Your thoughts about my new policy: You don't like - You don't pay?

If you have hundreds of clients who don't like your work. Maybe the problem isn't your clients, but your work...

What do you do?

I'd be more worried about why so many clients hate your work.

I must admit, after careful consideration, I can make no sense of this post.

I'm curious, though.

"Echoes" what? Are they telling you what they don't like? Spelling? Grammar? Lack of research? No unique angles? No personality?

Find out what they don't like and work on that instead of adjusting how you're paid.

Rose

Find the root of your problem and rethink the way you are doing things

First of all what is your field? Second specify why your clients are disappointed, maybe through some less intrusive way. A short questionnaire after delivering the work and then change accordingly...

I think there is a typo. You meant to say:

"Again I have to emphasize that I'm not talking about hundreds of clients I'm experiencing these problems with. Yet, even a couple of them for me mean a lot."

No one is going to want to pay 50 percent for writing they can't use. Imagine you bought a pair of Levi's at the store without trying them on. You brought them home and found the jeans were missing a leg. Would you want to pay 50% for the jeans or would you go back to the store and ask for all your money back?

If English is not your mother tongue (which, it sounds like it isn't) - and you don't know how to write with proper spelling and grammar, then you should look for something else. I would not be happy with a poorly written English article, and would not accept it.

if you get your clients from here then you will probably be doing a lot of free work

al

Why aren't your client's happy exactly?

I don't think a 'love it or it's free' policy is going to be a very good business decision.

If people aren't 100% happy with anything I do for them, I work closely with them to make tweaks until they are. Yes, it can be time consuming but I do this so that I can work with them ongoing. Basically you are just throwing away future business by giving away your work for free. You're not a burger joint and if you have put in effort into your writing there is no reason to have such a policy.

I would have a hard look at what you are doing and develop a feedback systems, have one round of edits and then your client should be happy, unless your work is absolutely terrible that is more than enough.

I also think you might need to analyse what you're doing, as if there is even just a little trend with a few peope that don't love your work you probably need to have a look at how much work you're taking on, if it is in your niche and if you have the skills to provide your service.

I get negative feedback now and again, but I always turn it into a positive without losing money or losing a client.

You're a writer right? Shoot them a free or sample article. This does two things:

1) Allows you to demonstrate so they can figure out if they like your work beforehand, very handy

2) Creates a sense of "obligation" meaning they are less likely to ask for more concessions from you and more likely to take the final product

True, but maybe the problem isnt the clients, but maybe it is you

This post is a waste of time. If people don't want to pay you because you can't write, you don't deserve to be paid or to call yourself a writer. Either learn how to write or find work doing something you're good at. There really isn't any need for further comments.

You've got some excellent suggestions already....

What I'd add is... Create a short contract to use for your work... Your Client signs it before you begin.

It states you own all rights, copyrights and Intellectual Property (IP) to your work...

If they like your work, they pay you and all the rights are transferred from you to your Client...

If they don't like your work, you are free to use it as you see fit....

Using this method, the worst case scenario is you build up some assets while making money.

You don't like the term contract, use something else. Call it a "letter of agreement" or "project description". It's still binding.

Rich took the same angle I was going to take. Set your terms and get them formally recognized before starting the project. Even emailing the letter of intent and asking the client to reply with "I agree" will do the trick.

The way you posed it in your first post, I agree with another poster - you'd end up doing a lot of full-price work for half price.

The whole point of grammar is helping create clear communication. The original was clear.

You might want to google up a copy of Paul Myers' short report called "The Wombat Report."

The issue here is not one of price or policy.

If you are working as a writer I can see why many clients might not be happy.

Please don't take offense, because my intent here is not to offend, but to help through constructive criticism.

I had to read the first three paragraphs twice just to understand what it is you were trying to get across. For example, in paragraphs two and three you used the term "there's no point discussing any further" twice. You started the second paragraph with "There's no point discussing any further, if you don't like my work, you don't like it, the end of story." There are many grammatical errors in that one sentence alone.

Now, I'm no Mark Twain or Ernest Hemingway myself, believe me. I make plenty of grammatical errors in my writing and I'm a native English speaker.

The point, is, you are having problems with your clients because I'm pretty sure your articles have lots of grammatical errors and may be difficult to read and/or understand.

I'm in no way saying the articles are poor. I'm sure you are very intelligent and you know how to properly research your articles and get your point across, but none of that matters to a client if the person cannot understand the article because of how it's written.

This doesn't mean you should give up on your business, especially if it's your dream to work online full time. However, you need to get better. You just need to take the time to practice. That means you should be reading a lot, preferably classic literature in native English. Some authors I recommend are Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle (created Sherlock Holmes), Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald, etc.

Also, find some modern authors to read. If you want to get a better idea of how modern English is spoken, typically in the US, read authors like Dan Brown, James Patterson, Elmore Leonard, Dean Koontz, Stephen King, John Carpenter, etc.

You should also study English grammar so you can write properly. A good tip when you are unsure of whether to use quotation marks, commas, colons and semi-colons, etc, is to keep some newspapers handy. Look at some of the articles and see how it's done in there. You can find a similar style article to what you are writing and see how they placed their quotes, etc. For example, if you want to quote what someone said or wrote in one of your articles, there are a lot of great examples of how that's written in newspaper articles. You can always use that to see how you should use punctuation marks in your article.

Better yet, learn the rules for yourself. Memorize them if you can, but if not, there are plenty of references on the internet for you to use. Here's an awesome free site that even has worksheets you can print out and do. I believe it is 100% free. They have all of the main things you need to know to write well.

English Worksheets

In the meantime, while you are learning and getting better, there are two things you can do.

1. Continue writing, but make the price equal to the work, and always let the client know that you are not a native English speaker before accepting the project.

2. Take a break from writing and do something else while you are perfecting your skills. Once you get much better, you can charge more for your work and you can ensure your clients will be happy with your product.

As for your refund policy, many freelance writers that I have purchased from have a no refund policy, and they want half of the money before the job starts and the rest once the product is delivered.

This is done for a couple of reasons. First, it ensures that the writer is not going to get ripped off and get nothing in return for their work. It's also beneficial to the buyer, because if they don't like the content they have only paid half of the money. It basically keeps each party in check and makes sure that nobody really gets screwed. The writer at least gets something, and the buyer can always use the content, even if they are not happy with it. They can rewrite it, sell it, etc.

I'm 100% convinced that the root of your problem is the quality of your work, mostly the punctuation and wording of the articles.

If you get that fixed I think everything else is going to fall into place for you. You will be able to get more for your work, and you will have many more places where you can sell your content as well. In other words, the better your grammar gets, the more doors will open for you.

I hope I've been able to give you some good insight into your problem. Good luck to you.