There are just those times when a client’s going to kill a job. You’re bumping along, doing your thing, and poof! It’s gone. If you’re subcontracted, perhaps their client can’t make up their mind; if you’re contracted, maybe the plan keeps changing; maybe your ex-wife is now the company’s CEO; maybe your work style doesn’t jive; maybe your work just sucks. There are any number of reasons a job is killed, and if you haven’t had it happen to you yet, you will.
Kenny Rogers sang a lot of wisdom in his song, “The Gambler”; unfortunately, freelancers, we don’t heed it.
Whether your work is called into question or the job is killed under mysterious circumstances, you have every right to ask why—and offer to revise the work, if it’s the former—but your client is under no obligation to respond. Should the client ask you for an explanation, consider this your only opportunity to respond. Do not jaw on, do not send multiple emails “defending” yourself, do not belabor the point that they are obviously stupid, and that you are a genius.
Sometimes, genius is in the eye of the one who signs the check.
And if they still come back and say, “we’ve decided to go in a different direction,” let it go. Do not act like a 13-year-old who has lost their first boyfriend or girlfriend. I’ve known freelancers who lose a contract or a job, and they harass their contact via telephone, email, text, demanding an explanation; I ask you, for what purpose? If they gave you an opportunity to explain and they still went the way they did, walk away. They’ve made their decision; if you’re still harassing them, they’re probably thinking it was a wise one.
What I do recommend, however, is that you include a kill fee in your contract. For small jobs, it should at least cover your time, but be reasonable and honest—do not inflate this number. Don’t try to scam the client into paying almost the total price because they killed the job; in fact, they have every right to ask for an accounting of the hours, so inflating the numbers will make you look even worse.
If the job or contract was sizable, your kill fee should be a percentage of the total price, corresponding to how far into the job you worked. If you hit one milestone and were close to hitting another, you may want to add a line in your kill-fee clause that accounts for this; perhaps some sort of hybrid that combines milestones and time spent for any unpaid deliverable, with the understanding that the unpaid deliverable will be provided to the client incomplete. At that point, your client has a choice; they may ask you to finish the deliverable (not necessarily the entire project), in which case you should be paid in full to do so.
Kill fees help cushion the financial blow, but keep them fair and reasonable for both parties. Make sure you review your contract, particularly this portion, with your client in advance of them signing, too.
When a job is killed, all you can do is offer your professional opinion—so now it’s time to exit like one. There will be other jobs, and there will be time for accounting . . . when the dealing’s done.