Types of clients to avoid

148: Be aware of the types of potential clients and learn how to avoid working with them.

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I was one of those freelancers who tend to accept jobs just to "fill a gap" in my schedule. Even when I was making a lot of money, I always had that feeling that I was not working enough.

I felt that there was always more I could do. And the more I will do, the more significant success will be.

That extra time that I had, I was spending on working with all the possible projects. The intention was to make more money. "Because the harder you work, the more you get" - that's what I thought.

All of that hard work led me to burnout and depression. All because I was taking any jobs and any clients to make some extra money.

As I reflected on those hard times, I realized that the "extra time" I had would better be spent networking to find an ideal client instead of dealing with the headache that problematic clients will bring.

From my experience, I have identified a few types of clients I won't work with for all the money in the world. Many folks I've talked to experienced those types of clients, too.

With this article, I want you to be aware of the types of potential clients out there and learn how to avoid working with them.

Because peace of mind is not worth all the money in the world.

Types of clients to avoid

1. Cheap

2. Poor communicators

3. Disrespectful

4. Self-proclaimed "experts"

5. Clueless

6. Workaholics

7. Gut feelings

Cheap

The first and most prominent type of potential clients.

Fortunately, these clients frequently identify themselves immediately when you start talking to them. However, there are a few signals that a potential client is cheap.

They will ask for a discount.

When you send out the quote for the project and get a response saying something like: "This project may lead to more future work or a long-term engagement, so can you make a discount?" do yourself a favor and run.

Even if you didn't communicate your value to the client yet – rates are rates. So if they want a discount right away, they shouldn't be looking to work with you in the first place.

Haggling

These are similar to "Asking for discount", but they can also ask for it AFTER the contract has been signed. That's the reason why freelance contracts are so important!

If a client tries to argue with you over the price of a completed task, refer to your contract to address things like scope changes (asking for more, even if it's a "little" ask), deadlines, deposit costs, and other pricing items that could be "haggled."

It's important to remind these clients that they signed a contract agreeing to your fees ahead of time, and they're not negotiable. Future incidents of "negotiating" may result in you terminating them as a client.

“Forgetting” to pay

Well, in this area you should be careful and do your own thinking. For example, a long-term client may forget to pay on occasion. So it's possible for accounting software to mess up or payroll to have some delay.

But when forgetting to pay becomes a recurring theme, or you have to constantly follow up on payments, consider simply saying goodbye to this client.

Poor communicators

Poor communication can destroy a project. I've experienced this quite a lot in my career. And for me, this is an essential skill that every freelancer should build.

Everything else can go well, teams can be functioning, tasks can be accomplished, but if communication consistently suffers from a client's oversights, it can make freelancing a frustrating experience.

Here are a few examples of clients with poor communication.

Unresponsive clients

I don't know if you experienced this, but it happened to me a few times, and in every scenario, it was a one-off project with that particular client.

You're on deadline. You do all the work and submit it to the client for review. But the client does not respond for a week. You're suddenly a week behind the deadline. Who pays for the delay?

Of course, life happens. There are situations in life when the client can't work with you on a given day or can't look at the work you've completed and provide feedback.

But communicating any changes is crucial. Whenever anything happens in your or your client's work or personal life, it should be immediately shared with the other party.

Having communication guidelines in your contracts is a way to avoid this. Typically, requiring a response within 24 business hours is standard practice.

Of course, if you will be unavailable for a few days because of a vacation or scheduled downtime, let your clients know (and they should do the same).

Ghosting

This is a dating metaphor, but it also applies to freelancing because there is no "closure" on the relationship or project. It's painful, however, if the client owes you money.

There are a few options for getting paid if the client ghosts you, but they all necessitate a firm contract, proof of completed work, and more effort on your part.

Clients with poor communication are always a risk of ghosting, so consider carefully who you engage with.

Feedback disasters

Some clients are simply bad communicators. Before you even begin working with these clients, you can typically determine who will be terrible at providing feedback.

When discussing their projects, they will often have a vague notion of what they want done, no precise instructions, and will use nondescript language like "make it pop" or "bring it to life." This is most likely due to a lack of clarity about what they want, likewise a nightmare for freelancers.

You'll be attempting to guess what a potential client wants and going through iteration after iteration until you eventually get it "correct."

Don't work with a client or potential client who appears to be flip-flopping, uncertain, lacks solid opinions, and is incapable of presenting a clear brief.

If the project's brief is about being abstract, or if you're being hired only for your own style, that's a very different story. Once you've had some practice, these behaviors will become second nature to you.

Meanwhile, one way to avoid these scenarios (that worked for me) is to guide the conversation yourself and provide clear options regarding your services. As a result, the scope is already defined.

Pro-tip: Avoid clients who have received negative feedback about themselves online. It's usually quite simple to get this information by doing a fast social media search or Googling their name.

Disrespectful

Perhaps, we won't have to go into too much detail regarding what constitutes disrespectful behavior.

You can usually detect when someone is rude to you, but here are some examples of disrespectful clients in case you need some context:

1. Missing meetings

2. Canceling last minute

3. Generally rude people

4. Putting you down or name-calling

When you're out on a date, you can typically tell what kind of person your date is by how they treat the waitstaff. It's the same when it comes to screening potential clients.

Take note of how they interact with you, the types of questions they ask, and their overall manner. New clients should be thrilled to be working with you and eager to get their projects up and running.

If they try to rush you off the conversation or keep rescheduling past the benefit of the doubt, they're usually not very polite clients, which suggests they don't appreciate your time as a service provider.

You may prevent potentially disrespectful clients by having a discovery call before agreeing to engage with someone. In your contract, you should also include a missed meeting cost or last-minute rescheduling fee, just like other service providers do if you cancel your hair or doctor appointment at the last minute.

Self-proclaimed "Experts"

There will always be folks who believe they are "experts" in everything. Because they think they know everything, these clients will continually micromanage you.

Sometimes a friendly reminder that you are the expert and were hired for your opinion will suffice, but other times it may be wise to exclude these clients from your freelance business because they will just take up too much time.

They don't trust you as an expert service provider if you have to justify every decision, and it's frustrating and rude.

Clueless

Working with clueless clients wastes a lot of time.

We're not talking about clients who hired you because they believe you'll do a good job. Instead, we're talking about clients that make illogical requests that necessitate a lot of babysitting.

A client, for example, asking a social media manager to "share this PDF on Instagram" is not only violating the social media strategy that was agreed upon in advance, but it is also an unrealistic request.

Because they don't comprehend what you were hired to do, these clients will also tend to micromanage their freelancers.

Avoid these clients by screening them during the discovery phase or inserting a "trial period" in your agreement that allows you to back out if the process isn't productive.

Workaholics

Unfortunately, we are all familiar with one.

Everything is "urgent" with these clients. There is no such thing as continuous engagement. Everything "should have been done yesterday" for this client, and it appears that no deadline is short enough.

Workaholic clients work around the clock and expect you to be available at all times. They may not "get" the notion of freelancing and may expect you to be available anytime they phone or message you just because they are online at the same time.

If you were looking for a regular job, the "work hard; play hard" tagline to define the business culture would be a red flag.

If you suspect you're dealing with a workaholic client, insert conditions in your contract outlining your available hours and the number of phone calls or meetings each client can have during your billing cycle with them. Extra calls will, of course, be charged, and you can inform your client of this when they make last-minute requests.

You can also charge a "rush" price for last-minute work or ask the client what they want you to reprioritize to complete the rushed job faster.

Gut feelings

If you don't get a good vibe from a client, it's probably for a good reason. Sometimes people simply don't give off a pleasant vibe, and it's OK to leave it at that. There is likely an underlying reason for your gut sense, but you may never discover what it is.

If their business model appears suspicious or you don't share their organization values, these are valid reasons to deny working with a specific client.

If this client has a negative reputation with someone else, you can be sure it will be the same with you.

Granted, you don't know both sides of the story, but if a freelancing buddy or insider advises you of any difficulties with a particular customer, don't dismiss it. They're probably attempting to help you.

All of this is to indicate that you should be careful about who you work with.

Accepting work from a single client allows you to choose where you spend your time working actively. So, if something about a project or a client appears to be off, you don't want to spend too much of your weekly billable hours dealing with annoyances.

Endnote

Alright, those were the types of freelance clients to avoid. As I mentioned, I've experienced working with all of the above in my career. And I hope this article will help you identify those clients from a far enough distance so you won't have to deal with such troubles in your freelance business.