You like to think your business is pitch perfect – after all, who wants to think that the mighty ship they’re steering has a few leaks in it? You need to believe that the job you’re doing is the best you can possibly do, or you’ll start to doubt yourself.

However, there does come a point where believing you’re perfect can hurt your business. If a problem does come up, it can seem like it’s from nowhere, when really it’s been building up for quite some time. This can cause you to panic and do something rash.

So it may be a little painful, but you should ask for feedback from your clients on a regular basis. It doesn’t have to be every day, but a simple inquiry once in a while can go a long way in determining how well you’re actually doing.

How – and Who – to Ask

Asking for feedback sounds nice, but who would be willing to actually give it? Once you figure that out, how do you go about getting it?

Honestly, you’re probably going to find it amazingly easy to pull opinions out of your customers. No doubt you’re on the Internet, so it should be extra easy. After all, when was the last time you met somebody on the web who was afraid of doling out their opinion to anyone who would listen?

Of course, some people may actually be a little hesitant to tell you outright what they think of your company. They may have strong opinions and are willing to give them but a little worried you or someone else will yell at them. This may sound strange, considering these people are spending their hard earned money on you, but some people really want to avoid confrontation. These people are exactly why you should make sure there’s an anonymous option to give a review of your business.

A web poll always works great for this. Ask a few specific questions you’re curious about – “Do you feel that I am timely in completing assignments?” – but also provide a small section where clients can freely talk about what, if anything, bugs them.

Cycling Through the Comments

You’d like for every comment to be useful, but that’s likely not going to be the case. You have to learn how to take the good with the bad. Cycle through the comments you get with one eyebrow raised in disbelief. Not everything they say will be good for your company or even make sense. However, you can’t immediately discount what they say. Maybe every client complains that they’ve never met you in person, even though they are in the continental United States and they know you’re in Bermuda. Perhaps it’s time to take a trip!

A good exercise is to try and figure out what you think they’re getting at. Even the angriest, most vile feedback in the world has a grain of truth somewhere within it. A client may be legitimately angry that you took a long time to turn in an assignment. You may not remember it like that, but it could be the reality.

As a result, you may take a look at your company and realize the angry comments are actually valid. You do tend to be a little late on assignments but had no idea it was such a problem. Now that you know, you can go about correcting the issue.

This year has been tough. (Seriously, I say that every year. But it’s always true. I guess the life of a freelancer is just tough, huh?) But as usual, I learned some stuff about myself and my career.

The Worst Thing That Could Happen Isn’t So Bad

I’ve heard of all sorts of freelancers getting to the point where they had to take a job and usually that’s met with a lot of criticism. Either they’re traitors for going back to the establishment or they should have planned better. Oh and the scent of failure is always in there, too.

This year saw me take a part-time job to make sure my money didn’t get funny. I’m still there (albeit about once a week at this point) because the money is great and I genuinely like the people I get to be around when I’m there. No matter how many articles you read, you never really realize just how much freelancing isolates you until you see new people every single day.

Not only that, I turned them into a paying freelance client and pulled several other clients from my work there. So yeah, it wasn’t that bad at all. And the fact is that my finances have been looking great for a while now. But I haven’t given up the “paper route” because it still serves a purpose. When it doesn’t, I will.

New York is Full of Freelancers

I’m still in New York. (I’ll just let that settle in for a moment.)

I think I’m hitting my stride here though. I know people to hang with. My apartment feels like home to me. I don’t browse apartment ads in Chicago anymore. I’m even planning a spring trip there next year and the odds that I won’t come back are very, very low. Progress!!

And New York is full of freelancers. I don’t know why. It’s the worst place you could live and freelance. With living expenses so high, I can’t imagine how much pressure some of these other freelancers feel each month. Thank the heavens I live in an unfashionable part of Queens with someone I can share rent with–I mean, Hubs, of course.

But there are also lots of resources for us here. Coworking spaces, collaborative organizations and the Freelancers Union are all here. So I’ve found some resources and people who I can lean on when the going gets tough. . . For however long I will continue to live here.

Sometimes You Have to Take Time Off.

One of the developments this year is that I haven’t been writing as much on DMF as I have in the past. Part of that is being busy. I still working with clients and managing some websites. I’m also writing fiction now. Sometimes there’s just not enough time in the day to figure out something to write for this place.

But there’s also the echo chamber of freelancing. I don’t want to write the same thing over and over as someone else who is writing over and over. Sometimes I think to myself What else can I say about this subject that hasn’t been said a million times already? Too often the answer is depressing. And that kept me away from the site for a while.

But fortunately, I found a second wind and a few things I’d like to talk about. So I’ll be back here more often and with new stuff. I’m also going to schedule some more Group Therapy chats. Maybe even a few in-person ones are coming in the future. I don’t think I could do that if I hadn’t taken a break in the first place.

My Business is Continually Evolving

My vision of my business six years ago is so different than what I have right now. That’s not a bad thing. I had a really limiting view of what I could do and who I could do it for back then. Now, I’m trying so many more things. The work, the style, the focus, the money–it’s all better than it was back then.

I know now that I can’t expect things to stay the same. Once again, things will evolve as I move forward. I’m just happy that I’m still here doing my thing and that I get to share it with you here.

I’ve been stiffed by exactly three clients in my five years of freelancing, but the sad thing is that I probably could have avoided all three incidences if I’d listened to my instincts. Before you’re tempted to do what I did and let a client walk away with the money they owe you, look for these warning signs:

They’re a Person of Mystery – This person has contacted you through email, but hasn’t given you a company name, a location, or maybe even a name. Watch out for someone who says they are working for a company but won’t name or let you contact that company. A good rule of thumb: Make sure you can find someone on LinkedIn or Google their website before you start working for them.

They Won’t Nail Down Rates – I’ve seen Craigslist ads that promise X rate “if you do a great job.” Nope. Rates and expectations for what a “great job” entails should always been nailed down in writing before you starting working for a new client.

They Refuse to Sign a Contract – This is a big red flag. Most bad clients won’t be forthright about refusing to sign a contract. Instead, they might delay, or have mysterious scanner problems. Don’t start working until you have their name on the dotted line.

They Request Changes to Your Contract – If they ask you change the contract such that you can only sue them within their jurisdiction if they don’t pay up something is clearly wrong. Furthermore, if you’re in Washington D.C. and they’re in Washington state, your client can be sure you won’t fly out to sue them unless they owe you a substantial amount of money. If they ask you to sign an agreement, be sure to pay attention to the details.

They’re Working Toward Future Earnings – The first client who ever stiffed me hired me to ghostwrite her book. What I should have realized when she asked me to meet her at her shady apartment is that she was only planning to pay me after the book took off. I never saw that money. (Though she apparently forgot she owed me when she sent me a LinkedIn request three years later…)

They Don’t Pass the Google Test – I’m not saying people who have mug shots online won’t pay you, but you might want to be a little extra weary, especially if you find that they’ve stiffed other contractors in the past.

Their Checks Come from Odd Sources – Watch out for checks that seem to have been written by grandma or are sent from a holding company that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with your client. While this could all be legitimate, it could also mean they are playing a dangerous game with their own funds, and you won’t be a priority when the house of cards falls.

I’m sure you’ve felt it.

You send out a finished project to a client and wait to get a reply email with a raving review… only to get radio silence.

You start to wonder if that project you poured your heart and soul into wasn’t as good as you thought. Then maybe you have second thoughts about why you became a freelancer in the first place. That little voice in the back of your head tells you the reason for the silence is that your work just wasn’t good enough. The client hated it, but they didn’t want to hurt your feelings so they just found another freelancer for next time.

The Downside to Freelancing

As freelancers we’re even more susceptible to this feeling than our traditionally employed peers. When you have a 9-to-5, you’re subjected to feedback (wanted or not) from your peers, your boss and sometimes—if you’re really “lucky”—your boss’s boss. You have to answer to someone and you have others around you to give you creative feedback.

As a freelancer, all too often we don’t get any feedback at all.

When this happens it’s so easy to listen that small voice inside our heads—the one who gives voice to all our fears. Fortunately, most of the time that little voice is wrong; the client just got caught up in using whatever wonderful thing you produced for them… and forgot to tell you how wonderful they thought it was.

Asking Clients for Feedback

I haven’t been at this whole freelancing thing for that long yet, but I found a way to shut up that little voice inside my head, so I thought I’d share it here—if I were to list what I’ve done right over the last year and a half, this one thing would top the list.

The trick to finding out what a client really thinks is to ask them. Each time I finish a project, about a week after everything has been submitted, I email my customers to ask them what they thought.

Almost every time I wind up with a great quote that I can use as a testimonial, which gives me a reason to contact them yet again (to make sure it’s okay to use their comments on my website) and helps keep me top of mind.

Here’s the email I send out:

Eliminating Self-Doubt

The emails I get back almost always make me smile. Sure, not every client takes the time to respond, but I’ve found the vast majority do (in 18 months I’ve only had 2 clients not take the time to answer my 5 questions). It also provides me with fresh testimonials on a regular basis.

Finally, much more importantly, this one little step shuts up that voice in my head, helping to eliminate the self-doubt that can sometimes be a tad bit overwhelming.

What’s not to love?

Boring Story About My Hair

I went “natural” almost two years ago. For those not familiar, going “natural” is essentially about accepting what your hair looks like and being proud of it instead of subscribing to a standard of beauty that does not include you. Basically, it’s not altering the curl pattern of your hair by using chemicals to straighten your hair.

I had a little trouble with the hair products in the beginning for one simple reason: There are no directions. There’s a reason for this, of course. Natural hair is all about what works for your hair and changing your products or practices based on that. So it’s pointless to put on the label “Use this product on the waning moon at a quarter past midnight with your hair half wet.”

But that’s what I wanted. That’s what I was used to. It drove me crazy the first few months. I just wanted to look at the back of the bottle or jar to see a few lines of direction. I remember standing in a drugstore in the health and beauty aisle for more time than I care to admit. I was just looking at products and flipping them over, looking for that magic bullet. At one point I started watching Youtube videos on my phone, trying to see what everyone else was doing with each product. I was almost in tears when I left.

At home, I watched video after video on Youtube. I must have read every blog post written by a girl with an afro. I subscribed to everything. My inbox was constantly filled with tips to become the natural hair goddess of my dreams. I think at one point I was even translating a Swedish blogger’s work to English so I could follow her daily struggle with her dry hair because it might help with my dry ‘fro.

I was absolutely obsessed for about six to eight months…and then I wasn’t. I don’t even remember emerging from the haze of that period. I just remember one day I stopped worryingt and just tried some things. Some stuff didn’t work, but others did. I learned what worked for me instead of trying to follow the footsteps of others, step for step. Today, I feel pretty confident in what I’m doing just because I’ve been doing it for so long.

Memories of Those First Years of Freelancing

Thinking about my new fiction writing and my question for natural hair, I remember reading all those books and blog posts. I remember taking in more and more information each day without really getting any further. I’d get on the forums to talk with other newbies who were giving out advice they heard from somebody who heard it from somebody who heard it in a class they took with a veteran that cost a couple of grand. And I’d read the posts from the so-called professionals–some of which I later found out had never freelanced or could make their rent on their freelance income.

It was all so nerve racking. I felt like there was some secret somewhere that I just needed to get my hands on. I remember thinking that this next book, this next course, or this next whatever would be the thing that put everything in the right perspective. I remember saying “Oh, I can’t wait until I’m five years in because then I’ll know everything.”

Well I’ve hit the five year mark already. And, surprise, surprise, I don’t know everything. (Or even anything, sometimes.)

I do have a better understanding of what works for me as a freelancer. But it didn’t come getting hysterical as I took in more and more information. It came from doing. Only from taking those steps and making those mistakes did I finally come to an understanding with myself. Only then did I become confident in my abilities.

And just like with my hair, I can’t even remember when it all happened. I just remember feeling like if I was given the choice to talk about building a freelancing business, read about building a freelancing building, or actually building freelancing, I’d take the last one every time. And so I did.

Keeping Those Lessons Close

Sometimes when I talk about my fiction work, people are surprised. (Especially other writers!) They want to go over the course they took from so-and-so. They want to know if I read that-guy’s blog or if I’m familiar with this-chick’s books. Sometimes when I’m chatting with my writers group I feel like they are speaking another language because I’m wondering how many books about writing can you read before you just take a stab at it and see what happens.

Mostly, I just nod and smile at everyone else. I know it’s a phase because I’ve been through it at least twice before. Remembering those lessons, I’m not participating in information overload this time. I’ve done my share of hysterical freak outs from it. I’m still not immune to the occasional one. I just try to limit it to a few moments instead of a few months.

And when I’m tempted to run to the nearest computer to get lost in yet another forum, I try to take a side trip to the mirror so I can get a good look at my hair. That’s usually enough to remind myself of how banging my hair is and how all the information in the world couldn’t do what just getting my hands a little dirty did.

Last year I had big plans for 2012.

Most of them fell through.

When I tell people that, they get sad for me. Or they make that “Awwww” sound. (By the way, I hate that sound. It sounds like pity to me.) What they don’t understand is that I’m not all that disappointed about it. You can’t win them all.

Sometimes You Don’t Get What You Expect

We can’t know the future. That’s hard to accept for people who love to plan as much as I do. Sometimes our plans fail. Sometimes it’s completely beyond our control.

In other words, shit happened.

I didn’t make as much money as I wanted. I didn’t do as many guest posts as I wanted. I didn’t get my clients to the percentage ratio as I wanted either. My savings is looking better but it’s not looking as good as I wanted. I felt short on every single metric. This is the first time that’s happened to me.

But on the other hand, I still had a good year. I made money–enough money to feed and clothe myself and still have margarita night with Hubs whenever we wanted. I also took on some new clients. I did some guest posts on sites that I would have never expected. I crushed my print goal. I had enough work that I was able to turn down some really shady work. I saved money to the point that I actually have a savings account again instead of a “surplus” in my checking account.

I don’t want to downplay that I had a good year just because I didn’t make all of my goals. I still want to celebrate what happened. I’m still grateful for those things. And yes, I still want more for myself.

What about 2013?

For 2013, I’m reassessing my goals. Some of them I’m still interested in reaching. I still want my client mix to be no more than 20 percent of my entire income. I still would like to bump my total income by about 15 percent.

On the other hand, I don’t care about how many print magazines I appear in next year. I would rather see an increase in income from digital publishers. I’m also still interested in networking in person but since I’m doing so much of it now, I want to be more selective about who I network with and how.

What about you guys? What goals did you make and what goals did you throw away this year?

One of my former clients is dodging me right now. The l last I heard from him, a few months ago, he had every excuse in the book not to pay me. He’d closed his business checking account when the business failed, so he’d have to pay me from personal funds. Sure, he could use his sister’s PayPal, but he’d have to get the password. He couldn’t meet me to run a credit card through my Square reader because he’d moved when the business failed. Could I maybe take a credit card payment over the phone?

Of course not! That’s impossible. Why would I want to open a merchant account, pay an application fee, monthly fees and even – eventually – a termination fee, all for one client with a slew of excuses?

Except, wait. I totally could have if WePay Virtual Terminal had been around.

Virtual Terminal

The WePay Virtual Terminal is a way for every business owner to take payments over the phone. In just a few minutes time even the least tech savvy customer can give you their credit card number and be on their way.

Why? We sometimes forget not everyone wants to take advantage of new technology. Maybe someone was burned by identity theft from entering information on a website, or perhaps they just prefer the phone. They want to pay you, of course, and you have to collect that payment somehow. Unfortunately, paying over the phone isn’t exactly the easiest thing to do now since many businesses have no way of simply entering a credit card into a payment processor without spending mega bucks on a merchant account.

So how does this Virtual Terminal work? When the customer calls you up, you simply pull the Virtual Terminal up through your WePay account. It works just like a traditional one at any store – you simply punch in the numbers as the customer relays them to you. Once everything goes through, you’re done, and WePay tracks the transaction for you.

It may not seem like it, but the Virtual Terminal is a major innovation. The reason small companies don’t take orders over the phone as much is because of the reasons detailed above – it’s expensive, it’s fairly rare for small businesses to need to accept payments by phone, and there’s been no good, secure way to do it until now. Fortunately, the WePay Virtual Terminal is PCI Level 1 compliant, something that has been difficult for small merchants in the past.

When Would I Use It?

You may not use the Virtual Terminal all the time, but there are some very clear times when you could have made a sale or collected on an invoice (ahem) and missed out. Hopefully having the Virtual Terminal in your payments arsenal will cut these missed opportunities down.

For instance, a friend of mine was at a craft fair recently when a customer came up to her. Apparently last year this customer had seen some handmade upcycled artwork she’d been selling, but she didn’t buy anything. She thought about the item all year and hunted her down at the next craft fair.

However, my friend didn’t have the items on hand since they didn’t sell the year before! The customer needed to use a credit card (great art isn’t cheap!) but wasn’t interested in buying anything through her Etsy store. They essentially had no option but to wait until next year. Essentially my friend lost a sale.

Don’t let this happen to you! For only 4.9% plus $0.30 per payment (no hidden fees, ever) you can be ahead of the curve and let even the least tech-savvy person in the world grab your wares with the WePay Virtual Terminal.

As for my story, my former client no longer answers my emails and his phone suddenly and mysterious “has no voicemail box setup.” I have a feeling that, if I’d said yes to phone payments that some other problem would have arisen, but on the other hand… I guess I’d better go write him one more email.

Since becoming a freelancer I’ve pretty much avoided the traffic gridlocks that most 9-to-5-ers experience as part of their daily routine. I work from home, so there’s no real reason to be on the roads during those key times of day. In fact, all too often there’s no reason to be on the road at all. I stay holed up in my office for days or even weeks at a time.

There is a downside to this, of course. Instead of dealing with gridlock traffic I wind up dealing with mental gridlock. When I fail to venture outside to do non-work related things, my inspiration runs dry and I feel burnt out and used up.

For example, I was offered a chance to pitch some ideas to a magazine that I really wanted to write for, but I couldn’t come up with any new ideas or angles because I’d let myself become bogged down in ongoing projects.

That’s one of the reasons I made a point to take the entire three days I was in Mississippi off from work. Some downtime let me come back to my business with a fresh attitude, once more excited about the projects I had on my plate.

I’m making a real effort to add more downtime (aka non-work time) to my schedule these days.

I’ve joined and begun volunteering with my local branch of CreativeMornings, a free monthly lecture series for creative professionals. I challenged myself to do NaNoWriMo this year and found a writing buddy who could meet up with me daily to work on our respective novels. I’ve begun taking my dog to the dog park several times a week, where I actually see the world around me and wind up talking to other dog owners about things that have nothing to do with work.

The result?

CreativeMornings lectures have given me ideas for my blog, as well as the magazine I was invited to pitch. On days the puppy and I visit the dog park I feel less stressed and more productive. NaNoWriMo led me to trying a new type of writing and let me get excited about something I do everyday in an entirely new way.

And now, on the rare occasion I find myself stuck in traffic, I use the time productively — brainstorming great new ideas.

Oh, wait. I believe in Marketing Karma.

I’m not sure where I first heard of Marketing Karma. (I think it was somewhere in Peter Bowerman’s Well-Fed Writer but I’m not entirely sure.) Essentially, it’s the idea that if you market yourself or your business, you will get leads on new opportunities. The leads will not necessarily be a direct result of the marketing. You often will see no cause and effect. But by putting out into the universe that you want something and expending energy with that request, you will see a return in it.

I wrote about my belief in Marketing Karma for The Renegade Writer and if you’d like to hear more about it, click here.

If you get a group of writers in any room, dollars to donuts the conversation will turn to writing utensils at any moment. It’s in our blood. Chefs have their knives. Hunters have their guns. Writers have their pens. That’s not to say that the quickest way to a writer’s heart with a handful of pens. However, any writer you know has a pen preference. Just go ahead and ask a writer about their favorite pens. I’ll wait here.

Back yet?

Believe me?

Told ya.

So recently I’ve been on the lookout for a new favorite pen. I’ve been using a brand of ink ones that can get pretty messy if the top comes off in my bag. Also, I’d been using those for at least 10 years. I wanted to check other options.

Then I saw this commercial:

First thoughts? Cute but yeah right.

Then I bought them on a whim one day.

New thoughts? OMG THIS IS THE BEST PEN EVER!! WHY AND HOW HAVE I BEEN LIVING WITHOUT THIS FOR SO LONG?!

Me and My New Pen

I couldn’t stop telling people about it. Suddenly, I wanted to write everything in my trusty notebook instead of using my laptop or my phone or my tablet. For a period of time, I would pull one of these pens out of my purse to start conversations with anyone who would let me.

Within weeks I had all of my friends buying them–That’s how good of a salesperson I can be when I really want to be. I will call you up at 9pm at night to ask you if you’re getting your pen needs met properly and if you would like to hear about a nifty little pen that will solve your problems. Also, are you happy with your long distance carrier? Have you accepted anybody as your Lord and Savior? Because this pen could work for any one of those things.

Gone Pen Gone

And then something strange happened. I was at my paper route–where I had already spread the gospel of this pen–when I noticed my pen was gone. Someone had stolen it. Just like the commercial. (Only I hadn’t been so smart as to set up a trap! Damn my trusting ways!) Of course the normal thing would be to just pull out the other pen that came in the pack and forget about the other one. I mean, it had only cost me a dollar and some change. Easily replaceable.

Oh come on. You know I didn’t do that.

Instead I stopped and frisked every single person I worked with. (Note: Stopping minorities on the street to search them randomly for no reason is bad. Stopping your coworkers to search for a pen that didn’t even cost you $2 is very necessary.) They thought I was joking but soon realized that I am crazy serious about my pens. (Or just crazy. Either one.) I frisked four people without incident. When I got to the fifth, I found my pen.

When I asked her what the hell she was doing with my pen, she just shrugged and said “You think you can go around with a pen that great and not tempt people.”

She was right. I keep my pen talk to myself now.

What about you guys? Do you have a special brand of pens or paper or whatever that you just have to have? Tell me about it in the comments section below: