client don't answer

[carloslobo28]

I got a very good client the other day, he is an influencer that wanted me to be his VA, I completed 4 hours in the time tracker but client doesn't answer since yesterday, he must give me more instructions for me to work, as I need to work I was wondering whether to look or not for another job, what if I get a new job and the old client appears? I can't manage two clients at the same time, what much time wait for the client to answer? I need to work.

[prestonhunter]

The client didn't answer you?
Clients are not required to answer.

You need to work?

Clients are not required to assign additional work to you.

If you are not busy enough with that client then the answer is yes, you should look for an additional job.

If you work for a month for client B, and then suddenly Client A returns, you may tell the first client that you are too busy, or that he needs to wait his turn

[carloslobo28]

"Client is not required to answer" so funny, well there are some concerns implied, you don't want either client, let's suppose you have 2, to get dissatisfied or disappointed. Anyway I will think something around your insightful advice, Preston.

[feed_my_eyes · Accepted solution]

How do you know that you can't work for more than one client at a time? If your current client isn't paying you to work for him full-time, then you don't really have much choice. Talk to your client and ask him to clarify which hours he wants you to be available. If he says that you must be available full-time, then you should work out a minimum weekly fee that's acceptable to you and he needs to pay whether he uses the time or not. If he doesn't want to do that, then he should understand that you'll need to work with other clients and therefore may not be able to get back to him immediately. Most clients understand how freelancing works, and if they wanted somebody to be exclusively available to them, then they'd hire a full-time employee.

[lucioric]

Clients that need full time job in hourly contracts are rare. What, at least in my case, I get crwded of, is with extra work with fixed price $50 projects, that ends up extending for a week. But thre more the paying, the less the probabilities to be true that opportunity. Sometimes i an wondering if freelancing is good to be the only job, or not.

[lucioric]

Good client ... lend me some luck, please. lol.

[lucioric]

This is only about taliking politely with the client when he comes back. You can say him that as you had nothing pending with him, you applied to other jobs and you got one. It is all about politeness, and not being rude with the clients with phrases like "as you didn't answer i had to look for a job". That if you really get hired, because some clients indeed set up a conference schedule, etc, show you the work to be done and finally they never come back to you.

[carloslobo28]

Christine, I know because none can be doing a marketing campaign and  a translation at the same time, at he same hour, many clients argue that are in a hurry and say they need such and such thing immediately, but it all depends on the client quality. Thanks for advice!

Lucio, luck? let me tell you the secret, don't tell anyone: the key is keep trying, new ways, think why you failed and think how you can succeed. At least that seem the most reasonable thing to do. Thanks for advice!

[petra_r]

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Carlos L wrote:

 I know because none can be doing a marketing campaign and  a translation at the same time, at he same hour.

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Of course not, but it really sounds like you don't understand freelancing at all. No, of course you can't do 2 jobs at the exact same time, but freelancing means you manage your clients, contracts and schedule in such a way that you can juggle several projects. The trick is to make sure that everyone gets their stuff done when they expected it to be done and when and how you communicated that it would be done.

I regularly work on 3 projects during any given day, the skill lies in managing schedules and clients and priorities and expectations. That is what freelancers *DO* - it's at the very heart of that life.

If you can't manage more than one client at any one time, you are not cut out to be a freelancer, you are trying to be a serial employee and that will likely not work on Upwork.

[carloslobo28]

Petra, I'm talking of serious jobs, of course you can make three jobs a day paying USD 5 each, just like me or any other. It's the first job I've five hours logged in so I was wondering the things mentioned above, I've other activities anyway so to work a couple hour each day is not bad at all.

[lucioric]

This time alternation along a day also can be done with a $250 and a $80 fixed price contract, and when you have hourly contracts. When i have had the fortune to have 3 active hourly contracts, I tried to give for example 13 hours a week for each contract. If some day the time don't reach to work too much in one of the contracts, the following day I compensated it. But sometimes finding an hourly contract wit good amount of hours is like finding a needle in a haystack.

[petra_r]

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Carlos wrote:

 I've other activities anyway so to work a couple hour each day is not bad at all.

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So what are you whining about in your original post how the client has not responded for ONE day, how the client *must* respond and how you're panicking because you *need* to work?

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Carlos L wrote:

Petra, I'm talking of serious jobs, of course you can make three jobs a day paying USD 5 each,

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HUH?

[carloslobo28]

In my desperation I decided to work on something client "may" need, I logged an hour and I was calm, if client doesn't answer tomorrow other will be the scenario, In fact I need client to give me instructions and to say me if he likes the job. I received valuable advice on this forum regarding how to manage clients.

The second point, that sounds cool as you laid it, you throw away the other half sentence.

[petra_r]

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Carlos L wrote:

In my desperation I decided to work on something client "may" need, I logged an hour and I was calm.

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You logged time without having been given instructions what to do? Because you decided the client "may" want it? Can you see how unprofessional (to use a kind word) that is? 

[lucioric]

But be prepared to the possibility that the client ask you to remove the logged hour (in such case don't deliver him the work), as he didn't ask you to do that. Because some clients behave as if the logged hours were paid with gold, but if were by what they want to pay, we were living under a bridge.

[petra_r]

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Lucio Ricardo M wrote:

as he didn't ask you to do that. Because some clients behave as if the logged hours were paid with gold, but if were by what they want to pay, we were living under a bridge.

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Logging time without having been asked to do something is simply theft. It doesn't matter at what rate. Thieving is thieving.

[carloslobo28]

That doesn't count as proactiveness? If not, what is proactiveness then? I understand quite well your needs I don't even need you to tell me! Hahaha.

[lucioric]

In an hourly job, even when I know that a client needs some work done, always I ask him before doing that, because i don't know if the client wants to be it done as logged work at that time, for example if he has budget for it at that time. I prefer to wait one or two days to the client response instead of spoling the relationship with that client. You ask the client before starting thw work that you proposed, because else, logging time for unsolicited work or work not needed by the client is stealing money.

[feed_my_eyes]

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Carlos L wrote:

That doesn't count as proactiveness? If not, what is proactiveness then? I understand quite well your needs I don't even need you to tell me! Hahaha.

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No, it doesn't count as proactive if you logged more time out of "desperation" (your word) for more money. You're supposed to be meeting the client's needs, not your needs. 

[lucioric]

I haven't even done unrequested work in an hourly contract, but they are clients at if you log 10 hours constructing a site in Django, says that you should remove some hours as experienced django developers would have made the work in less hours. That is why I am saying about the value. On hourly contracts some clients moan about 10 logged hours, but when is a 50 USD fixed price project that ends up taking the freelancer 3 work days to complete, one cannot moan. In such contracts, I have been tempted to abandon the work with a bad word, but I know than in that case i would get a bad feedback.

[carloslobo28]

Lucio, I understand, you have to experience the mean clients and the generous, I got bonus a couple times, little amount but that means a good action anyway. Sometimes I got a job for a litttle amount and say to myself: "just a while" when I realized I've spent two hours in the "quick" job. So it's evident that hourly jobs are way more convenient.

[lucioric]

Yes, I know that hourly jobs normally are way more convenient economically. But because of that higher money amount, clients are more scratchy there. Yeah, for example if I receive an e-mail report that one of the automated scripts that I manage for a client has crashed, I take 10 logged minutes to connect to the server and fix the reason for the crash, without waiting his response to aprove that 10-minutes segment of work, but I would not create a new script without he agreeing it in advance with him. Talk to your client, and aggree with him an amount of work for you yo do to him weekly, and set up a limit of logged hours.

[carloslobo28]

Thanks again for sharing your expertise, Lucio.

[lucioric]

The worst case for me on fixed price projects was a project that I accepted for $75 to make a game website. I felt easy to accept it, as I was feeling in trouble because i had lost a good hourly job. The backend of the site that I was willing to use was buggy, and to tell it short, I lasted 4 months to complete this projectly. And yes, sometimes a $50 job you say it is quick and ends up taking almost a week. now, when I see that the client wants to pay very little, i reject that job invites.

[richard_wein]

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0Petra R wrote:

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Lucio Ricardo M wrote:

as he didn't ask you to do that. Because some clients behave as if the logged hours were paid with gold, but if were by what they want to pay, we were living under a bridge.

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Logging time without having been asked to do something is simply theft. It doesn't matter at what rate. Thieving is thieving.

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That depends on the context.  Clients leave it to my discretion (to varying degrees) to judge how to achieve their goals. I don't always ask "Do you want this done?" To save time I may go ahead and do it without asking.

P.S. Of course I don't do this just because I want to log more time.

[petra_r]

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Richard W wrote:

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Logging time without having been asked to do something is simply theft. It doesn't matter at what rate. Thieving is thieving.

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That depends on the context.  Clients leave it to my discretion (to varying degrees) to judge how to achieve their goals. I don't always ask "Do you want this done?" To save time I may go ahead and do it without asking.

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Different situation. Here we have someone with a brand new (to them) client and who needs the client's input to proceed (he said "he must give me more instructions for me to work").

He also said he spent an hour doing something the client "may" want...... and out of desperation...

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Richard W wrote:P.S. Of course I don't do this just because I want to log more time.

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And therein lies the difference.

[feed_my_eyes]

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Carlos L wrote:

Petra, I'm talking of serious jobs, of course you can make three jobs a day paying USD 5 each, just like me or any other. It's the first job I've five hours logged in so I was wondering the things mentioned above, I've other activities anyway so to work a couple hour each day is not bad at all.

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I normally work on 3-6 projects at a time, and I've never done a $5 job in my life. It has very rarely happened that two clients contact me at the exact same time and need something back at the exact same time. (Obviously clients want you to be responsive and get their work done in a timely manner, but they're not going to die if they have to wait a few hours or even until the next day - I'm a graphic designer, not an ER doctor.) Normally what happens is that I do a portion of a project and send it to client A to review, and while I'm waiting to hear back from them, I work for client B or C. I certainly don't sit around fretting and waiting for client A to get back to me, worried that they won't pay me enough to meet my needs.

[moonraker]

I did work for 5 clients this week. And I don't do $5 jobs.