After all, trusting yourself to know what you want is half the battle. Top Stories. Top Videos. Getty Images. What are the problems that I do the best job of solving? What are the changes, or results, I excel at creating? Who are the people who have these problems and want these results? What kinds of clients do I do my best work with? What types of people and businesses do I find inspiring to work with?
What sorts of clients leave me more energized? This client has similarities to the nit-picker and under-valuer but is actually impressed with your work and skill set. The criticize you merely to undermine your confidence in an attempt to lower your pricing rate.
Unlike some other client types, the scornful saver understands creative people and their processes. But they are cheap and manipulative, and their scheme may have worked in their favor once or twice in the past. So, they continue to subtly abuse the people they hire in the hope of saving every last penny.
Once again, it is all about confidence. Standing your ground and even calling the client on some of their tactics could shift the balance of power over to you. Be prepared to walk away from the project if the disrespect and manipulation continues. There will be other projects and other clients. Image by Maria Beliakova.
They may be working at a firm or an entrepreneur; either way, you are there to pick up their slack. They merely want you to know that this project and thus you is not above their ability.
And though these reminders will grate on you periodically, they will let you run with your ideas, perhaps offering suggestions or feedback on the final design. Image by Michal Zacharzewski. This client desperately needs to micro-manage every little detail of the project, no matter their qualifications.
No decision may be made without their explicit input and approval. This tiresome client forces himself into your workflow, heedless of either invitation or protest, and will demand access to you at whim. The concepts of boundaries and strict work processes are easily lost on the control freak, who constantly disrupts the flow.
They may also believe you lack dedication or preparedness, further reinforcing their need to interfere. If you absolutely must take on this client, for whatever reason, resign yourself to the fact that you will not be steering at any point. You are building something for them. Focus on their needs and how you can help them.
When Allan first started freelancing, he would respond to RFPs and spend many hours diligently working for the potential client. This was always a waste of time. He never got even one job from an RFP. Avoid this time suck. Your time is much better spent doing something else.
While Allan never won an RFP bid, he did work with a lot of large corporations. That work always ended up just circling around various departments and never saw the light of day.
Now, close your eyes and picture the perfect project for you. What type of business is this project for? What kind of projects do they want you to take on? What about them did you like? Was it the creative freedom they gave you? Maybe it was the fact that they wanted detailed progress reports and maybe you need that kind of structure.
Do you like clients that require a daily progress call? Is there an industry you enjoy working in? Find out what their trigger is. When Allan was a freelancer, he wanted clients that gave him complete creative freedom.
These clients were paying for an opinion, and they needed to see that he could speak his mind about the proper way to design an interface. In order to manage successful projects for clients, you need to be a chameleon. Here are 4 types of client personalities and some actionable strategies to delight them without sacrificing productivity — or your sanity.
In the same study, we found that a top reason for client churn is lack of visibility into project status. If so, you might have a helicopter client on your hands. The biggest challenge with delighting this client is being responsive to update requests without letting it take too much time.
With helicopter clients, you run the risk of wasting so much valuable time on updates that you never get a chance to actually work. But using a single source of truth and building visibility into your workflow will be your secret sauce. Depending on your requirements, you can use a project management platform or Excel spreadsheets to visualize tasks and centralize project details. Look for a tool that has dashboard capabilities that show project task statuses.
You have to be strong and consistent in sticking to your guns with this client. Setting process from the beginning and providing visibility delights anxious or curious clients. However, you also need to ensure that processes and statuses act as the basis of your workflow.
That way your team can provide clients this visibility without having to do any extra work!
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