Ask FreelanceSwitch #19: Cold Call Email, Virtual Staff Work Woes

In this issue of Ask FreelanceSwitch, Travis King and Thursday Bram look at tracking emails and agency headaches.

Ask FreelanceSwitch is a regular column here that allows us to help beginners get a grip on freelancing. If you have a question about freelancing that you want answered, send an email to askfreelanceswitch@gmail.com.

You know you want to click…

Question #1

I love the blog and have a question I’ve never seen discussed anywhere.
I send a lot of cold call email with a link to my website and information about my services. This hasn’t been going very well (and there are plenty of reasons why), and I want to know if and when these emails are getting read at all. I can use my email client to request a return receipt, but I’m not really sure what the etiquette is regarding return receipts. What do you think (and what good alternatives might there be)?
-Mark

Thursday: Many email providers disable return receipts by default and many of the services that do effectively create return receipts prompt the recipient to actually click through, turning it into an intrusive process. Since you are sending these emails cold, I’d recommend against anything that could be seen as intrusive, simply because you’re already fighting an uphill battle. Unfortunately, I don’t think the information that you would get from return receipts would surprise you, either.

I know that, personally, I get at least five or six cold emails each week — and I’m a freelancer. I can’t imagine how many such emails a large company might get. I delete cold emails unread in most cases. I don’t have time to handle such situations in any other way. If I had more time, I might at least read cold emails, but in a busy schedule they’re fairly easy to ignore. While I realize the question at hand focuses on return receipts, it may be worth exploring other options — at least how you might warm up your email recipients so that they’d open your email.

Travis: I’ll be straight with you Mark, email receipts are the Devil. If you send me an email and it pops up that the sender is asking for a receipt…you better hope we don’t meet in a dark alley someday. I’m a patient and incredibly suave person, but that kind of stuff gets on my nerves.

Maybe a better question to ask is why you want to know if the client has opened your emails. If you’re worried about clients not getting back to you after you send a quote, then I suggest you either personally call the client after a few days of sending the quote, or you get over it and move on. While freelancers consider the disappearing client to be rather rude, to be honest, clients won’t think twice about deleting the quote you spent three hours working on.

As a freelancer gains more client experience you learn which clients are worth spending time on and which ones you can blow off with a quick and dirty quote. Don’t feel bad about it because I guarantee the client doesn’t lose any sleep over not getting back to you.

Question #2

Hello, just call me Philosophy Girl. I recently had a stint with a agency that employs virtual staff. Anyway, according to the client, she can no longer afford my rate which was the rate but according to the agency. The client is complaining about my productivity and that I do not give her good work (although the client says they’re satisfied).

I mean I am supposed to be protected by the agency, right? But as it is, they are siding with the client. What do you suggest I do?

-Philosophy Girl

Thursday: Unfortunately, a lot of companies that sub-contract are inclined to side with clients (after all, you aren’t sending money their way — only the client is). If you’re also based in Australia, you may be able to report the situation through the Fair Work Tribunal but don’t be surprised if they decide that since you’re a contractor, you don’t have any basis for complaint. You should be paid for the contracted time, but the overtime may be difficult to get, simply because the staffing company did not approve it in advance. Since your contract is with the staffing agency, arranging for overtime and the like should generally go through them.

I’m afraid that there isn’t a lot of great advice I can give you. You can keep other virtual assistants from getting burned by this client and staffing agency in the future by sharing information on the various networks and forums that offer an opportunity to warn your fellow contractors off of a particular situation — but keep it strictly factual, and don’t include any opinion (there are legal ramifications and you don’t want to open yourself up to a lawsuit). But since your contract doesn’t cover disputed hours and your client is telling the staffing agency something entirely different, you’re in an incredibly difficult situation.

Travis: I’d find a new agency to work for, Philosophy Girl. You’re getting yanked around and it’s probably time to tell that company to pound sand. I don’t know if the phrase “pound sand” is completely offensive or not, so I just asked a couple of Envato English blokes and they seemed to think it was OK.

The sad truth is, some agencies like to play freelancer bumper cars and bounce the freelancer between themselves and the client. They do this to negotiate a better rate or to completely avoid paying you. It sucks, I know.

You can try and work out a new agreement and salvage the relationship, but it may be a wasted effort.
I just asked the English blokes again and they said to tell the agency to go “sling their hook.”

Oh those crazy English.

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