Is it worth it for a starting freelancer to spend his personal time on a client?

Question

Freelance

Hi everyone again.
The situation is this.
I started throwing myself on Upwork and of course a banal topic. Empty account, that's all. I threw my simple suitcase.
You have to develop somehow.
I respond to interesting projects and often come to contact with the customer. Where the customer asks me all the questions he needs. You have to delve into his project and make some sketches. Then he shows interest. But as I see it, they don’t really burn to go to payment and hiring. Tolley is a local bred, or that's how freelancing works.
Well, I'll describe everything as it happens.
The customer wanted a website, a blog for a company, for example. He starts sending me similar blogs or describes everything as he wanted to see. And he says if you can do this, I answer yes. He asks to show him in more detail what I will do. Well, I have to throw in sketches, deploy wordpress, let's say the same one and somehow presentably show it to him, here I am and that's how I can. I'm not just saying what I can. And customers on this note are so interested that they are ready to communicate every goddamn hour. But when I ask the customer to agree on a contract to continue my work. He says everything is fine. And is lost.
Here's the situation...
After spending about 20 days, I sat sketching and dancing to these tunes.
What do you think about this ? Is it worth it to tear your ass for them? To snatch this order? Or you need to clearly and clearly make it clear verbally that I have a portfolio, look there and I can make this order. And don't make any sketches.

Answer 1

Think about everything that you do for each customer into a general concept and first make your plan for working with clients and put it on one page.
When you talk to a client - write about what is at stake according to your estimates and give a link to the page - all work goes in this way.
A client who wants to work with you will work. Help him with this, delegate my explanations to the site - the client will get acquainted and ask the right questions. When something is not clear to him, try to answer these questions to the client and update your description of the work order.
If the client does not want to work with you, but wants to think about / estimate / get a design for free, it is better to find out about this in advance.
You cannot work for free - once and for all approve this for yourself and do not work with such people.
If it is difficult for a person to read what you have stated in advance for him in an understandable form to save your joint time, you will have problems with him further, this person does not respect either yours or his time.
Go ahead, and don't just do layouts for everyone. Good luck.

Answer 2

Yes, it works everywhere.
By the way, I need a website, I'm looking for an artist. You bribed me with the fact that you can immediately answer all my questions and make sketches. Let's help me?
It's one thing when you present your services, it's another thing when you work for free.
Usually I delve into the order, and if it is interesting, then I communicate with the customer and show the vector of work. As a rule, this is enough. Sometimes it happens that people are interested in testing knowledge in practice - and money is already being paid for such a test.

Answer 3

This is normal, as they say, the first customers will go and everything will become easier.

Answer 4

With a lot of competition in this market, this will continue. Even worse.

Answer 5

Where the customer asks me all the questions he needs. You have to delve into his project and make some sketches. Then he shows interest. But as I see it, they don’t really burn to go to payment and hiring. Tolley is a local bred, or so freelancing works.

You have an extremely low opinion about the complexity of your work - if the customer is like this, just sketches can be enough.

• Most customers - yes, they themselves do not know what they want and merge at the stage of discussion.
  
• They are not talking to you alone. You just weren't chosen.
  

Answer 6

Personal experience: before you start looking for interesting projects, you need to take a few small fixed-price orders ($50-100), and work them out with high quality - the profile will not be empty, decent clients will stop ignoring it.
At the stage of preparation for the transaction, the contractor should ask questions, not the customer. This allows the contractor to better assess the complexity and adjust the price before the start of work, the customer - the contractor's sanity.
Work should begin after the conclusion of the transaction. Discussion of the project - as much as you like (within reasonable limits), sketches - for a fee.

Answer 7

But what if the profile itself is not the best yet?

First, you should choose a narrow niche (“making websites” is not a narrow niche) and learn how to filter out strange customers - payment not verified, China, India, Russia, low rating, 0 orders, “do it I don’t know what”, etc. Then we look for small specific orders (as they already said $50-100) where something needs to be corrected or something small needs to be done. The latter is even better because you can create a prototype in 3-4 hours and let the customer poke it - this will greatly increase the chances of hiring.