This month’s challenge takes some work. But once you’ve done it, your daily freelancing life will be much easier.

The Savvy Freelancer’s challenge this month is:

Make templates for all your communication

Why You Need Templates

Templates  will simplify your life as a freelancer. Every day, you communicate with prospects, replying to inquiries about your services, fees and availability.

You also constantly pitch your services, submit proposals and quotations, acknowledge payments, or request more information from your clients and prospects.

If you look at every piece of communication you send out, you will see that they’re all very similar. And you probably only change the particulars.

Having templates for your regular communications will help you to:

• prepare your communication pieces more quickly
• remember to include all the essential elements in your communication materials
• have a consistent tone and personality in all your communication

What Templates

Make a list of all the emails, faxes and other communication materials you use every day. Your list will probably look like this:

1. Response to request for sample work
2. Proposal for a specific project
3. Response to inquiry about my fees
4. Terms of agreement
5. Acknowledging client’s acceptance of my proposal
6. Invoice for deposit
7. Invoice for services rendered
8. Receipt for payment
9. Emails to keep in touch or make special offers

Feel free to add to the list above, or remove those you don’t use.

Even if you use software to create invoices and receipts, it’s still a good idea to make a template for what your invoices and receipts will contain.

Tools for Templates

The tools you use will depend on your specific circumstances. For example, I use Apple Pages, a word processing software, for my project proposal template.

For templates that will go into emails, I use a text editor so that I won’t import any formatting codes into my email program.

Create a folder in your hard drive just for your templates, so you can find them easily.

Use the tools you already have and that work best for you!

Do Share

Do you already use templates for your client communication? What advice do you have for other freelancers who are just starting out with their own templates?

photo credit: plugimi

This is Day 18 of 31 Days to Start a Freelancing Business (or Make Yours a Better One). If you want to catch up, click here to read Day 1.

Yesterday, you finished writing the seven essential pages for your freelance website. Today, you’re going to create templates that will help you systematize communicating with your clients.

In the beginning, you may have all the time in the world to craft each piece of communication with prospective and current clients from scratch. But believe me, the time will come when you’ll be grateful you did this task when you had time to do it.

What Templates Do You Need?

You’re going to be creating templates for communicating with your clients. These templates should include:

• project proposal/bid/quotation
• terms of agreement or a contract
• submission of completed project
• invoice
• receipt
• request for feedback

Tools to Use

You can use any word processing software for these templates. If you don’t want to buy word processing software, OpenOffice.org provides open-source (read: free) software for word processing, spreadsheet, and even presentation.

When I was starting out, I used Google Docs. Eventually, I moved on to Pages, which is bundled with Apple iWork. When I started making money consistently, I invested in an online accounting service called LessAccounting.

I like Less Accounting rather than more popular services for freelancers, because Less Accounting lets me create proposals, turn these into invoices, track payments, record expenses and churn out reports for my accountant come tax time. I’ll be talking about invoicing and accounting in more detail in a future post.

Your templates don’t need to be fancy in terms of the layout. Use your business name and logo, if you have one. Otherwise, your name will suffice.

Basic Principles of Client Communication

When you prepare your templates, keep these basic communication principles in mind:

• Be professional. You don’t need to be stiff and formal, but don’t use colloquial terms, either. Even if your prospect is a friend or acquaintance, make it clear in your communication that this is a commercial transaction.
• Be extremely detailed, specific and clear. You can avoid a lot of miscommunication by making sure that expectations are clearly spelled out. By this I mean, what the client can expect from you (such as outputs and deadlines), as well as what you expect from your client (for instance, prompt replies to your queries and timely payment).
• Be positive. Always be gracious in your communication. It never hurts to say “thank you” – all the time. Even when you’re demanding something from you client, you can state it in a positive way. One way to do this is to always state things in terms of how your client will benefit from fulfilling your request. For instance, “I need your response by tomorrow so I can submit the first draft on Tuesday.”
• Double-check and then check again for accuracy. Before sending out anything to your client, read and re-read and then read the piece again. Make sure everything is accurate: the client’s name, company name, contact details, project details, deadlines, rates and other details.

Take the half-hour or so today to create your templates. You’ll be glad you have them when you’re receiving so many inquiries that you can barely cope

What did you think of today’s task? Let us know by posting a comment below.

Lexi

photo credit: net_efekt

I can still remember the very first time somebody hired me to write for them on a freelance basis. A thought flitted through my mind: “Who is this person and how do I know she will pay me?”

I was being hired to write web articles and would be paid per article. So I wrote just a few articles initially – as a way of “testing” my client.

Boy, was I ever so pleasantly surprised when my client paid me within minutes of receiving my Paypal invoice.

I’ve never really been stiffed by a client. The worst experience I’ve ever had was when a client sent me a Paypal e-check that didn’t clear. I had to wait a few days but the payment eventually came through.

Nevertheless, I do take steps to protect myself. With new clients, I ask for a 50% down payment before I begin work. And then I invoice for subsequent payments as I complete a specific stage of the project.

But since I haven’t been taking on new clients, I simply bill my current clients at the end of each month.

How about you? Have you ever been stiffed by a client? What did you do? And what do you do to protect yourself?

Do share by posting a comment below. Thank you!

photo credit: walknboston