Just like how your prospects screen you based on your portfolio, testimonials and what not before contacting you to ask for your rate, I’m saying that you should screen and pre-qualify your prospects as well. Unless you don’t mind working with a client from hell, doing reshoots, struggling to get paid for your work amongst other horrible things that come together with working in Hell, then you don’t need to read on!
It may sound mind boggling that you should choose your clients wisely when you are struggling to get booked for jobs but trust me working with a nightmarish client is not the best way to earn $$$ because it thins out your soul, makes you question your self worth and all that you stand for and just does your head in!
Struggling to get booked for jobs has nothing to do with pre-qualifying and turning down highly potential nightmarish prospects, that’s a marketing issue that you have there and we will talk about how to combat that in a future post.
I’ve a couple of stories to tell having been in Hell myself and each time I managed to crawl out of it alive, I write it all down into my pre-assessment guide for prospects (free download below) so that I can avoid being on first name basis with Lucifer.
It has a list of must ask questions that you pose to your prospects so that you can avoid them like the plague if any answers or non answers that you get give you the chills and your gut says to Run for it!
I love running through some of these questions via email and some via phone because sometimes instant feedback or their hesitation via phone can tell you so much more than the written word. But I do know that there are times where we just can’t get our prospects on the phone or maybe some of us are more comfortable with text and emails so execute these questions whichever way works for you. You may not be asking all these questions as your prospects may have already told you the information but from my experience, a bulk of the questions have to be asked because no way are you getting those answers without asking them!