How can you make more money as a freelance designer? By maximizing your billable time. How can you maximize your billable time? By streamlining the time you put into talking with prospective clients and shaving off time wasted on false starts.

Don't Give Away the Farm

Until you get a down-payment, don't do any free consulting. Some people try to get as much information out of your as they possibly can without paying, stringing you along with the possibility of new work until they've got as much out of you as they can for free. If you have a no SPEC work policy that should include consulting. Unless you're hired, where's the fire?

Use Canned Answers

Who says canned can't be fresh? When courting new clients you'll probably get sick and tired of answering the same questions over and over again - oftentimes without landing any work. It's a good idea to develop some canned responses to answer questions you know new clients typically ask. Put some real thought into your responses and make sure your brand characteristics bubble to the top. Obviously, you don't want to go overboard with canned responses - if something requires a real, customized response, then give one. Gmail has a nice canned response feature that can make it easier for you than having to cut and paste a canned response from another document.

Develop a FAQ Section

Think FAQs only make sense if used by large businesses? Think again. Even a one person freelance business can benefit greatly from a well developed FAQ section. The more questions you can answer for your potential customers before they have to contact you the better because you will be able to save some additional time for billing.

Clarify, Clarify, Clarify

If you are not sure about something - ask! If you and your new customer aren't on the same page before you even begin a project, it'll only get worse as time goes on. The smallest mis-communication in the beginning can turn into an ugly break-up later on. It's your job to educate the client about your specific process. Don't get stuck building a website for a certain platform only to find out that, oops, the client was expecting to use another.