Suckerpunched (or Why Friends and Family Make Lousy Clients)

Dante's circle for unscrupulous businessmen

Tim Berry at Planning Startups Stories wrote a nice post earlier this week titled "Tip: Mistakes are more fun than tips." In that spirit, allow me to share a doozy of a stupid that I committed a few months ago that finally imploded yesterday.

As a general rule, I don't do paid work for friends and family. My experience is that they expect too much for too little, and emotions play too much of a role — i.e., they're lousy clients.

But in late fall, during a slow week and as a favor to a family friend, I took on a referral for writing the content for a small website. The owner seemed nice enough, her website was ghastly, and she needed a few business letters written. I offered a modest bid. Which she promptly accepted.

The two business letters were the top priority, so I promptly and heavily rewrote what she'd sent me, and she signed off on them after a round or two of revisions. So far, so good. I commenced on the website copy, and she seemed to be happy with the initial two pages.

She's an event promoter, so the remaining items were brief summaries of the various events she handles. And that's where things got sticky. It turned out, there really wasn't any source information on the events other than what she'd posted in previous years, and some of the events had no information at all. So, I asked if I could interview her in order to gather some raw ideas about what she wanted. She was unresponsive. I MacGyvered it as best I could, but she wanted more and fresher information. I reminded her of my offer to do it interview style, and again, she just seemed more inclined to grumble than to help me help her.

At this point she wanted to know exactly how much her tally was. I provided a summary, subtracting out what she claimed was unusable. She asked me to send an invoice, and I did.

Then I didn't hear from her. Then I sent a second notice, and a polite email asking when I could expect payment or if she'd like to break it up into two installments. No response.

Fast forward to yesterday. I called her, and again, as politely as possible, inquired about the status of the invoice. At which point she informed me:

• She had to heavily rewrite the letters I'd given her (which was news to me, since she'd approved them)
• She had to rewrite the copy I'd provided for the web page (which was an outright lie, based on comparing what I sent her to what's currently posted on the site)
• She had shown my invoice to another writer she knows (!) who thought that it was too high (unsurprising, given that the other writer charges her about half my hourly rate)

I'd been suckerpunched. I asserted that she did indeed sign off on the items I'd provided, and she retorted, essentially, "Nuh-uh-no-I-didn't." I stood by the invoice, in which I'd been painfully generous, and she basically spat on it. After a bit of back-and-forth, I simply said, "You know what, Sandy [not her real name], clearly we're not getting anywhere here. I think it's best if you just send me a check for what you believe you owe me. If that's $0, that's your prerogative."

I've already wasted the time, no sense in wasting further mental energy, and the piddling amount isn't worth pursuing legal action. Even after full-time freelancing for almost 12 years now, evidently I occasionally need to re-learn stupid mistakes in order to remember them. Tattoo it on my butt and carve it on my tombstone: No more friends and family clients.

I am MacGyver

No, I'm not talking about the mullet I wore back in the late 1980s. I'm talking about the fact that, as a freelance writer, there are going to be times when you're given a piece of dental floss, a stick of gum, and a Bic lighter, and you're expected to create a nuclear weapon a brochure or ad campaign or website out of it.

Earlier this week, I started work on a project for a longtime client. He's a great guy, funny as hell, and I know exactly how he works: It starts with a kind of fuzzy, two-sentence email about what he wants the project to be. That's followed up by me giving him a call to find out the details...only to find out that there really aren't any yet, just kind of a big picture this-is-what-I-want-it-to-be. Next, he sends a couple of links to websites that kinda do what he wants to do, but not quite. Similar, but different.

Day two, he sends me a follow-up email to find out how it's going. Which prompts another call from me to say I need more information. Now, I click on the digital tape recorder, and play Mr. Reporter for a while, asking as many questions as I can, grasping at threads. The conversation ends, I transcribe the file, and I'm marginally farther along.

I start writing babble-style, then suddenly the piece starts to take form. Hmmm, not half bad. I shoot him the draft, he shoots a bunch of holes in it (as I mutter to myself, "Why didn't you tell me that earlier?), and I give it a rework. In the end, he's happy, I'm relieved, it's all good, another one's in the books.

The reality is, I wouldn't put up with these antics if I didn't genuinely like him and know that it's just the way he is. It wouldn't do me any good to try to change his style, either. I simply accept it, and I know I'll provide him a product that does what he needs it to do.

And the other reality is, it's kind of a kick to strap on my MacGyver mullet-wig, and create something explosive out of damn near nothing.

Now, where the heck did I put my Bic?

"Are you done yet?"

Based (very!) loosely on a recent client experience. Names have been omitted to protect the guilty. And I've given the, uh, actor playing me a lovely head of blond hair.

"Poor planning on your part..."

Say it with me: "...doesn't constitute an emergency on my part."

If you've spent any time in a corporate environment, you've known someone with that saying tacked to their office wall. It's usually (though not always) a signal of a person who's out the door at 5 p.m. on the spot, and not likely to pitch in when things go sideways.

The successful freelancer can't afford to adopt such a poisonous customer service attitude, unless you don't want to eat and/or have any client loyalty. The key is to de-escalate whatever you can. For the past week, I've dealt with a number of emergency projects; my general guiding principles can be summarized thusly:

• Find out what the true problem and key components are—sometimes the client is not communicating clearly in the panic.
• Uncover what the client thinks he or she needs—right now, you're just listening; don't talk solutions yet.
• What's the timeline and deadline?—ask for specifics, don't settle for "OMG ASAP!!!!"
• If the solution is easy, present your idea immediately. 
• If the solution requires more thought, say you'll get back to them in a half-hour with a couple of ideas.

Now it's time to consider your own situation: Is this a long-term client or a client with long-term potential? Do you have any pressing deadlines that you need to manage? Do you have a couple of different ideas on how to accomplish what the client needs? Are there other resources you could draw upon to help you out? What is the simplest, fastest way to put out the fire?

Ultimately, if you feel the need to tape a sign to your wall, it should be "My loyal clients are worth my 100% support in a crisis. It will pay off in the future." 

All that said, if you have...

• a task that is truly, objectively impossible given the time and resources, say so as soon as you realize it; i.e., don't start something that you know has no way of succeeding.
• a Client Who Cried Emergency on your hands, i.e., someone who *never, ever* has a plan, you need to do a better job of guiding them...or you might be better off parting ways.
• a client whose *first* job is a five-alarm emergency, the universe has kindly given you a glimpse into the future. Plan accordingly.

Are you attracting the clients from hell?

Legendary stock investor Benjamin Graham (a hero of Warren Buffett), once said something to the effect that, in the short run, stocks are a voting machine; in the long run, they are a weighing machine. In other words, the true underlying value will eventually emerge.

This connection to client-freelancers relationships was made in my brain by a recent post on Freelance Folder, "Clients Are Not Demons From Hell."  I appreciated the fact that the author attributed a challenging client's ill behavior to lack of understanding rather than malice. Hey, we all love sharing a client horror story or too (and I posted a Dr. Freelance anecdote in the comments that I won't take the space to repeat here), and there is plenty to learn from songs sung blue.

And I'm not saying that there aren't bad clients out there.

What I *am* saying, however, is that if you find yourself with a glut of clients who take you to the brink of insanity, you need to take a long, hard look at what you're doing:

• Are you attracting clients who aren't a good philosophical, emotional, or technical fit?
• Are you establishing a positive, professional rapport from the outset, with clear expectations on both sides?
• Are you completing the assignments with every ounce of your skill and attention...or are you withholding that last little bit because you don't want to waste it or risk it?

Some day, when you look back at the sum total of your career, you'll get a pretty good view of what the market's "weighing machine" had to say about your skills, abilities and approach. You can take responsibility for that whenever you like.

Client communication 101 (and Schrödinger's Deadline)

I was recently working for a client for whom English is a second language, quickly discovering that our easiest form of communication was chat. The project at hand was hot, requiring a good chunk of my time several days in a row. On Day 2, he asked me how long I thought a certain section would take to write, and I answered, "Oh, about an hour." He responded that he thought that seemed fast, and I typed back that it might take a bit more time in revisions, but the first draft would indeed take around that long.

The next day, panic struck. I found out through a third party that I "wasn't hitting my deadlines." I was a bit dumbfounded, since I really hadn't been given a specific deadline in the first place. How can you miss a deadline that you didn't know about? (I'm coining it a Schrödinger's Deadline™, in tribute to the famous thought experiment with the cat in a box that might be dead or alive depending on whether a radioactive source had broken open a flask of poison. It's a quantum physics thang.)

Anyway, I puzzled for a while before coming to the explanation: He had expected to have the piece in his hands 60 minutes after our initial conversation.

I sent this knowledge back up the chain of command, and as far as I can tell, everything was effectively patched up. What I do know for certain, even if I'm still unaware of a deadline, I know in the future to cite not only the duration, but the projected time of arrival.

Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies

The always-insightful George "Geo" Tannenbaum at Ad Aged is constructing a list titled "99 lies. A work in progress." The count was up to 43 as of a moment ago, but he's continuing to add if you want to give a shot at mocking ad agency/creative world prevarication.

His first five are:

1. I will never lie to you.
2. We're all in this together.
3. The only thing that matters is the work.
4. I'm a straight shooter.
5. I like it.

For what it's worth, my suggestions were:

• We're interested in trying something different.
• I'm not worried about face time.
• We're focused on the results, not the process.
• It's not my call.
• That's my final offer.

$100 and restoring my faith in humanity, kindasorta

Late last spring I did a small brochure project for a new client who'd been referred by a local designer. Slam-dunk project, total price tag of $400. Wrote it, revised it, invoiced it.

Then waited. Then sent a reminder invoice, then another with a cc to my lawyer, then a phone call. Etc., etc., etc. I continued to follow up regularly; not only did I never get a check, I didn't even get a response. The brochure was on a real-estate-related topic, so I chalked it up to bankruptcy (not the only such case in the past year).

Fast forward to yesterday. I stopped by my office mailbox, and--lo and behold!--there's a check in there for $100, with a hand-written note: Hope to send more soon. Thanks for your patience.

In addition to learning what a "debtor in possession" is, I'd describe the experience as similar to finding a twenty in a pair of pants I hadn't worn in a while--not life-changing, but a pleasant surprise. Mentally, I'd written it off to a project that was so small and quick that (naively, in retrospect) a deposit didn't seem necessary. But, the net effect of the $100 and note was to restore my faith...maybe not in humanity, but at least in small businesses willing to do the right thing despite financial challenges.

The Derek Zoolander Center for People Who Can't Spel Gud

During a recent visit to a hospital to cover a story, I spotted a suggestion box labeled "CHAPLIN REQUESTS." (Yes, I resisted the temptation to ask if they had any mustachioed silent-film stars handy for my amusement while I waited.)

In fact, I didn't say anything. The instant calculation in my head was that 1) it was not misleading as far as its intended purpose, 2) most people won't even realize it's misspelled, and 3) it's kind of funny.

If your brain is wired for language, you can't help but notice spelling and grammar abuse at every turn. Makes you feel superior, eh? The question, then, is whether to say anything when you do--hence the "instant calculation" I performed in my head. For me, the inputs include:

• the seriousness of the error (lethal, misleading or just silly?)
• the location it appears in (high traffic or inconsequential?)
• the cost that it would take to fix it (signage, printed material or website?)
• my relationship with the responsible party (client, vendor or someone who would likely think I was a know-it-all smartaleck?)

My longtime proofreader Bonnie Trenga has a section at her Sentence Sleuth blog for people to add their own "criminal sentences." She secured my business back in the mid-'90s by marking up a magazine that I edited and asking if we could use her services. A risky tactic, but it worked.

Challenging client? Pick up the phone.

As writers, we're not afraid of expressing ourselves in text. Indeed, there's a certain amount of pride at our abilities to make the written word do a little jig on the page, to persuade, to entertain, to make people laugh, cry, etc. We can do anything with a clever turn of phrase, right?

But my experience has been that the phone is often the best tool to deal with an interminable back-and-forth with a client. The other day, I experienced a pingpong of emails with one of my usually low-maintenance clients. Little editorial tweaks on an article I'd written--nothing major, but each time required pulling up the file, making the change, and sending it over for re-approval.

I realized, after around Round 4, that we weren't getting to a resolution, so I called her up. It was the best decision I could have made: She was able to express herself much more quickly verbally than she was doing via email. And it also gave me a chance to schmooze her a little bit, ask her about how things are going, and get on her calendar for coffee in a few weeks.

A few closing thoughts:

1. Part of successful communication is understanding which mode is best suited to a given situation.
2. On the phone, you can pick up and deliver subtle cues that can't be conveyed in text.
3. As a businessperson, you need to recognize that being a skilled writer doesn't mean that it's the only or best tool in the box.

So, a question for you: What tricks do you use to derail the re:re:re:re train?

***

Note: While we're on the subject of client challenges, Planet Word has a two-entry series on "Selling Your Value" that's worth a read.

An earlier version of this was cross-posted at Freelance Writerville II [registration req'd]. 

5 conversation killers in a first-client meeting

Driving through the mountains east of Pittsburgh yesterday, I caught a fuzzy radio broadcast with a great tease: "After the break...the 7 worst types of small talk."

Alas, the actual segment wasn't as juicy as I'd hoped--the guest's verboten topics were the things you could probably guess if you've ever been to a cocktail party: Don't talk about your golf game (no one cares, even other golfers), wine (unless you're sure the other person is a oenophile), what route you took to the party (ZZZZ), kids (no one cares, even other parents), dreams (unless you want to be flagged as a flake), and stocks (you're probably either bragging or whining). The signal faded out before the final one, but I'm guessing it was religion, politics or sex.

But it did strike me that there's an analogy for freelancers headed into a meeting with a prospective client, when the inevitable lull in conversation comes around but the sale hasn't closed. The nervousness and excitement can cause us to blurt, blab or otherwise inject nonsense in ways that can be every bit as deadly as the items above:

• Talking about how slow business has been (smells like eau de desperation)
  
• Talking about being super busy (it's a fine line between being highly sought and overwhelmed)
  
• Recounting a tale of bad or unruly clients (risky, though you might be able to get away with something that's funny and has a happy ending)
  
• Penalty fees/rules/restrictions (e.g., number of rounds of revisions)
  
• Talking too much, period (even if it's positive and upbeat stuff)
  

You need to know yourself and how you react under the pressure of the first meeting. Better to be armed with a bunch of good questions that can drive the conversation where you want it to go. Ask the client if it's OK to record the conversation, and then listen to it afterward to identify the weak points of your presentation. And for the love of all that's holy...please don't talk about the weather.

The Bully Pulpit

"Don't worry," my friend Jim used to say. "You're not totally worthless--you can serve as a bad example." Today, as a counterpoint to my post-Labor Day post, an ode to workplace tyrants and bullies, and the "benefits" thereof. (Sorry, not naming names, eh.)

Most of us aren't in the working world terribly long before learning a lesson: No matter how tough your parents were, you have no idea what's in store once someone is paying you to obey, whether they're a freelance client or a full-time employer. There are maybe a half-dozen of them that stick out in my own career, ranging from garden-variety micromanager to full-on, desk-pounding, neck-vein-bulging maniac.

From a bully at my first job, I learned (daily) that titles don't necessarily equal talent, and vice versa, and so never to assume one from the other. Another taught me that tyrants can come in unassuming packages, a rule underscored by yesterday's parade of fools at the UN. And yet, several of the most-demanding managers, coworkers and clients were also the wisest, and pushed me to a higher standard, taught me innumerable tricks of the editorial and marketing trades, and provided insights about business in general. I guess you could describe such a dynamic as unpleasant but worthwhile--a rite of passage.

How you deal with the various incarnations of bossy behavior requires recognizing that what motivates you and deciding whether the best course of action is to stand your ground or catch the next bus. Because one thing is for sure: You're not going to change them.

You may be a winner! Or...maybe not.

I jinxed myself.

Last week over at the always thought-provoking Teenie Thoughts, copywriter/blog philosopher-in-residence Teenie lamented getting copy back that has been "hacked and twisted and uncarefully rewritten." Smartaleck that I am, I responded glibly that "I don't try to fight it anymore" when someone wants to change my words.

Which is all well and good until I was reminded today that "not fighting it" occasionally comes with its own peculiar punishment.

The backstory: A long-time, loyal client needed a one-time-insertion newspaper ad for a sweepstakes giveaway. The prize was terrific--worth several hundred dollars. The challenge, though, was that I couldn't write the copy I'd ordinarily recommend for a case like this, i.e., an unsubtle screamer that pounded home the message WIN A *BLANK* AT *BLANK* WORTH $XXX!!! This company's branding approach simply won't accommodate such crassness; and belaboring that point with my contact would only frustrate us both, since she knew it was a battle she couldn't win with her higher-ups.

I did my best to harden up the soft-sell approach, and off the ad went to design. Approved, and off it went to the printer.

In the back of my head, I was clinging to a hope that the ad might work despite itself, based on the strength of the offer (albeit buried deep in the copy, *sigh*) and the company's name. In the front of my head, I knew that was pathetically naive. So, when I contacted the client this morning to inquire about the results, I was unsurprised to find out the response rate was crummy.

There are a lot of painful aspects to me about this, not the least of which is that, given exactly the same scenario again, I'm not sure I'd be able do anything differently. Just call it a TKO before the bell even rang.

Freelancer's Guide to Getting Paid--on Time

A few weeks ago, a commenter asked me to address how freelancers can deal with slow-pay or no-pay clients. Seems like we've tapped into a trend, based on today's Wall Street Journal article titled "Freelancers' Guide to Getting Paid--on Time" [subscription required*]. The WSJ article cites a stat from the Freelancers Union that 77% of their members have clients who didn't pay at least once. Frankly, that seems low, unless a lot of their members haven't been around very long.

In any case, their first few solutions are what I use for my own business--no rocket science, just common sense: Don't be embarrassed about asking for what you're owed, try going straight to accounting if you're getting a runaround, withhold future work (politely but firmly), and offer alternative payment plans (two or three installments, for example).

The other three solutions, however, come with caveats. "Consider adding late fees," as the author admits, may get you labeled as high maintenance. "Consider working with freelance-liaison firms" is all well and good if you want to go the Guru or oDesk route, but as I've said many times here, I don't. And the final solution, "Sue the company in small claims court," isn't something I particularly want to get involved in. Mercifully, I've never gotten skunked on a job large enough that would have made it worth the money and psychological capital to pursue.

Here's the deal: The riskiest job is the first job you do with someone, particularly in a crappy economy. So, some suggestions in addition to those above...

• Be realistic. If you're soliciting new business now, you need to accept that there will be flakeouts. I experienced it in 2000-01, the same thing is true now, and it's part of being in business for yourself. Don't spend the money before the check has cleared.
  
• Request a deposit on new jobs and on existing clients who have had payment challenges in the past. This serves a tri-fold purpose: 1) It gets you some money upfront, 2) it confirms that the client is serious and 3) it provides some negotiating leverage. If someone won't agree to pay a deposit, that is a major slow-pay/no-pay warning sign.
  
• Be patient. The best way to ensure you get paid on time is to work for people with whom you've developed a business relationship of trust. There are no shortcuts.
  

I was hoping to find a guy wearing the traditional barrel-and-suspenders outfit for today's clip art, but no luck.

*The Wall Street Journal is the only online subscription that I pay to receive, and it is absolutely worth the $103 a year.

Enormous Changes at the Last Minute

A few weeks back, I riffed on the aggravating nature of nonstop incremental changes. Today, some thoughts on their evil cousin, Mr. Last-Minute Change.

Now, don't get me wrong--I like to make things perfect, too, and I can't stand to see a goof glaring back at me from a printed page. But I've been around long enough to know that 1) the later you add changes, 2) the more changes you make, and 3) the more versions of a document you've seen, your odds of creating a new, worse error start to trace an upward-curving parabola. It's as much a law of physics as it is human nature.

That's a lesson I learned the hard way: I was managing editor for a magazine that sent a last-minute "patch" to the printer to correct a typo...but in the mad rush to get the press running neither the bleary-eyed art director nor I noticed a small issue in the final blueline proof: The printer hadn't clipped off the bold heading that blared something to the effect of "PATCHES PAGE 14." So, that's exactly how 200,000-some-odd copies of the magazine read. Mona Lisa, meet Mustache.

In consoling ourselves, we prayed the message was so cryptic that our readers didn't think past "Hmm, that's odd." I felt a bit better a year or so later when my sister sent me a tearsheet of a magazine page captioned "BLOWQUOTE FROM SOME GUY GOES HERE" underneath the photo of a very dorky-looking Some Guy.

Obviously, the web takes the sting out of many mistakes because they're not technically permanent (outside of screen grabs). Nonetheless, I find the prurient itch to change things up till the clock striking 12, and then once again at 12:01, remains.

One person's "negotiation" is another person's head banging against the wall

After dealing with a few hours' worth of idiocy and bureaucracy unrelated to work, I needed a laugh today. This was just the ticket: The Vendor-Client Relationship in Real World Situations. Disclaimer: Mercifully, this doesn't resemble any of my existing clients, only the ones I've cut loose, never to be heard from again...

Driving Me Incremental

I don't know what law of physics governs this, but small changes are often more painful than big ones. (When it comes to creative issues, anyway.)

When a client provides a medium-size list of things that need fixing, give me an hour and I'll churn through it. But there are other clients who might give me an itty-bitty comment, one that's practically too small to even bother opening the file, and it gives me a migraine--because I know that there's no way that it's the only change. And the next change will be just as minute. And pretty soon we're on Version 8 with no signs of stopping anytime soon.

If any good comes from such a thing, it's a reminder to me to be vigilant of delivering clean, concise changes to my graphic designers, web designers, etc., etc.

The road to Hell is paved with incremental changes. 4vcxn7ae5t