As a freelancer, there are several stakeholders you may find yourself communicating with:
- Direct manager/client
- Your client/direct manager’s manager
- Director/C-level
- Accounts
- Subject matter experts
- Peer-level collaborators
Each of these may need different forms of communication. Within those forms of communication, there will likely be nuances as every person is different regardless of their job title.
Types of communication include:
- Real-time one-to-one calls
- Real-time group calls
- Face-to-face meetings
- Instant messaging (like Skype)
- Asynchronous messaging (Like Slack, Microsoft Teams, etc.)
- Asynchronous video (like Loom, Tella, etc.)
- Reports
- Contracts
- Interviews
- Invoices
Frequency of communication includes:
- Instant
- Hourly
- Ad-hoc (as and when; the preferred option for autonomous freelancers)
- Daily
- Weekly
- Twice-weekly
- Every other week
- Monthly
- Quarterly
- Yearly
- Never
Now, let’s match our stakeholders to the types and frequencies of communication. In the old-fashioned business world, where people have meetings for the sake of it, this would lean towards overcommunicating, keeping everyone in the loop all the time, and being “always available”.
This matrix might look a little scary at first. You might wonder how on Earth some of the nevers can be possible and if they are healthy for a working relationship. Believe me, I’ve seen every objection under the sun. If you want to achieve genuine autonomy as a freelancer, increasing the effectiveness of your asynchronous communications and decreasing your dependency on synchronous communications are huge steps in the right direction.
Note : this matrix is a guide and you don’t need to treat it as gospel. Some projects do need real-time collaboration and that’s fine. Also, the key theme of autonomy is working on your own terms. So if your craft and productivity are genuinely improved by real-time calls, go for it.
But don’t make them default by habit. Of course, if you’re working in an office space with your clients, face-to-face is likely easier. But in very few freelance vocations are face-to-face meetings needed for communications. Even if you paint film sets, the work you do on set is different from the communications that get you there.
If you’re still reluctant to give up on meeting for meeting’s sake, here’s one last effort from me:
Of 182 people surveyed by the University of North Carolina: 65% said meetings keep them from completing their work, 71% said meetings are unproductive and inefficient, and 64% said meetings come at the expense of deep thinking.
Some of the “ad-hocs” in this table might be all day every day. But they could also be once a week or once a month. Use whatever works best in that situation to provide the most effective outcome.
In the rows for the client's boss and directors, this may also be different if your work is for that level. In this case, the matrix is not applicable. But, for the vast majority of freelance craft, “client” is sufficient for establishing when and how to communicate with your clients.
Notice the “IM” section is “Never” across the board. Replacing instant messaging with asynchronous messaging removes the always-on mentality that more often than not leads to burnout. Sure, you might reply instantly. But set the expectations that your messenger app is asynchronous.
In reality, the only people who need to be “always-available” are emergency responders and security personnel. And even they take it in shifts.
This is why email need not be used except for formal documents that need a paper trail. The asynchronous element is covered by a tool like Slack or Microsoft Teams. There may be exceptions when you or your client doesn’t pay for Slack. As of January 2023, the free plan only saves the last 10,000 messages on your workspace. Think about that when you share information and need to save documents, ideas, or conversations.
“Email” includes online apps like DocuSign so there’s less faff uploading and signing documents. By reducing the number of tools, number of clicks, and dependency on real-time and legacy tools, we move a step closer to autonomy.
Again, just to stress, if your most productive method is different to this, stick with it. But don’t do so because you’re scared of not speaking to your customer on a daily basis.
It’s likely this matrix is nothing like how you currently work. And that’s okay (for now).
Later in this section, we’ll cover how to introduce asynchronous communications with new customers. Forcing or requesting habits with current customers is an entirely different challenge. And it may take considerable time.
Think about the aspects of your templated response for new clients (that we’ll make in a few paragraphs time) that are most important and drip feed them to customers who you think take up too much time without providing value in return. A suggestion for improved productivity or faster ROI will go down better than a note saying you’re never going to phone or email them again.
Before you start to communicate with each type of stakeholder in a set way, it’s important to set expectations and parameters.
For example, you may liaise with your client on a one-to-one level via Slack or email every day. And that’s okay until you sign another customer and can’t dedicate time to fielding queries when you should be writing code or designing a graphic for someone else. Likewise, it pays to be prepared for the rare scenario when the owner of the business drops you a meeting request out of the blue.
In your contract, make sure you protect yourself from undercommunication and make it clear how it is both acceptable and productive to communicate. Again, explain to your customers why you work this way and the benefits for them.
Doing this before you sign a contract and start working with them is crucial. Otherwise, you end up in territory no freelancer wants to find themselves in: unbillable work.
I once thought I had a slam dunk and skipped the key process of defining how we’d communicate.
What I should have done was:
- Agree to create all documents as Word documents (they were a Microsoft partner)
- Save them all on the client’s SharePoint site
- Accept revisions as comments on said docs
Because I skipped this step, we had numerous calls where I had to teach them how to use Google Docs, I had to recreate my Google Sheet tracker as a SharePoint site, and I had to present the free admin I’d done to make sure we were finally aligned.
You might think this is part and parcel of dealing with customers. But it doesn’t need to be unbilled. Either plan time for this or be clear with your communication plan (including written and documents) from day one.
If you’ve included your processes, how you work, and what makes you productive in your personal branding, none of this will be a surprise to your new client. They sign the contract and you start a prosperous relationship.
What if there’s pushback?
You have three options here. It’s a bit like poker.
- Fold: say yes to this customer now (and forever); setting the tone for future engagements.
- Check: stand firm and just say no. (This does work sometimes.)
- Raise: (the stakes). Explain why your prices/processes/communications preferences are beneficial. Sound familiar? Do this upfront to save time during the crucial contracting phase.
Seriously, write a template for this.
Even better—let’s write one together now.
Thanks for your email. - always thank the sender.
I understand your concern about working asynchronously. - show empathy with the reason they countered your proposal.
Some of my previous clients expressed the same feelings when we first started working together. - make them feel they’re not alone and being awkward.
Here, we’ve been friendly and reassured our client that we understand their ask. But what we must now do is prove your way works. If you have other clients who let you work in your preferred (autonomous) way, drop them here. We’re taking the same approach as we would create a landing page.
Unbounce, the landing page builder tool, has an excellent “anatomy of a landing page” infographic that shares all the crucial parts that turn landing pages into money magnets. Here are the ones we’re borrowing:
- Headline
- Supporting copy
- Social proof
- Reinforcing statement
- Benefits
- Call to action
If you don’t have customers you’re able to name-drop here, that’s okay too. You can use your own business as an example. Explain the before and after of working in your most productive state. If you can, include figures to reinforce your opinion. If you can say you’ve taken your blog writing process from 8 hours to 6 hours, that’s a 25% increase in productivity. If you show your graphic designs have visually improved since changing your work style, there’s no stronger case. If you can show how you’ve made more money since you made the change, your prospect just became your client. After all, they’re hiring you to make them money.
After our social proof (case study/namedrop/testimonial), we must reinforce the point we’re making.
It’s down to my work style that XYZ is able to continuously achieve these staggering results.
After this reminder, remind your customer of the benefits (that you should have already in your email thread).
Since revising my process, customers have seen faster turnaround times, fewer revisions on their part, and a higher ROI on services we’ve contracted.
These are example benefits you can tailor. What’s important here is that the benefits translate to making your client’s life easier. That’s why people hire freelancers. You have a skill they need and can’t complete in-house.
Here’s a reminder of the contact [link] for you to sign.
The most important part of this email is the end (contrary to what email marketers say about the subject heading). You’re already engaged to the point where you’ve sent a contract. Your client is reading your email in the hope that you say yes to whatever they’ve requested (which you have changed their mind on). The final point of the email is where they were originally expecting a “yes”. But you’ve done such a good job of selling the way you work that the next step is for them to say yes.
Remember, for new clients, drip feed these details to suggest positive changes that will make your client’s life easier (and yours more productive).
You’ve just taken a huge step towards autonomy.
Here’s the response for you to copy and paste/ type up yourself:
Thanks for your email.
I understand your concern about working asynchronously.
Some of my previous clients expressed the same feelings when we first started working together.
It’s down to my work style that XYZ is able to continuously achieve these staggering results.
Since revising my process, customers have seen faster turnaround times, fewer revisions on their part, and a higher ROI on services we’ve contracted.
Here’s a reminder of the contact [link] for you to sign.
Don’t forget to mention the actual staggering results, testimonials, and links. Simply copying this text won’t nab you a client who wants to work asynchronously.
What to do when your contact leaves the company
A huge part of making your communications with clients autonomous is forming an understanding with your main point of contact. You should, after time, bounce off each other because you work so well together. After all, every freelance relationship is two-way.
But what do you do when that contact, who you know so well and know they will fight your corner, leaves the business?
There are two scenarios you could find yourself in:
- Your contact plans to leave and does a handover.
- Your contact leaves all of a sudden and you don’t know who to speak with.
In the former, work with your contact to meet their replacement and help plan your next batch of work. If you have a purchase order or contract in place, it’s simply a new contact. If you don’t, or your retainer is up for renewal, you may have to sell your services again. Achieve this by compiling all the work you’ve completed and planned with your previous contact. Showcasing how important you are to the company goes a long way. And in most cases, your new contact will want to hit the ground running so carrying on as normal is beneficial to them.
In the second case, like if a company announces sudden layoffs, you may not have the opportunity to meet a new contact or help compile a handover. In extreme cases, you may not even get a new contact as everyone you know disappears overnight.
Sounds extreme? It is. But, trust me. It happened and I had no idea what was going to happen to my future work with this client.
Here’s what I did to ensure I kept the work I had penciled in for the next six months. For reference, the client had signed a purchase order for 17 blog posts over the course of the year and I’d only delivered 3 at this point. This enterprise client pays on delivery at the end of every month.
After announcing they’d been laid off on LinkedIn (this is still the only communication I’ve had to date), I first messaged my contact to say how sorry I was to hear this. I did this because 1) I was sad they’d lost their job and 2) I had a good working relationship with them and would like to work with them wherever they end up next.
I didn’t expect them to want to help me. They now have a new job to look for. More so, they no longer work for the company so have no access to help me out. At this stage, I realized how important it was to move quickly.
My next port of call was to go up the chain. I happened to know who my contact’s direct manager was so I emailed them. But I got no response over the next two days. Guess what? They’d been laid off too. I only discovered this formally after looking back through an old blog post draft we’d worked on together. Their Google account has been deleted so their old comments read “Deleted user commented: XYZ”.
Not knowing who was next up the chain in terms of seniority, I emailed my billing contact to see if they could push me in the right direction. Allowing them a night to respond, I was sent to someone in a similar role who eventually pushed me in the direction of my soon-to-be contact.
When I finally made it to who is my new contact for submitting blog posts, I took my time to explain what I’d already done in terms of deliverables, what I had planned, and the agreement between me and the company.
By taking the initiative and laying out what I had to deliver, I held the advantage. I was in control. Very quickly, my outstanding posts were published and we agreed on my next set of deliverables. Over the course of a week, I’d gone from worrying about losing $33,000 worth of work to business as usual.
Of course, in some cases, this may not happen. Layoffs internally could mean winding down external contractors too. But the sooner you act, the sooner you’ll know where you stand.
This is a section from my book, The Autonomous Freelancer.
