(ARTICLE) 6 Types of Difficult Clients and How to Handle Them (Without Getting PISSED)

Every entrepreneur / freelancer deals with difficult clients and customers.

How you choose to respond determines whether they will suck the life out of you, or become customers for life.

Sometimes it might seem like running a business is all rainbows and unicorns, but I guarantee there will be some days spent where you are nearly pulling your hair out wondering why you talked yourself into working for yourself in the first place.

We’ve all been there ……..TRUST me.

These are the days for me where you have to deal with difficult clients, chase payments, or quickly find another client to replace one who’s dropped off the radar.

Today in this article, I’m going to dig deeper into the first problem: difficult clients.

They’re impossible to avoid as business owner, so it’s necessary to learn how to deal with them

Why?

A) to keep your sanity intact, so you don’t end up in jail or a mentally asylum

B) to ensure you don’t get taken advantage of.

You may have already experienced a client like this.

the type with completely unreasonable demands, a total lack of appreciation for your time or talent, and an entitlement attitude that makes you want to say fuck it and go home.

Personally, I’ve been lucky in that I’ve only come face to face with a few difficult clients.

Usually, I can spot them a mile off (from their relentless emails before they have even hired me), but sometimes they slip under the radar and it’s too late to backtrack.

It really can be a knock to your confidence when you have a client forcefully trying to drive down your prices, or contacting you at all hours of the day for question after question after question.

Note: Negotiation is a completely normal part of business. However if someone is deliberately trying to haggle the price down EVEN further, it’s a sign to not take him/her seriously.

Also, you need to know the difference between difficult clients and clients WITH difficulty.

There's a huge difference and it turns out that it changes everything about how you should respond.

Most of your customers are reasonable people, but for one reason or another, you've either failed to meet their expectations, or they are having a difficult time.

They aren't difficult people, but somehow their expectations aren't aligned with their experience. Whatever the cause, there's a good chance you can help them through it, and make them happy.

On the other hand, difficult customers are the ones that can't be made happy.

There's just something about them, that no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, no matter what efforts you make, they won't be happy.

Before I go any further, I think it's worth stating that no matter what happens with a client or customer, even if it's not your fault, it's always your problem.

Even if the client is upset about something that was beyond your control, or out of your hands, it's still your problem to deal with.

You only have two choices:

1. you can figure out how to solve their problem,

2. you can fire the client.

1. The “All Day Contact” Client

BIG RED FLAG.

Just because someone is a client of yours does not mean they can contact you at ANY time of the day or night.

Unless you have specifically gave them your word to do this, it should not be something you allow.

You also need some time to yourself, you can’t be at every single one of your clients beck and call 24/7

Usually, this is a mistake new entrepreneurs or freelancers make as they’re afraid if they don’t answer to their clients needs or wants, they may loose them.

I myself have made this mistake, I pandered to their needs and answered and, in time, I came to expect their call and started changing my social plans to fit in with them.

To deal with these clients, you have to set firm boundaries from the BEGINNING of the relationship

Let them know your working or office hours and how many times a week they can contact you.

2. The Never Satisfied Client

This is the client who always wants a bit more from you. What you do for them is never quite enough, and they’ll be sure to tell you this time and time again.

How to Deal With a Never-Satisfied Client?

My advice to you is to clearly state what the project includes. Put this in your contract AND lay it out in an email for them, including how many revisions or changes are included.

If there's nothing you can do for a difficult client, why on earth are you spending any time at all on the relationship?

Your responsibility is to fulfill any previous obligation to these customers and then terminate the relationship as professionally--and as quickly--as you can.

3. The “Penny-Pinching / Freeloading” Client

Penny pinchers and freeloaders are one of the most common types of difficult clients you’ll encounter in your freelancing/ entrepreneur life. They’re everywhere.

They’re the ones who’ll come back to your prices saying things like,

“Oh, I’ve had an offer for less than that. Can you do it for the lower price instead?”

or

“That’s out of my budget, what’s the cheapest package you offer?”

They’ll try to get as much out of you as they possibly whilst giving back as LITTLE as they can.

From my experience, these are the clients who are most difficult to work with because they don’t see the value in your work (if they did, they’d be happy to pay your asking price).

Negotiation is a completely normal part of business, but avoid clients who will try to haggle the price down EVEN further to a point where you’d barely be covering your profit margins.

How to Deal With a Penny-Pinching Client

It can be tempting to take the lower offer because HAVING work is better than no work, right?

But this can actually be detrimental to your business.

If you start lowering your prices, the client will think you’re not confident in your work or that you don’t think your work is worth that much, so why should they?

Firstly, stand your ground. When I’ve done this I’ve been shocked by the receptiveness of some clients. They’ll accept my offer because I’ve remained strong and shown that my work is valuable.

But if you’re scared of losing that client? Try exchanging things instead of the lower price.

For example, a client wants you to write a 1,000-word piece for £100, but you charge £150 for that amount of writing.

Instead of refusing or giving in, start negotiating:

“I can write 500 words for £100”.

4. The Client That Just Disappears

This happens a lot, and it’s important not to take it personally.

It’s essentially when the client loves your pitch, accepts your proposal, and agrees to work with you.

Aaaaaaaannnnd then they disappear off the face of the earth.

How to Deal With a disappearing Client?

Firstly, don’t take it personally. 99% of the time it has nothing to do with you and your skills.

Secondly, follow up. Send an email a couple of days after the initial contact, then another one a week later, then another one two weeks later. If they haven’t got back to you after that, leave it and move on.

Sometimes, the disappearing client will come back a month later out of nowhere and ask for the work to be done immediately.

So it’s worth having some kind of clause in your contract that addresses how the project will be paused until they get back in touch, and then the deadline will be extended accordingly.

5. The “Indecisive” Client

This is the client who doesn’t really know what they want, but they hope you do.

They have very little information to give you about the project, and instead ask you to “work your magic”, or something to that effect.

You might think.

“I’m allowed to get creative on this one!”

Wrong.

Usually, this client does know what they want – they just don’t know it until you submit your creative project.

Which is definitely not what they want.

How to Deal With an Indecisive Client?

To avoid it, you can add an in-depth questionnaire to your screening process that asks revealing questions.

These questions, for example, will give you an idea of what they’re looking for / expecting.

you can also send them a sample of the work before you go ahead and complete the full project.

6. The “Time-Lord” Client

These are the ones who think they know how to do your job better than you.

“Really? But I could easily write 1,000 words, edit 15 videos and create 20 new logos in less than an hour.”

Remember they are hiring you for your knowledge and expertise, not for how quickly you can get the job done (if they did, you want to get outta there quickly).

How to Deal With a Time-Lord Client

Lay out exactly why it’ll take you longer than your stated time to get the job done.

Clearly state the effort that goes into a project and re-iterate why it is they hired you – surely if they could do it better than you, they’d be doing it themselves?

Difficult clients are everywhere, but luckily they are outnumbered by wonderful clients who are easy to work with.

That being said, it’s worth arming yourself with systems to put in place if you do come across any difficult clients, just to ensure you don’t drive yourself crazy.

When you discover that you have a difficult client/ customer that you just can’t work with no matter how hard you try, then just fire them. No questions asked.

Too often, we entertain this abuse and allow these clients / customers to suck valuable energy and life out of us.

We think that somehow we might be able to make them happy, and we're afraid of what they might do if we don't cuddle them.

Nothing they can do to you is worse than the life they've already sucked out of you.

Till next time