Contractor's Guide to Managing Multiple Clients

Are you struggling to keep up with your workload and satisfy your client's demands? Do you find it challenging to juggle multiple client projects while maintaining high-quality work and avoiding burnout? 

Managing client relationships, mitigating compliance risks, ensuring a steady workflow, and getting paid on time can be overwhelming. But worry not, this article is here to offer you expert advice, tools, and techniques to help you manage your workload effectively while maintaining positive relationships with your clients. So, sit back, relax, and let's dive in.

Why work with multiple clients?

Engaging multiple different clients offers several advantages:

• Increased earning potential: It increases your earning potential by providing more opportunities to generate income from multiple clients
• Risk distribution: It helps distribute risk and creates more stability, like diversifying investments in a portfolio, reducing exposure to financial setbacks if a client goes aloof
• Expanded network: Having a varied clientele enables you to build a wide-ranging network and potentially secure future collaborations. Consistently delivering high-quality work to multiple clients enhances your reputation in the professional community
• Enhanced skill set: Diversifying your clients also enhances your skills, making you more adaptable, knowledgeable, and attractive to potential employers or partners
• Empowered working: It strengthens your negotiation leverage, enabling you to confidently negotiate terms, rates, and conditions with multiple income sources, highlighting your demand and granting you the freedom to choose projects aligned with your interests or values rather than purely for financial necessity

What challenges can you expect?

However, managing multiple clients also comes with several challenges: 

*Time management: Proper time management is crucial when handling multiple clients, as it involves tracking tasks, deadlines, and meetings for each client, ensuring personal organization to avoid becoming overwhelmed *Compromised work-life balance: There's a risk of burnout when juggling numerous projects, potentially leading to extended work hours and declining work quality, affecting your professional reputation. Clear communication and managing client expectations are vital to prevent overpromising and underdelivering, as each client naturally considers their project a top priority *Compliance concerns: Dealing with multiple contracts, particularly with international clients, may raise contractual concerns and constraints, such as varying contractor terms, classification criteria, and labor laws, leading to misunderstandings and legal disputes among clients. Being aware of and prepared for these constraints is essential to balancing commitments and maintaining strong client relationships

With the advantages and challenges considered, it's time to delve into how you can manage multiple clients as a contractor.

1. Use a contract generator for compliant contractor agreements

When dealing with multiple clients, the first step is to outline the work arrangement clearly and protect your interests by signing a contractor agreement. When engaging with clients across countries and jurisdictions, it's important to establish which country's judicial and court system will handle any disputes, ensure the contract aligns with any local laws that apply to you, and set out important details such as: 

• Scope of the work
• Time requirements 
• Price, payment method, and currency of payment
• Confidentiality
• Intellectual property
• Use of equipment
• Exclusivity
• Conflicts of interest 
• Liability and indemnity
• Dispute resolution mechanisms
• Governing law and jurisdiction

2. Implement project management software from the get-go

Things can get disorganized even with just a few clients on the go. It's a good idea to bring your workload into a project management system to give you a holistic view of all your work activities in a single platform.

Project management tools, such as Jira, Trello, and Hive, can aid in managing and prioritizing tasks and deadlines based on urgency and importance, scheduling techniques to ensure balanced attention to all client needs, and communication channels for collaboration, communication, and feedback.

3. Set expectations, and don’t be afraid to say no (but don’t be afraid to say yes, either)

When taking on multiple clients, knowing how much work you can handle and when you might be overcommitting is important. Set clear expectations and realistic timelines with your clients and practice declining additional work while nurturing the potential for future engagement. Don't be afraid to propose far-in-the-future deadlines or ask if their timeline is flexible. If they like your work, they'll wait.

In the freelancing world, it's not uncommon for clients to chase your tale one minute and then give you radio silence the next, so don't turn down new client opportunities on the premise that an existing client might "get back to you at any moment." 

If a client experiences hold-ups or decides to hit pause on their end, you don't want to be left with large gaps in your workload and pay. Keep the work flowing, and if you have concerns that a client relationship has gone cold, reach out for feedback. It takes seconds to ping out a feedback or pulse survey and will give you valuable insights.

4. Keep everyone in the loop, always

A large portion of your time as a contractor will be spent communicating back and forth with your clients (make sure you bill for it). And just like when a client goes quiet on you, and you're left wondering what might have gone wrong, your client also starts worrying when things will get done when you go quiet. You can easily resolve this uncertainty with consistent and transparent communication. 

Here are a few tips to ensure you’re keeping everyone in the loop: 

• Schedule weekly roundups: Whether your client asks for it or not, providing them with a weekly roundup on a Friday afternoon on what has been completed, what’s coming up next, and your availability to answer questions will always be a pleasant surprise
• Explore alternative forms of communication: Video recording tools like Loom are a great way to give a client what feels like your undivided attention but at a time that suits you. Rather than jumping on a call every time you want to share project progress or ideas, record a quick video with screen share and send them the link so they can respond on their own terms
• Don’t shy away from instant forms of communication: It’s a common excuse to hear contractors (particularly those in more traditional industries) disregard instant messaging apps in favor of email because they “don’t want their clients on their backs”. The problem is that email is inefficient, it’s easy for things to get buried, and it can leave you and your clients in the dark for longer than necessary

With instant messaging tools like Google Chat, Slack, or Microsoft Teams, it’s easier to engage in discussions, collaborate on multiple projects for the same client, and keep an organized communication trail. This doesn't mean you need to reply instantly. Simply reacting with a check ✅ is a quick and easy way to confirm receipt or acknowledge someone's request while building trust.

5. Automate invoicing and payment withdrawals

Getting paid is always a nice prospect, but when juggling multiple clients with varying payment rates, methods, and schedules, asking for and receiving payment can quickly become a job in itself.

Accounting software offers invoice templates and generators to streamline and automate your invoicing process. Numerous payment methods are also available to contractors, offering fast, affordable, and convenient payment from local and international clients.

See also: Best Payment Methods for Independent Contractors in 2024.

6. Simplify tax management and record-keeping

Ahhhh, every contractor's favorite pastime… taxes. 

Hopefully, by now, you've opened a business bank account to clearly differentiate between your work and personal finances when tax season rolls around. But have you also safely stored all your invoices, tax forms, and receipts so that you can accurately report your income, deductions, and credits, avoid missing deadlines, respond to inquiries or audits from tax authorities, and conduct good financial planning for the year ahead? Nope, me neither.

When managing multiple clients, the administrative burden during tax season can be time-consuming and stressful, so using accounting and bookkeeping software that securely collects and stores these records for all your clients in one central location or hiring a tax advisor to do it for you will save you a considerable amount of time and energy.

Manage multiple clients with Deel

Many contractors today opt into work arrangements with clients using the HR, compliance, and payments platform Deel to manage the working relationship. They prefer this arrangement as it allows for compliant work contracts, automated invoicing, faster payments, flexible payment methods, fewer fees, advanced payments, and access to the same benefits and perks as employees, all from a single platform.

If you would like to manage your client relationships better, sign up to Deel and unlock the smoothest contractor experience on the planet.