I just fired a freelancer — Here are the mistakes he made
I like doing things myself, including building my websites. I self-taught building a website from scratch on a self-hosting server. You might laugh that it’s such a simple thing to do, but for an ex-Wix user this is a great achievement for me.
However, I don’t want to tap into the unknown field of customization so I found a freelance web developer to do the job. I got recommendation from the theme development company, I hired this guy without a second thought.
The first cooperation was good. I paid him upfront and he did the job. Then things changed. Maybe I’m too good that he thought he could put my job request in the back burner while I’m probably the only person paying upfront. He hadn’t delivered the job after two weeks. Not even a update. I have no other choice but to request paypal for my money back, that’s when he showed up again.
He made several fatal mistakes that can easily ruin his whole career. I think it’s a lesson for anyone who wants to run a sustainable freelance business to know what NOT to do.
- Take good customers for granted
Any customer, no matter how easygoing he may seem, will not tolerate late delivery or no delivery. When you break your promised delivery time you can explain it before it’s too late, but let your customer run after you for a update is the worst thing to do. You have to treat any customer like a first-time. When you fail the trust you’ll lose the customer FOREVER. - Put fiverr jobs before your private customers
It turns out that this guy was busy with some fiverr orders, and he puts priority on them. I paid him upfront and I waited 2 weeks for nothing. It’s the most stupid thing you can do to a customer. - Ignore your after-sales service
If he’d explained to me that he had some personal issues to deal with and needed to postpone the delivery, I would have agreed.
But he didn’t.
No update, no explanation. He thought that I won’t look for someone else and would wait for his earliest convenience like an idiot. Hell no — I was giving him a chance but he flunked.
While I couldn’t give him bad review with one star, I simply wrote to the company that recommended him and asked them not to recommend him to other customers in order to avoid that I have been through. I also wrote an article on my blog with his contact details so others will re-consider hiring him. He has more to lose, and I believe he’s lost much more than he thought, not only to my planned order that worth a few thousand bucks.
He lost not only me as a customer, but a few more future customers and his reputation. He lost his best chance to work as an independent freelancer.
Go ahead with your luck on fiverr gigs forever.
