6 Ways To Avoid Sucky Clients

Part 2 — For how to identify sucky clients, see Part 1!

In the first post I outlined how to identify sucky clients. “That’s all well and good,” you may be saying. “How do I not get those?” Well, reader whose mind I just pretended to read for dramatic effect… I’ll tell you! What follows are six ways to avoid troublesome clients in the first place. The first two points deal with standards you should implement anyway (preferably before you land your first client); the ones after will either weed out sucky clients or prevent clients from becoming sucky.

Have a system (and a contract) in place.

As I said in the post 5 Things You Should Do Before Becoming A Freelancer, from the moment someone reaches out to you about a potential job, you should have a seamless system in place that will take you all the way through until you cash the paycheck. Not only does this save time, money, and gray hair, it also prevents mistakes and keeps deadlines easier to manage. Mistakes and missed deadlines give clients an opening to be upset. More to the point, it gives sucky clients an excuse to be suckier.

Always have a contract.

Clients become unpleasant when they can argue about things: scope of the project, deadlines, price, etc. So…