Taking the Reins with Your Clients (Don’t Get Walked All Over)

When it comes to navigating sticky client situations one thing’s for sure, we’ve all been there! And living by the old cliche “the customer is always right” sounds great until you find yourself losing sleep and sanity after being inundated by endless customer requests – we may or may not be speaking from firsthand experience here ;). So, the question is how do we set clear expectations right at the start of a project. AND how do we learn to say “no” when necessary without making ourselves feel guilty or wrong for it? Listen in as Holly and I not only tackle these questions but also share our personal experiences with “nightmare” clients and what we learned from each debacle. You’ll walk away from this episode feeling empowered and ready to take the reigns with your clients so that you can build a sustainable creative business that gives you the freedom you deserve to have as an entrepreneur. 

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You need a good contract – this is absolutely the FIRST thing you should have [9:30] 

Establish firm lines of communication. What are you willing to do and not willing to do? [11:30] 

Will you communicate via email, text, phone call, or video chat (ie. zoom)? YOU get to choose how you’ll communicate. It’s important to set the stage at the start of a project and let your client know how they can expect to communicate with you and what your response time will typically look like.  

Be honest about what can/cannot be done for their project. [19:10] 

When you say “no” learn to keep it simple and direct. [42:30] 

Learn how to educate clients on what actually goes into completing a project in your field. [46:20] 

Often, clients don’t understand quite how long a task will take or how much skill goes into it. It’s important to break that down for them when they try to add on “just” one more thing. 

Provide them a timeline of deadlines, when they can expect things, etc. so there are fewer questions that need to be asked. [53:30] 

Be confident! Set yourself up as the expert that you are. YOU should be dictating the right way to do things based on your industry experience. [1:03:50]