A cautionary tale for freelancers:
One of my Email Players subscribers (who asked I not name him — although if you know him, I suspect you will see him talking about this soon… if he hasn’t already) wrote some email sequences for a Chinese eCommerce brand purely on commission. He did a great job, increased sales over what they were doing by $100k, and had all the analytics for the 3 months they tested his emails.
In fact, the client admitted he whipped the pants off 6 other agencies who they’d hired prior.
And the deal was, he’d get paid 30% of the increased revenue over what they were doing.
So, in this case, $30k was owed to my Email Players subscriber.
But when it came time to pony up the green stuff?
The clients acted shocked at his invoice. Then they tried negotiating with him with a trick straight out of the low class jackass client playbook. In this case, they wanted to nullify the $30k invoice in exchange for access to 3 massive eCommerce brands the client would personally guarantee my Email Players subscriber would get more copywriting work from.
The answer was, of course, no.
After which the Chinese client asked if there was any way he could compromise, etc.
I suspect you get the gist of where this is going.
Last I checked (about a week ago) he still had not gotten paid. And it is one of many reasons why if you’re a freelancer getting courted by a would-be client from a corner of the world where you have no real legal or other recourse or options to go after them if they turn out to be a bum client like the one above… then get paid 100% up front.
Not just half up front.
But all of it.
If they balk?
There’s plenty of clients in the copywriting sea.
Personally, I always found that a good rule of thumb when doing business with anyone in a jurisdiction where you can’t really go after them for owed money. And, believe it or not, it’s something a few copywriters I know do even with clients in their own countries/jurisdictions.
Even better:
Sell your own offers and be your own client.
You are the one client you can always count on not to leave, forsake, or screw you over.
Something much simpler to do if you have a list and mail it each day.
Especially if you follow and use my paid Email Players newsletter:
Ben Settle
