Your pros
pective freelance writer should have terms. Don’t laugh, some don’t—which is a sign that they’re not running a serious business. You don’t want a writer who’s squeezing you in after he gets home from his full-time job. You want someone who will feel pain if your job doesn’t turn out well and you don’t convert into a repeat customer. A freelancer like that has put thought into her business, so she will have a ready answer when it’s time to talk payment.
Notice I said payment, not price. It’s normal for a writer to need a day or two to price a job for a new customer. There are many unknowns when a relationship is new, and every job is different.
Down payments
Expect a freelancer to require a down payment before starting work. My terms, for instance, are 75% down for a new customer and the balance on final delivery. This is because the majority of the work goes into the outline or first draft and if the customer disappears before finalizing approvals, I don’t want to be left out in the cold. Customers don’t disappear too often in the middle of a project, but it happens—the project manager leaves the company, the company is acquired, or the corporate strategy shifts. Tech companies, as you know, are particularly subject to these types of changes; in the past 3 months, I’ve done jobs for two companies that were acquired mid-project, and these were fast little projects. So don’t be surprised when you’re asked for a substantial percentage of payment up front.
Advice from the other side of the fence will tell you to never pay in full in advance. The logic is that if you pay for the whole project upfront, you don’t have a bargaining chip in case something goes wrong. That assumes you’re as likely to hire a dud as a winner. But that’s not the case if you’ve done proper due diligence.
Due Diligence is the Best Protection
Choose a writer who’s a full-time freelancer with good recent references and a reputation to protect, and you’re 99% of the way there. Of course, things can go horribly wrong in the remaining 1% of the cases. Maybe the freelancer will get hit by a truck on the day before the final version is due. Then again, it could be you getting hit by the truck and the freelancer could be stuck with an unpaid project. These things happen, but what is less likely to happen is that a professional freelancer will leave you with unsatisfactory results.
Net terms
Net terms are all over the place. Most freelancers let the customers determine the net, but when you need a fast turnaround or something else above and beyond the norm, your freelancer is likely to consider the timing of the payment when working up a price. My net is 21, but smaller companies and startups tend to pay on receipt of the final version, while larger customers are mostly net 30.
Do you need a contract?
The use of contracts is also all over the place. A white paper or a case study is not a complicated transaction, so I just email the agreed project description and terms to the customer and that’s my contract. For larger or more complex jobs, I do use a contract that specifies scope, deliverables, milestones, and terms.
Larger companies often have their own contracts. If that describes you, expect to receive the signed contract back with some parts crossed out. Most of these contracts have non-competes that the company doesn’t intend to enforce, but if a freelancer were to agree to them they’d have to dump every other customer on their roster. I think most companies and freelancers just pretend that part of the contract doesn’t exist, but I don’t: if I sign a contract, I should do so with the intent to adhere to all of its requirements. Your freelancer should, too—after all, how savvy is a freelancer who doesn’t read a contract, and how reputable is one who signs with foreknowledge that they’re not going to adhere to the agreement?
NDAs
Non-disclosure agreements are another matter. You should use them. Your freelancer should sign them. Lawyers will tell you that NDAs are so hard to enforce that they’re unlikely to be litigated, but the fact is that any company has more legal fuel than the most successful freelancer, and an NDA serves, at the very least, as a reminder that your business is to be kept confidential.
There is no reason for a freelancer to refuse to sign a document agreeing to do what they should be doing anyway, which is respecting your business by keeping it between the two of you.
The Dreaded Question: “What’s your budget?”
We’re not trying to squeeze every last dime out of you. I promise, on behalf of all reputable freelancers.
Freelancers ask this question to qualify you as a customer. If your budget is $1K and the freelancer’s price is $5K, the gulf is probably too vast to end in a successful negotiation.
Three things can happen at that point: the conversation can end, the freelancer can refer you to a lower-cost provider, or the scope of the job can be examined to see if a match can be made.
Takeaways
That was a lot of words to discuss a simple agreement. But there’s a lot of uncertainty in engaging a new writer. You’re trusting them with your business strategy, your reputation, and your marketing budget. Hopefully, knowing what drives freelancers to make decisions about their terms and agreements will help you identify freelancers who can be trusted to maintain professional standards.
Jay Gitomer of Machines & Words helps companies selling complex technologies expose the real business value of their solutions and shorten their sales cycles with white papers, case studies, and slicks written in plain English. Over a decade of marketing experience in the tech industry has given her an understanding of strategy, technology, and B2B markets that translates into content that connects with your customers. Jay teaches digital marketing at the graduate level and is certified in inbound marketing by HubSpot. She is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and has an MA in English Literature and Creative Writing from NYU. In the cats vs. dogs debate, Jay is firmly on the side of dogs.
