and I had this kind of rule of fun for
every red flag your agency by 10% we are
so involved with our clients lives and
we get to love them and engage with them
but we don't you sort of go in with rose
tinted glasses
we're not paying too attention to those
huge red flags the very beginning of our
relationship they're just staring you
right in the face and you somehow are
just like la-dee-da
you know some of them are like if a
client keeps you on the phone for hours
or it doesn't return your emails or
there are expected stakeholders that
come to meetings that you didn't expect
read red flag you see you just your
scope of work and I have this kind of
rule of fun for every red flag your
major fee by 10% it's good like every
red flag just count them and then
increase your fee accordingly and
honestly
everybody's red flags are different and
so you might be really patient with some
things and impatience with others so my
terrific example of this as you can tell
I speak really fast and I'm right to the
point and I my red flag for clients for
me is when people speak really slowly
and never get to the point I those
clients drive me crazy and I usually
charge them more because I just don't
have the patience and I don't have the
time to spend hours on the phone when
they could have told me something in ten
minutes
that's my red flag you might be fine
with those kinds of people right so we
all have different things that drive us
crazy but there are some common ones and
the common ones are a lot of
stakeholders is definitely one of them
or somebody that is not a main decision
bear mmm so I don't want I want clients
to be more designers to be more aware of
that before where they start the
relationships because you could detect
all that stuff and protect yourself by
the scope of work and by your fees and
this is my favorite one and I always end
with us mm-hmm we should learn to say no
I think the minute we say no it feels so
good like have you ever fired a client
I'm sure you have yes I absolutely love
trying I think I have a rule of thumb
which is you should fire one client a
year oh it feels so good you're sick you
twisted oh my gosh
I only fire client said if I'm doing my
job with position then that I don't get
too many of them yeah we just say no
yeah they just say no like that just no
people will be like whoa okay what is it
and then you can explain a lot of times
we formulate I know by like no sorry or
no because of this first start would
just know then breathe and then explain
it has a lot of power and it's not a bad
word
it really is us sometimes clients just
need to hear that obviously there's no
perfect answer there's gonna be an
clients and those are the
clients we say no to all right let's say
you and I are working together and I've
hired you for a project before and it
went great and I paid you and
everything's awesome second projects
come in and then you don't like me
anymore you want to fire me Emily can
you fire me please
first of all the best way to do it is to
say you know what I think we've outgrown
each other I might be too expensive for
you and I think you might want to move
on to somebody else and here's somebody
else you shouldn't watch it what if I
pay you more is that what you can pay
you and there being a misbehaving client
you can say you know I want to finish
this project but I think after this I
think our relationship sort of at its
end because I just don't kind of work
with clients that misbehave like this or
you might just say this is the point of
communicating they should already know
they're misbehaving if you were all
surprising them with this I don't
recommend you do this you really need to
communicate throughout this and so the
end of it would might be if they come
back I would not hire them after you've
delivered something typically I wait
till they come back to you and you can
say you know actually you couldn't this
is going back to the honesty thing so
I'm gonna I'm
put a little caveat to that you might
want to say I'm just too busy the
challenge with that is then they will
think you're too busy and tell everybody
else I'd rather you be honest and say
you know what I really love working with
you but our relationship is sort of
deteriorated in terms of this these
three things have happened and I just
don't feel comfortable that I'm the best
firm for you for the kind of project or
the kind of relationship you need I like
that can you say that one more time
but yes can you say it one more time
I won't listen yes yeah yeah I think we
have to say I loved working with you
initially or you know initially the
relationship seemed really great but as
you know from my how I've communicated
there's some problems that have happened
over the course of the relationship that
was making it very frustrating to work
and I don't know if I'm the right fit
for you at this point and you might be
better served by another firm that can
help I can handle that kind of behavior
or is more used to that or something
like that
I think you just have to call them on
their behavior say you're not the right
firm and recommend that they move on
honestly it's just being you know more
like I tell people while you're moving
on I try not to use excuses I'm too busy
or I typically like to say I'm too
expensive even if you're not because if
they pay you let's say I don't know
whatever crazy amount of money let's say
they give you $200,000 for a logo and
they still an client maybe
they'll give you 300,000 and then maybe
it's worth working with them so
sometimes you get more money from those
clients that you try to fire and
sometimes clients come back so I had a
client that was an alcoholic and I had
calm on it and like the way I said it
was I think alcohols big influence on
your culture Wow that's a like yeah and
I said when you're when that's not such
an influencer I would love to work with
you again
and he came back two years later and
said hey you know what he said to me was
so mean and I was so angry but it may it
was a sort of it like in my brain and if
made me go to Alcoholics Anonymous and
two years later came and worked with me
and everything like Alliance yeah it's
great for a really long time look at you
miss tough he was really weird he had
his project manager it was his ex
bartender they had happy hour at
lunchtime mm-hmm so alcohol was like a
huge driver in the culture I just said
okay I've done that I've used my own
tools for my clients I want to take a
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