What's up brand builders Stephen Houraghan here at BrandMasterAcademy.com and in this
video you're going to learn 14 ways to identify and avoid bad clients so you can redirect your
potentially painful time and energy to shaping your business to attract your perfect clients
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description now there's an old saying that i've seen time and again that there are no bad clients
but through my experiences i beg to differ because i have gone through those experiences and i have
dealt with bad clients time and again and they are very much real and they can make your life
an absolute misery and for me personally they made me question the industry i was in whether or not
i enjoyed the branding industry and whether or not i wanted to continue to go down that road so
they can really make your life hell and be really influential in how you perceive your work and how
you go about your day-to-day operations so it's really important to learn how to identify those
types of clients and redirect them so you don't allow them into your business and instead you
can focus your efforts on growing your business to attract the perfect clients that you want to work
with now there are plenty of signs that you're dealing with a bad client but unfortunately for
you if you're experiencing these kinds of science then you've already allowed that type of client
into your business and you know exactly what type of science i'm talking about here clients that
speak disrespectfully to you there there are some clients who believe that just because
they're paying you a fee they can speak to you however they choose and they can make your life
hell if they believe that they can speak to you in that kind of way if that's how they're speaking to
you then that is a sign that you're dealing with a bad client then you have clients who don't pay
you on time who drag their feet or who question every single one of your decisions or processes
whether it's got to do with how you operate or whether it's got to do with how you price your
services or you have clients who will not return your calls or who won't return your emails and
drag their feet on any kind of communication and then you also have the clients who simply disagree
with everything that you put in front of them and are constantly asking for revisions unfortunately
if you're dealing with these experiences then you have already let these types of clients into your
business but my first piece of advice would be for those types of clients just fire them unless you
absolutely need that revenue if you need that invoice to put food on the table just let them go
cut your losses so you can focus and concentrate your efforts elsewhere now hopefully once you've
cleared all of those bad clients out of your business you put a stake in the ground and you
make a decision that you are not going to allow those types of clients into your business anymore
and you're only going to go after the types of clients that you want to deal with that will move
your business forward so i'm going to give you some things that you can look out for to
identify those types of clients to avoid them and redirect them elsewhere number one the quick and
easy client so you're going to get clients that come into your business and very early on in the
conversation they're going to be using terms like quick or easy or simple and what they're
doing there is they're trying to communicate the idea that what they want you to do should be quick
or easy or simple and if it's not then they don't want that kind of service and this all points to a
budget issue if they wanted to be quick and easy and simple then chances are they're dealing with
a minimum budget here so if you do get clients who are using that kind of terminology who are saying
words like quick and easy then that is a sign that you're going to run into trouble down the
line number two is the future work client so you often have clients come into your business with
a very very small job on the table so this could be a flyer or a brochure or a banner ad something
really minuscule that is not really going to move your business forward it's not going to generate
any significant significant revenue for your business and chances are your potential client
knows this so what they do is they try to leverage non-existing future jobs in order to get you to
produce that work for them so an example of this would be look i only have this small job at the
moment but next month i have a few other jobs coming up now they may well have other jobs coming
up it's up to you to decide whether or not those jobs are real and a great way to identify whether
they are or not is to ask specific questions about those future jobs number three is the sap client
so this type of client wants everything done sap they want it done yesterday they have very very
short deadlines and they do not consider you as a person or you as a business the fact that you have
other clients or the fact that you don't work until 2 a.m so these types of clients have very
high expectations not just in the timeline you'll also find they have high expectations elsewhere
so if they have very very short deadlines be wary number four is the budget client
now we all know this client this is the type of client who talks about price within the first
couple of sentences that you're in front of them that is their main concern their main concern is
price it's not anything else it's not the outcome of the project it's not the quality of the work
it is the price everything else is secondary to that and if you come across this type of client
it's not good news for you because their priority is to pay you as little as possible and usually
what they're doing is they're shopping around to try and find the lowest possible price so
if they're talking about price within the first few sentences chances are it's not
going to be a good deal for you number five is the terminator client now the terminator client
is named so because they've just terminated their previous designer now they've done that because
the previous designer was a bad designer or they just didn't get it now although this might be the
reality they might have been a bad designer or they might have been a junior designer they just
might not have been able to manage that type of client there is a chance that this designer was
perfectly fine and it was the client who was difficult it was the client who was difficult in
communicating what they wanted or were indecisive so make sure you ask some questions here about
why that previous relationship didn't work out because chances are if they fired that designer
there's a good chance they might fire you number six the invisible client now i touched on this
earlier with the signs that you're dealing with an existing bad client and those types
of clients that just disappear or who drag their feet in responding to any kind of communication
returning calls returning emails that is a bad client to be dealing with because a project can
go from one month to six months just because this client isn't coming to the table now a great way
to identify this type of client is to identify this behavior early on in the communication if
you're sending across proposals or you're sending across emails and it's taking them weeks or
a fortnight to respond this is a sign that this client is most certainly going to do this
during the project as well so if that's happening early on make sure to make a note of that because
you'll be dealing with some problems later on number seven the interrogator client now the
interrogator client is a client that will be questioning everything you do they'll question
your processes they'll question the time it takes you to produce the work they'll question
your price structure and they'll be asking for very specific itemized quotes so that they can
identify where within your processes they'll be able to cook calls so make sure that you
keep these types of clients at arm's length if you have your processes in place if you have
your pricing structure in place then be confident that they are the processes and the pricing
structures that work for you and don't feel like you need to provide all of that information to
the client if they're asking for that type of information early on then it's a good sign that
you should probably keep them at a distance okay so now you have a few ways to identify the types
of clients that are potentially hazardous or bad clients but how do you go about filtering them out
of your business without damaging your reputation i'm going to show you seven ways that you can do
that now number one define your position and your messaging now the types of designers that
come into trouble with these types of difficult clients are the ones who aren't positioned very
effectively in fact they're more likely positioned as a jack of all trades who can do absolutely
everything that a client wants them to do but you need to specialize within a particular niche you
need to specialize within a particular area that you can really become an expert in that you can
really turn your focus to and become known as the go-to person within that space within your given
niche so make sure you identify what your position in the market is and then refine your messaging
across your website across your social channels to begin speaking about this area of specialization
number two clarify what you don't offer as well as what you do now there are a lot of clients out
there with high expectations and they tend to expect that a designer can wear many different
hats and perform any tasks that's put in front of them from environmental design to motion graphics
so it's really important that you identify exactly what your clients needs are first and foremost
what is it that they're looking for as an outcome and clarify where you can help them and where you
can't number three discuss budget early now i was definitely guilty of this early on in my career i
would be just happy that a prospect was speaking to me and showing interest in taking me up on
my services and all of a sudden i would be on the phone with a client for one or two hours and going
through some follow-up emails and showing them what i do only to get to the realization later on
when i put my costing in front of them that they couldn't afford my services so make sure that you
speak about budget upfront and make sure they have the budget to be able to afford you number four
define and communicate your minimum costs now it's important that you have clearly defined internally
what your minimum costs are what is that minimum invoice amount so that if somebody comes to you
with a particularly small job you can simply put that figure in front of them and say listen this
is my minimum cost for working with me so maybe you have some other projects that i can do or they
might come to you with an undefined budget and they don't know what they should be paying for so
it's important that you put a lower level of what you're prepared to start work with at and put that
in front of them so that there's no going back and forth and there's no time lost here if they
can't afford your services you'll filter them out this way number five clarify your processes and
requirements now this relationship that you have with your client is in fact a relationship you
will be producing work but they will be providing input and it's really important that you clarify
what your processes are and what your expectations of their input is and this can literally save you
months if you communicate that early on it will be top of mind with the client and they'll be less
likely to drag their feet on communication so make sure you clarify what your processes are um what
their requirements are within your relationship number six define conditions within your contract
now this is really really important it's really important for the way you want to be paid
the inclusions within the scope of your work including any kind of revisions if you don't have
a contract then you have nothing to fall back on and some clients can think that they are entitled
to unlimited revisions or they're entitled to pay you whenever they choose so it's really important
to get your conditions down within your contract and make sure that's agreed to early on and number
seven get a large down payment now i made this mistake early on in my career and it wasn't until
probably about 18 months into my career that i actually felt the brunt of this mistake i had been
making this mistake for about a year and a half but i never got bitten in the backside because
of it but then i took on a client and i invested a lot of time and effort into this client without
any kind of down payment and after a couple of months the client just disappeared they stopped
returning any of my emails and i had put a lot of time and effort into this work without any kind of
down payment so they weren't invested in the job and they simply disappeared and i lost out on all
of that time now of course that is a novice mistake but it's really important to instill
these processes into your business and make sure that you have your processes there and you get
that down payment early on if you put a hefty down payment up front then it will scare off
these types of clients that just want to take as much as they can without committing to anything so
make sure you identify what your down payment rate should be what percentage of the overall
product it should be and get that before you start work now look not all clients are bad in
fact i've dealt with some of the best clients in the world some really really nice people and they
are the types of clients that i want to work with we are aligned in terms of our values and beliefs
and i've developed my processes to make sure that i don't work with the other types of clients
because they can really make your life a misery and they can really make you question what you're
doing and why you're doing it so put that barrier up in front of your business protect your business
and make sure you take that time and energy and positivity and pump that back into your business
to make sure you grow that business now of course every bad client that you turn down
is revenue lost but what you gain in exchange is time and if you use that wisely by turning
your focus and building systems within your business that is really when you can begin
to grow and scale if you want to learn how to build business systems into your agency
then this video will show you how until next time brand like a master i'll see you in the next video