What makes a great client?
How do you get a great client?
What makes a bad client?
How do you maintain a bad client? And should you?
Let me shout aloud—I have great clients. Scratch that. Fabulous clients. It occurred to me how lucky I am. Okay, maybe they’re not all fabulous but most are.
What makes a great client?
This is an open-ended question but here are my thoughts:
- A personality that matches yours. This seems easy enough. But if you’re over age 10 you know that sometimes—without even having a clear reason—you just like some people and some you don’t. It’s just an overall vibe, feeling, instinct. I’ve started working relationships where it seemed a great jive-fest and then after closer interaction I realized we didn’t jive at all. Good jiving makes the entire process easier because you have a similar understanding.
- Communication style that works. In my experience this tends to go together with similar personality but not always. A quick Google search and I gravitated toward this site on the very subject http://www.cedanet.com/meta/communication_styles.htm
It’s important that both sides feel like they’re being heard. I’ve encountered situations where in a direct communication circumstance, face-to-face; I can tell the other person is just not listening. This only makes for frustration and a wanted escape route or in the least the quickest way to get the project done.
If both parties are up front about communication preferences the process is smoother. I like clients who are straightforward and offer their raw honesty. That way I know exactly where I stand. I’m cutting it or I’m not. If I am, keep doing more of the same—it’s working! If I’m not, quick game change to remedy the situation.
- Both sides envision the same results. And even if that’s not exactly true the complimentary personality/communication style allows for raw honesty and straight-forwardness that makes voicing recommendations and opinions easier. Both parties will naturally work together to meet the desired vision.
- Client/Designer both value what each brings to the table—I’m thinking of two distinct things here. First, client seeks designer’s expert opinion and designer appreciates client’s goals/needs/wants. Second, a fair pay rate. When the client and the designer have agreed on a pay rate and the timeframe. If either are feeling the circumstances are unfair there will be trouble to come.
As long as you can honestly say you have one of the bullet points from the above list then you can to keep up the relationship. If however, you are stretching to even say one bullet point is true than you may have to renegotiate and reconsider when the project is complete or the contract ends.
How do you get a great client?
Where do they come from? Can you multiply them? Great clients are often a lucky coincidence. But it doesn’t hurt to try:
- Word of mouth—give your clients several business cards and they’ll have extra on hand to offer their friend or contact.
- Friends—everyone knows someone who’s starting a business or looking for a fresh look. If your friend is in a similar circumstance arrange to do the same for your friend.
- Family—your parents or second cousins may seem an unlikely avenue but simply telling them to keep an ‘ear out’ for you can’t hurt.
- Industry events—it’s a challenge sometimes but attending mingling events can pay off and you’ll walk away with more than you think.
- Niche within your industry—merely being a part of a specialized group could naturally mean better clients. For example, the veg world is notoriously friendly. Perhaps there are other niche groups that are more or less likely to have great people.
At the end of the day: great people make great clients and great designers.
What makes a bad client?
Bad clients in my experience have several things going against a smooth process:
- Piecemealing content. Of course this is a natural occurrence in many projects but a notorious piecemealer is not fun and it takes more time—which can be costly to clients.
- Doesn’t pay a fair rate—of course you’re thinking, ‘Don’t let this happen.’ Sometimes circumstances manifest themselves in ways that are unforeseen.
- Too strict or rigid on their design ideas/goals. This is really a shame because the client is only stifling what could be an awesome design to what will stay a mediocre design at best.
- Purposely declining the designer’s expert guidance on design principles. For instance insisting on five different fonts on one page. Gawd that’s a painful one but if they reject your recommendation than you have to do it.
If you can say these bullet points are happening with your bad-list client it might make sense to recommend a relationship end.
How do you maintain a bad client? And should you?
- Try to have as little communication as possible—this is obviously counterintuitive to everything I’ve written about but it works.
- Don’t make recommendations or question what they want—just do it. (Occasionally I still try because it’s in my nature to aim for the best design but if it’s the five-font issue as I mentioned above, that discussion has happened and wasn’t up for negotiation.)
- Try to get in the head of their made-up design principles. Sometimes this is possible. It usually fails because their own principles are often far from anything you’ve learned.
- Increase your rate—this will make the pain a little more worth your while. Great post about how to do such a thing http://freelanceswitch.com/author/james-clear/
Readers—what do you think makes a great client and bad client? And how did you acquire the great clients you have? Send me an email.
Keep an eye out for my next follow-up article, How to end the client/designer relationship if you need to call it quits.
Corey Grant is a design aficionado with intense passion for telling a brands story through visual media. She has nearly ten years experience designing for web and print. She’s worked for an ad agency, daily newspaper, city magazine, and non-profit. She started freelancing full-time in the fall of 2011. When she’s not designing or blogging she’s playing hide-n-seek with Archie, her adopted kitty.
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