I have to start this post by explaining that I've been very fortunate. I have had very little experience with bad clients during the time that I've had my own business. Perhaps this is because I am very cautious about who I will accept as a client.
(However, if you have had a bad client experience, why not get it off your chest now? Why not describe your experience in the comments so that we can all share your pain and learn from it?)
Not everyone is as fortunate as I've been. This post at FreelanceSwitch, where a freelancer's payment was reversed out of her PayPal account AFTER she delivered the work, makes it very clear that bad clients are out there.
It's this post, and other client horror stories that I've read, that made me decide to do a post on bad clients. There are three steps to keeping bad clients away from your business: 
- Step 1 - decide what a bad client is
- Step 2 - identify bad clients
- Step 3 - stop working for bad clients
In many ways the Internet business slogan might need to be: seller beware.
From my perspective, a bad client is a client that exhibits one, or all, of the following traits:
- There are problems with the client's payment. Either, it is late, or doesn't come at all.
- The client asks for a substantial discount on projects.
- The client keeps lowering the amount that they are willing to pay for projects.
- The client has an extremely tight timeframe, or asks that his or her work is put ahead of other client's work.
- The client can't describe what he or she wants and/or can't make up their mind whether work performed is acceptable.
- The client returns something that they obviously used and demands a refund.
Do you have any other criteria for bad clients?
Step 2: Identifying Bad Clients
I found a number of posts, from various industries, on how to identify a bad client. Since I know that the readers here own a variety of business types, I thought it was appropriate to share all of them. Some are humorous. Others are not so funny. Here's what I found:
- From {codesqueeze}, 25 Signs That You’ve Got a Bad Client
- From CharfishDesign, Ways You Can Recognize The Client From Hell
- From FreelanceSwitch, How Do You Know You're Working With A Bad Client?
- From The More Clients Blog, Avoiding Bad Clients
Step 3: Getting Rid of a Bad Client
It's too late! You find that you already have a bad client. What to do now?
Well, the blogosphere has some advice for that situation too:
- From Stuntdubl.com, Breaking Up with Bad Clients: It's Not You...It's Me
- From Bootstrapper, How to: 'Fire' Your Bad Clients, Make More Money and Restore Your Sanity
Clearly, working with bad clients is a hazard of owning your own business.
What about you? Have you had an experience with a bad client? Do you have your own criteria for recognizing bad clients?
Leave a comment and let us know.
Ad agencies and design firms always got lots of pitch invites. So did we. We were disappointed when we didn't emerge victorious but that's OK, may the best win. We were appalled when the winning entry was way off the mark by any marketing, creative or writing standard. That happened not just once or twice but several. We learned fast. We were invited simply because the client's office needs 3 or more proposals to meet company's policy. No matter how good our proposals were, we would not be selected, period. That's when I made 2 decisions. First, not to work with these clients. Second, not to submit any pitch or speculative proposal from private organisation.
Much as the client needs to interview us to assess us, we should do the same to protect ourselves and to ensure a fruitful working relationship.
Posted by: Vivienne Quek | February 22, 2008 9:39 PM | Permalink to Comment