I’m always excited when I receive emails from potential clients who have found me online (generally via lawfirmblogger.com) and want to know if I’ll write/blog for them. But the really amusing ones are the emails that end with the question “What’s the lowest rate you’ll accept?”

Keep in mind, folks, I write primarily for lawyers. Granted, most of my clients are small firms (large firms generally have full-time on-site writers), but I’d easily say most of these folks are bringing in at least a few million each year. And yet, many of them haven’t grasped that saying of “you get what you pay for.”

It’s been my experience that my potential client base is divided into three major types:

1) Lawyers who already have established blogs and just don’t have time to keep up with the writing. These folks don’t always “get” blogging, but they do understand that writing a post (if they want a well-written, accurately researched post) takes time and skill. These tend to be the best paying clients but often the most time-consuming, because they want to be involved.

2) Lawers who have no blog set up, but they have a website and have consulted with a buddy or an SEO guy who’s told them a blog will help them reach prospective clients. These folks generally have no clue how blogging works and don’t care. They tend not to want to pay me what I’m worth until I describe to them how good I am at what I do (e.g., how many new clients I’ve gotten for their competitors) and what goes into the work.

3) Lawyers who have no clue and are too cheap to buy one. The last third accounts for the group I like to call the dreamers. These are the guys who have been paying several dollars per pay-per-click Adsense ad, and they’ve seen a few really bad law firm blogs (wherein each post consists of a quote from a news story with a link and sometimes a picture ripped off through a ten-second Google Image search). They’ve probably heard rumor that folks in third world countries write for fractions of pennies a day, so they feel they can hold their egos high by offering me $3 per post. When questioned (e.g. “Was that a typo?”) they respond by assuring me it will be a good amount of regular work (e.g. “You’ll be writing 25 posts a day for 4 blogs! That’s $300 per day!”). When I tell politely decline, sometimes citing the dangers of carpal tunnel depending on what kind of mood I’m in and how pompous they are, they seem genuinely baffled.

It doesn’t take a law degree to realize that those who email with a query, no matter how professionally thorough, ended with the question “What’s the lowest rate you’ll accept?” don’t care as much about their businesses as they’d like the world to think they do. While this sort of email used to make me angry, because I used to feel like these folks were insulting me, I’ve learned to laugh. Requests such as these aren’t a reflection of me or my work; they’re direct reflections of the ignorances and audacities of the person making the request.

As freelancers, we’re often faced with folks I like to call job-hazards. As writers, we have jobs because there are a lot of people out there who can’t write, hate to write, don’t want to write, don’t have time to write, and don’t understand what it’s like to be a writer. These (and other job hazards) make amusing stories to boost our own morales during a coffee break, but they’re not bringing in our big bucks. Learning to spot the red flags potential (loser) clients wave right below your nose, often as soon as the introduction, can truly save you a lot of time and money.

Aside from the bozo question of how little money you’ll work for, other red flags that come to my mind are:

1) Pompous or know-it-all attitude.

2) Bad communication skills or expects you to read his mind. (Doesn’t know what he wants but expects you to.)

3) Doesn’t accept responsibility; blames you for things that aren’t in your control.

4) Thinks there are more than 24 hours in a day, or doesn’t respect your boundaries. (I have a former client who used to leave me voicemails in the middle of the night, then follow up with an email at dawn asking me why I hadn’t returned his call.)

5) Treats you like a robot rather than a person.

So now, fellow writers, I’d love to know — what red flags do you look for in potential clients?