How to Spot Red Flags and Educate Clients for Better Projects as a Service Provider (with Web and Brand Designer Alyssa Phillips)
As creatives, we’ve all experienced some weird, funny, or downright disrespectful client interactions.
As the small business side of the Internet grows, so do the memes and stories about red flag clients.
Earlier this year, I hosted a webinar about Red Flag Clients with Alyssa from Amp’d Designs. Alyssa is a branding and web designer for businesses and entrepreneurs, and she’s based in Asheville, North Carolina. I’m breaking down everything we talked about in this blog post!
Alyssa and I actually bonded over a shared frustration with this industry standard that talking about your clients online in a negative light. We’ve seen a lot of content shared on Instagram stories and social media posts newsletters by both new and experienced designers and copywriters alike.
Here’s what you’ll learn from this blog post:
The difference between red flag clients and when clients simply need education
What red flags to look out for with clients
How to educate clients so you have fewer sticky client situations (and more happy clients!)
Let us start by saying: OUR clients don’t deserve to be shamed online.
Imagine your doctor, your lawyer, your waiter, or your plumber posted about a situation that involved you on social media. Your doctor posted an Instagram story saying, “my patient came in today and asked for a medication refill. As if she didn’t know that she couldn’t get one for 60 days!”. Or your plumber posting a Reel saying, “today my client asked why I couldn’t also fix her shower drain. I can’t believe she asked that! As if!”.
It sounds wild, but we see this kind of content posted all the time by creative professionals. We don’t know about you, but if this kind of content was directed at us, or someone we were considering hiring posted this kind of content about us, we would be so offended! This kind of content can make our audience and our clients feel really distrustful or wary of working with us (or even other service providers).
Recently, I had someone tell me they stopped going to a provider because the provider had started posting content about clients and the terrible things that they were doing. This person actually stopped going to see that provider because of the experience that they had had with their content online. Who wants to be stressed that their provider will post content about them online!?
Number one rule: we want to make sure that clients or our audience don’t feel shamed by us. When someone’s working with you, they're coming to you to solve a problem. Whether that's getting their website designed or getting their social media to look aesthetic. They're not coming to you to be shamed or feel terrible for knowing less than you. It also sets an example for newer creatives who are joining the field to anticipate bad situations and learning to automatically think of your clients as problematic or as less than.
is it a Red Flag or does your Client Need Education?
There's a lot of conversation online about red flag clients. And red flags are very real. They're definitely something that you're gonna want to run in the other way from.
But, we also have to remember that our clients are not designers, copywriters, marketers, or whatever our work is. They don't do our job. So a lot of the time, they don't know about processes, deliverables, your boundaries, or pricing. So sometimes, the questions that they ask might initially set off an alarm, but they might just need a simple explanation.
Here are some examples of situations that could be seen as red flags, but could be a case of clients simply not knowing:
Client expresses that your price is too high:
Now, this could be a red flag, and it could turn into a red flag. But, it’s their initial response. That's not a straight-up no, they could just be expressing surprise or trying to learn more about the value so they can try and justify it for themselves. In some cases they may genuinely not be able to afford that and that doesn't mean that they don't value you. People can't afford something that they can't afford!
Client is asking you to do things a certain way or why your packages include certain things:
Again, they're probably not trying to undermine your processes, unless you've explained it a million times. It's likely something that they just don't know, or didn't understand before!
Clients who have had a bad experience with another service provider in your industry:
It doesn't necessarily have to be a red flag! It may be more about the style of the designers or creatives they’ve worked with. It's hard for clients to know what to look for to find a good fit. It's a big part of our role as the provider to look at the client and to think about if it's truly the best fit for us.
Clients who are very specific about what they want:
Sometimes, “visionary” clients gets painted as a client who is not a good fit because they will try to art direct. That can be true. But creative clients can often picture exactly what they want in their heads. Often, they're still very, very good collaborators as long as they trust you as an expert. So there's definitely a difference between the person who says, “I used to work in marketing. So I know how this works” and the person who's fun and has a lot of ideas.
When DOES SOMEONE TURN INTO A RED FLAG CLIENT?
Of course, there are red flags that we genuinely want to encourage you to look out for. We definitely don't want to say that everything can be addressed with just saying, “we can just educate and reset boundaries”. There are some times where things are genuinely red flags!
Continuously crossing or disrespecting your boundaries:
If you've clearly communicated your boundaries multiple times, and they’re still crossing them, that’s a red flag. If they've accepted the project, they've signed a contract!
They're not paying you per schedule:
If someone’s paying late for no reason. trying to get a discount after they've already signed the contract, or withholding payment at any point, this is a red flag. If any client needs to pay late at any time for a good reason, they should be communicating this in advance, setting a date to pay the amount, and sticking to it.
Trash talking contractors they’ve hired before:
If a client’s saying negative things about past hires like, “all contractors are terrible” or “no one can do their jobs”, that’s probably a red flag. Your job isn’t to convince them you can do your job, they should already believe you can do your job!
A flippant attitude about your work:
A big red flag is a client being really clear from the start that they don't value you or the work that you're providing. For example, if they're saying things like, “I know how long this should take”, “I can get this cheaper on Fiverr” or “I have a brother who could do this website design, I don't need you to do this for me”, those can definitely be red flags. We would be remiss if we didn't encourage you to look at those and think twice about them.
Overall, the distinction between red flags and normal client behaviour is often more of a grey area than it sometimes made out to be. A lot of the time, it requires asking more questions, more education, and a little bit more conversation.
How can we avoid red flag client situations?
Now that we have covered some of the red flags, let’s move into what steps we can take to help create better experiences for clients and stop any red flag situations from getting worse.
Let’s validate your feelings: it can be really frustrating to communicate things over and over again, especially when something seems so obvious to us. Sometimes, it seems like clients are trying to undermine you by questioning your process, deliverables, or price. But most of the time, clients simply need education. Remember, you’re the expert!
Here are some tips to help you avoid red flag situations:
Set and reinforce clear boundaries:
Setting and reinforcing boundaries as a business owner can feel tough because sometimes, you want to put your foot down, but you don't want to be rude. Most of the time, clients aren’t purposely disrespecting your boundaries. They just might not remember your boundary of only replying to emails during certain hours. Remember: it’s absolutely acceptable to remind clients of your boundaries. boundaries setting tip, For example, if you have a client that is emailing you multiple times a day or is expecting responses in a really, really short turnaround, kindly remind them of your boundary! You don't have to ignore them or give them a curt response. Simply respond and say, “thanks for asking, as a reminder based on our contract, you’ll hear back from me in X business days”.
Be as transparent as possible before they sign on as a client:
This includes your process, policies, communications, everything. And when we say as early as you can, we mean during your consultation call, in your proposal, your contract, your welcome packet, and/or your client meetings. Remind clients about things, because you can’t say these things too often! You need to remind clients how you work. This prevents sticky situations later popping out of the blue, because you’ve expressed that you only answer emails during working hours a handful of times. Additionally, if a question does arise, you'll have a ton of proof to point to where you've already stated your policies (instead of the client feeling surprised with new information).
Where can I share bad or weird client situations safely?
Vent with trusted friends, not your social media:
We're all humans, and we all want to share (or vent) about our experiences. Instead of turning to your social media stories, find someone you trust. It feels really great to have someone else's perspective on it, even if it's just for them to listen to you talk for a moment.
You could talk to:
Your business coach/mentor
Therapist/counsellor
Partner/spouse
Best friend
Business friends you trust
These are all really great safe places to vent offline that aren't going to harm your clients or potentially ruin!
If you are going to talk about client situations online in an educational, relatable way, don’t share specific or identifying details. Don’t shame the clients either in your retelling, you can tell your story without blame/shame.
