Fair warning if you’ve never been told.
It’s important to never get too close to your clients.
It’s a recipe for certain disaster.
Something I learned the hard way…
I had this client once I really liked. When we started, she was super laid back and easy to work with. She wasn’t trying to re-invent the wheel. And, she was actually willing to listen to me and my thoughts on her site.
And, I felt like she really liked me, too.
She always was pleasant when we talked.
Always said nice things.
Even as we worked through a stickier issue with the site, she was great.
Then, one day, she forwarded an email thread from one of her staff members about some question they had.
And, I was tracing back through the thread to get some context…
And, that’s when I saw it.
The most vile, explitive-laced paragraph I’ve ever seen a client write.
Calling me every name in the book…
And, spewing venom like I’d never seen.
It was like a knife to the back.
And, a hard lesson.
It’s amazing how quickly a client will turn from “loving you” to telling everyone they know you’re a “blood-sucker”. It can happen in a heartbeat.
In any case, my solution was simple.
I immediately fired her.
Copied that paragraph, sent it to her and said, “I’m done”.
She begged for forgiveness.
Even tried to hire me, again, several months later.
Apologizing profusely.
But, nope.
No dice.
I refused to let her hire me.
I can forgive, but I don’t forget.
Of course, I could fire her and reject her constant overtures because I had a backlog of clients waiting to hire me. And, I had that backlog because I’d created a system for GETTING those clients.
Makes things a helluva lot easier when you freelance.
And, you don’t gotta “swallow your pride” with s!@#%y clients.
Anyway, I teach you how to build that same system in my Beginner’s Guide to Freelance course. And, you can get access to it for nothing over on SkillShare. All the details on how are here: https://skl.sh/2pOiF5g
Later,
John
