10 Ways To Make Your Freelance Business Fail

While there are ample materials written for the freelancer who wants to succeed, there seems to bevirtually nothing written for the freelancer who wants his or her freelance business to fail.

If you’ve ever thought to yourself this business would be perfect if it weren’t for all of my clients, then this post is for you. We’ll give you a list of tactics that will drive those pesky clients away and quickly lead to your ultimate goal: freelancing failure.

Here are ten easy ways to fail at freelancing with hardly any effort:

• Take deadlines as a loose suggestion. If you can meet a deadline, great. If not, well don’t sweat it. You’ve heard of the saying “fashionably late?” Well, when it comes to freelance failure that saying applies to projects too.
• Take your time when replying to clients. Why reply today when you could reply tomorrow? Keeping them waiting is one of the best ways to fail. The longer the wait, the better your chances of scaring them away.
• Don’t answer your phone either. There could be a client or potential client on the other end of that line. You have better things to do with your time than talk to a client. Let it ring! Best of all, don’t invest in an answering machine or any kind of voicemail system, that way you’ll never even have to get back to them.
• Don’t deliver what the client wants. You’re probably smarter than your client and your taste is probably better than theirs too. When your desires conflict with the client’s wants, choose to do what you want to do. You’ll be happier, and they’ll get a better project.
• Let your emotions out, all of them. If you’re mad at a client, let them know about it. There’s no sense in letting all that anger build up inside you where it could possibly spoil your day. Why not let it spoil your client’s day instead?
• Run errands. If you work at home, you’re probably surrounded by household tasks that need doing. Why not take a break from work and do them? After all, your priorities are at least as important as the priorities of your clients, right?
• Fast track your failure with video games. Video games are awesome if you’re trying to fail at freelancing. You can spend hours, even days, playing video games instead of working on your projects.
• Get wrapped up in daytime television. You’ve probably heard people say that “there’s nothing on during the day.” Well, they’re wrong. Turn your television set on and you’ll quickly discover that there are programs that air during the day.
• Take up a hobby. Be sure to choose one that has nothing at all to do with your freelancing business. Devote as much time as possible to your hobby –even time that you would normally reserve for client work.
• You have a bed, use it. Don’t bother to get up in the morning. In fact, if you don’t feel like it, don’t get up at all. When you’re trying to fail your rest is much more important than your freelancing business.

All right, nobody really wants your freelance business to fail.

However, we freelancers sometimes behave as though we want our business to fail without realizing it. Recognizing and eliminating these failure-causing behaviors can actually help you find freelancing success.

Did you recognize yourself in any of these failure tips, even a little bit?