When to Walk Away From a Client

When to walk away from a client 🚶‍♂️

Courtesy of @uxsteven
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Doing client work can be tough 😰
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Especially when they fail to sign the paperwork, don’t value the design profession, or they have limited resources 📝
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Here are a few things I ran into during the last few years.
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Hopefully, this will help someone out there spot the same signs and avoid these pitfalls ❌

The client hasn’t signed the paperwork

This is a big one for me. I don’t start on any client work until they agree to the terms and sign the contract.
I’ve had deals go sideways after dumping 2 weeks and a handful of meetings into a design project, only to wind up empty-handed.
Get that John Hancock first.

The client is playing art director

These types of clients are playing art particularly tough. They like to reference their years of off-topic experience in hopes that you simply agree with them.
If you want to salvage a relationship with them, you must win your design battle using data.
Analytics and case studies will be your friend here.

The client wants to pay you later in exchange for a big opportunity right now

Translation: The client is broke.
This is a major red flag. The client is spread too thin to pay for even the basic needs of building a business, why would you expect they can even pay you?
There’s plenty of work to find out there. Leave these types of jobs for someone else.

The client fails to pay you on time

You did get the first payment before beginning any work, right?
Clients that don’t pay on time are just revealing their cards as to how much they respect you professionally.
Simply follow up with an email reminding them of the contract terms and discontinue any work if they’re dodgy.

Bonus — useful designer tools for everyday usage:

Leadpages — lets you build beautiful, high-converting websites, unlimited landing pages, pop-up forms you can add to your other websites.
FlowKit — allows designers to create frighteningly fast user flows within Sketch and Figma.
FlyWheel — is managed WordPress hosting built for designers and creative agencies.
Crello — a free graphic design editor that helps create images for social media, print, and other web-based graphics.

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