’m working with took on a new technology client and I submitted the first piece for approval.

I’d done my research, knew the style that the piece needed to be written in and made a few revisions before I sent it over for approval.

I got a reply the next day from the client saying that although they appreciated the work, they didn’t find it particularly suitable for x, y and z reasons and had attached an example of what they thought the piece should be like.

A few months ago, I’d have basically rolled over, agreed to rewrite the piece as they wanted and then sent it back over for approval.

This time, however, I decided to respond in a different way. I knew that the piece I’d produced was of a good quality (OK, it may have needed a few adjustments due to a client’s knowledge and experience of their products and services, but nothing major) and the piece they’d sent over as an example was littered with mistakes — not in terms of spelling or grammar, but in terms of it being unsuitable for the client’s audience.

So I told them this.

I explained that I appreciated they’d taken the time to read through my piece, make comments that were useful and could be used for improvement and had also taken the time to produce an example of what they believed the piece would look like.

I went on to give an explanation of why the initial piece had been created in the way it had and why the piece they’d sent over wouldn’t have had the desired effect.

And their response?

They were extremely thankful that I’d offered my advice and input as I was the writer and they were the client looking for direction.

We found a middle ground, revised the initial piece and were then ready to publish.

When you’re a new freelance writer, it’s difficult to do anything that you think might jeopardize your relationship with a client.

However, it’s imperative to keep in mind that you are providing services to them. They’re likely to want to make a few changes here and there, but you have to be willing to stand your ground and provide reasons why you’ve done certain things — and as long as you can give reasons that are tangible and backed up with proof or evidence, there’s no reason why the client should be anything other than happy.

Image: Jonathan D. Blundell