No matter how you bill, there are always going to be pathological people to work with.
When you run into the "incessant stream of bogus requests" pathology, ask yourself:
"Does this person represent a business that can afford to pay serious market rates, and does this person have the juice inside the company to make real decisions?"
If so: raise your rates and change your packaging so that you're capturing some of the value they're asking for. The "incessant stream of requests" phenomenon is why there are retainer arrangements.
If not: jettison the client. Say no more. Say yes less.
It all seems to come down to this. Your pipeline must be strong, all the time. When it is, you can say no more and say yes less, and still have a steady stream of good work for good clients.
So the real key is, how do you keep your pipeline that robust? Can you offer some pointers about that?
Whoah. No. It's the opposite. The shittier your projects, the lower your rate, the more aggressive you have to be with your pipeline, for obvious mathematical reasons.
Ohhhh! (Light bulb). So you're saying, make your rate very high, which will weed out all but the best projects. Then, be willing to only work half the year (if necessary), but your rate will be high enough to cover it. Is that right?
When you run into the "incessant stream of bogus requests" pathology, ask yourself:
"Does this person represent a business that can afford to pay serious market rates, and does this person have the juice inside the company to make real decisions?"
If so: raise your rates and change your packaging so that you're capturing some of the value they're asking for. The "incessant stream of requests" phenomenon is why there are retainer arrangements.
If not: jettison the client. Say no more. Say yes less.