No one starts a creative business to work with annoying clients. But at some point in time, you’ll work with at least one of them.

In my six plus years of working with clients, I’ve had my fair share of client relationships that I’d rather never repeat.

I think the worst example was a client that was also a friend. And because of my friendship, I ignored my gut (and dozens of red flags) and took him on as a client.

Our few months of working together were a total disaster. A couple highlights (or maybe lowlights) included…

He repeatedly ignored my requests to email, not text, about his project. He’d text and then if I didn’t respond within minutes, I’d get a string of texts asking where I was. He was constantly upset that I wouldn’t drop everything and work on his projects. Which always seemed to be due “yesterday”, even though he’d never mentioned it before.

He asked me to write a contract for his business. And then once my draft was done, he forwarded it to his friend to edit. This friend was an attorney but didn’t have any experience with these kinds of contracts. I then had to justify to them the decisions I’d made (most of which were the industry standard) because his friend didn’t think they were correct.

He asked me to create a document that if not illegal was completely unethical. This one was the final straw and resulted not only in the end of our working relationship but our friendship.

You can’t avoid every difficult client, but there are things you can do to start your relationship off right. And to make sure that your client can’t blossom into a difficult client.

My five keys to dealing with difficult clients are:

• outlining the process up front (with timelines) so the client knows what to expect
• setting ground rules for things like how to contact me and how long I’ll take to respond
• being upfront and transparent when kinks arise, rather than ignoring requests
• picking up the phone or video conferencing rather than sending an email for complicated responses
• handing over a contract that outlines what our relationship will look like

Laying out a roadmap

When you can outline your process up front and give your client a timeline, they’ll have a roadmap to follow and are less likely to bug you.

Clients come to us to get our professional expertise and skills. And to us, our process is second nature. But it’s a mystery to our clients.

And this sometimes creates problem clients. Because they feel in the dark and want to know what’s happening. So they send you emails asking for updates.

But this has an easy fix: giving them a roadmap.

You can explain to them your process, the timeline, and why they might not hear from you for a few weeks.

For example, when I file a trademark for a client, it takes 4 months before we get ANY word from the USPTO. And so, as soon as I submit the application, I send this canned response:

Congrats! I’ve filed your trademark application for [TRADEMARK]. Unfortunately, it’ll take 4 months for the USPTO to give us an update. (Here’s the USPTO timeline on the waiting times from here on out.) This means that I won’t have any updates until about [DATE FOUR MONTHS IN THE FUTURE]. I’ll email you as soon as I hear anything.

I’ve found that giving a roadmap is a great way to help your clients (and prevent them from bugging you). Because it makes the process transparent and they know exactly what to expect.

Setting ground rules

Another key to dealing with problem clients is laying out ground rules up front for things like:

• your business hours
• how you respond to emails
• when you respond to emails
• if calling/texting is appropriate

But the challenge in laying these out is sticking to them. Because if you don’t, your clients won’t respect them and get upset when you randomly try to enforce them.

My friend Corey Egan mentioned something the other day that really struck me.

She remembers that her clients are emailing her when it’s convenient for them.

(This is so true if you work B2C.)

In her case, many of her brides are doing wedding tasks in the evenings and on the weekend. So that’s when they email her. And she has to remind herself, that they are emailing her then because that’s the time they have set aside. And it’s okay that the time she has set aside to respond is during her regular business hours.

One easy way to do this is with an auto-reply that goes out to everyone that emails you. Another option would be to create a page in your welcome packet that outlines these ground rules.

Being proactive about delays

The easiest way to turn a so-so client into a problem client is by ignoring and/or not telling them upfront when kinks arise.

Technical snafus, health issues or family problems will happen at the worst times. But being transparent and telling your client as soon as it happens, is the best way to prevent the situation from spiraling out of control.

Ignoring your client’s requests or hiding that something went wrong is the easiest way to piss off your client. (If you don’t believe me, check out this story from Meighan O’Toole.)

So step up, admit something happened, and fix the problem as quickly as you can.

Communicating via the best medium

Email is a very convenient way to communicate with your clients.

You don’t need to hash out schedules.

All you need to do is hit send at any time of the day or night. And the other person doesn’t have to deal with it until it’s a good time to respond. (Like Corey’s story above reminds us!)

Email is great when you ask quick questions or provide statements or short answers. Basically, anything that can be clearly articulated in 5 sentences or less.

When you’ve got something that can’t be boiled down to a few sentences or that will raise questions, email isn’t the best.

In these situations, you’ll save yourself time and headaches by scheduling a chat.

Yes, you’ll have to find a time that works for both of you, but in the long run, it will save you time. Because you’ll be able to address all of their questions and resolve any misunderstandings in a single call.

Which means that choosing the best method for your message helps prevent client problems.

Presenting a contract

The final tool to dealing with problem clients is my favorite. Handing over a contract that outlines what your relationship will look like.

Contracts get a bad rap. But really, they are just there to make sure that both of you are on the same page. They outline what you need and what you can expect from each other.

Contracts make sure that neither one of you unintentionally disappoint the other. And when you think about contracts that way, they really are a kindness that you give to those that you work with.

And best of all, contracts don’t have to be stuffed with legal jargon to be valid. In fact, they only need three things:

• an offer (e.g. I’ll photograph your products on a white-board and provide you 10 high-resolution images for $200)
• agreement on the exact offer (e.g. Yes, I’ll pay you $200 to give me 10 high-resolution images of my products on a white-board)
• exchange of things of value (handing over the 10 photographs and the $200)

A caveat…the exchange above forms a valid contract. But that doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t want to include a few more details. You’d probably want to cover things like:

• when and how payment happens
• what rights the client has over the photographs
• timeline

Want more ideas on what you might want to cover? Enter your email below and grab the checklist!

Write your contract!

Curious what your contract should include?<

Enter your information below to download a PDF version of my how to write a contract resource. It includes a checklist of the 17 sections I think you should consider when creating (or updating) your contract.

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TL;DR

You never will be able to avoid all problem clients. But there are five tools you can use to prevent problem clients. And make sure that they stay happy, respectful, grateful clients.

These include:

• laying out a roadmap
• setting ground rules
• being proactive about delays
• communicating via the best medium
• presenting a contract

Which of these tools would make the biggest impact in your creative business? Let us know in the comments below!