How many clients should freelance writers have?
TEN MILLION. Just kidding.
Freelance writers can structure their business in a multitude of ways, working with dozens of clients at once or handling one at a time. In this episode, we discuss how many clients is the right number for us, and how we know when we’re working with too many.
Client workloads: What’s ideal for freelance writers?
We have no idea what the definitive answer is to this question, but we will say it’s different for every person. Some people can handle twelve clients at a time, while for others it’s two or three. What it comes down to is based on three things:
How you structure your business
What services you provide to your clients
What timelines you’re providing to get the work done
“I have a lot of documented systems, good partners, and editors that helped me scale my business. It took me eight years to get there, though.”
A lot of freelancers have what we call an anchor client: a business they reliably get work from every month. Everything else is more of a revolving door of various other projects. However, as time goes by, you become less reliant on anchor clients and more confident in letting things come and go as they will.
Some freelance writers do a lot of short-term projects which can be knocked out in a business week. Other freelance writers track their capacity with spreadsheets and learn their max capacity that way. When they’re full, they’re full; everything else gets referred.
Another friend of ours prefers guaranteed revenue. Who doesn’t? She gets her clients to sign annual contracts. She’ll offer X number of projects in Y months. It’s good security, but can feel a little rigid for some, so this model might not be for everyone.
Should you leverage exclusivity?
Instead of just getting more clients or leveraging subcontractors, some freelance writers find they can charge more if they offer exclusivity (so, working with a select small batch of clients at a higher price point.)
If you’re doing consulting work, this can be a good strategy…but again, it’s not for everyone. We don’t think clients care too much if you’re exclusive so long as you can dedicate yourself to getting the job done.
Another take on this is offering priority service: tell your clients the more work you send my way, the more you’ll prioritize them. One blog post a month is fine, but if you send a consistent, steady volume, you’ll be a VIP client. With this route, you could also offer to join the company Slack and add additional value, maybe occasionally offer volume discounts, etc.
Knowing your limits
What type of freelance writer do you want to be?
If you have too many clients and you can’t handle them all, are you selling the best version of yourself as a writer? It’s not all about the money: are you proud to put your name on the project? If the answer to that is no, that’s a red flag. You might be taking on too many clients.
When we have too much on our plates, balls get dropped. Quality of work suffers. Having too many freelance writing clients can bring the gears of your workflow to a halt (and turn your business growth off, too.)
When you feel overloaded, we recommend outsourcing. Another writer as the second set of eyes can help make sure your rigorous editing process stays that way. Also: sometimes you can be too close to a project. Sometimes you just don’t have the capacity. For us, outsourcing to subcontractors has taken a whole lot of stress off our shoulders. (Psst: If you’re looking for resources on subcontracting, shoot Kaleigh an email. She can help.)
“No matter how strong your pipeline is, there have been times when I’ve only had a couple of clients…and it’s been fine; it kept things afloat. Freelance writing has a natural ebb and flow.”
So how many clients are too many? It’s all down to your definition of enough.
Do you value money?
Work-life balance?
Freedom to say yes to projects?
To do what you want?
Take the time to think about that. Once you have an answer, you can avoid the pitfalls of burnout.
Where the money resides
Pricing is another huge facet of this conversation. When we started, we never had a deliberate plan around pricing our writing services. It was more…let’s see what flies. It’s important to think about how much you want to earn and how you want to structure your business.
“Freelancer Paul Jarvis takes four months off every year. Once he hits his income goal, he’s done. Has a waitlist. That’s a whole other option- maybe it’s not about money, maybe it’s: ‘I wanna work on my novel or travel four months out of the year.’”
Again, sticking to finite boundaries and limits is…not one of our strengths. And we suffer from it. Especially when it comes to taking time off.
Overall, that’s not healthy. Being a freelance writer is meant to give you flexibility, but being self-employed can mean you’re always working. It’s something we’re trying to get better at.
The main takeaway is: find the right balance. Find what works for you and enjoy the freedom of being self-employed.