Nightmare Clients

In any creative business, you’re going to run into clients that are difficult to work with.

You’ve got handfuls of clients and most of them are awesome! But there are a few that give you headaches and make your life difficult.

They don’t value your work, they have wild expectations, and they don’t respect your time.

Keep reading to learn how to deal with difficult clients and how to screen your potential clients.

First, you need to pinpoint exactly what you find difficult about this client. Are they micromanaging? Are they asking for constant revisions? Are they trying to increase the scope of work?

Once you pinpoint the issue you can address it. Communication is going to be huge.

If they are micromanaging, you need to communicate that you work best when you’re given more creative freedom to do the work. You’re the professional here, you have industry experience, and you want to deliver the best work possible, but you feel hindered when your decisions are questioned. Just let the client know this, and see how they respond.

If there’s a client constantly changing the scope try this one: “The previous project was outside of the scope that we usually do. For future projects with similar scope, we’ll be charging an extra 50% so that we can ensure that we deliver our best work”

Alternatively, you can just raise your rates without this justification.

Consider raising your rates using this line: “Since our last project we have had a lot of new clients come in and that was driven our rates up so that we can continue to do the best work possible”

Raising your prices is a great option since it might filter out those clients without you having to fire them, or it will give you more income for the work that you do. It’s a win-win.

Finally, you can do everything right and the client just won’t be happy. My company has procedures to follow to ensure clients are happy. We have onboarding forms, create mood boards, and have prep calls to make sure we’re in agreement going into the shoot. This week we faced some pushback on some of our assets, but from our end there was nothing we could do to make this client happy. This happens and it’s best to be professional, recognize the situation for what it is, and move on to the next project.