SiteApr1
Fire Your Worst Client
We all have one — a PITA client that requires six rewrites, offers awful contracts, and/or pays peanuts. Dumping your bottom client will give you time to pitch better assignments, and, at the risk of sounding “out there,” there’s something about making room in your life for new things that encourages them to flow in.
You don’t have to burn bridges…just be “too busy” the next time this client calls. And the next time. And the time after that.
Have you ever fired a client? Please share your experiences in the Comments below. [lf]
11 Responses to “Fire Your Worst Client”
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Robin Noelle
Said this on January 20th, 2008 at 12:49pm:I had a client who one minute was thanking me for all my excellent work and then later handing me sheafs of paper for rewrites and lamenting that she would never be able to use what I provided. There had been no changes in between. I gracefully (I think) exited by referring her to someone more experienced in what she required (website design) and set her expectations that the rates would be much higher. She has the website she wanted and I don’t have to deal with multiple personalities. win-win.
Heather Boerner
Said this on January 21st, 2008 at 12:53am:Absolutely. I did it recently for a client I loved but that just didn’t pay me enough to be able to afford to take it.
I totally believe it makes space for new work to let go of clients that are draining energy.
Thanks for posting this!
Star
Said this on January 21st, 2008 at 12:41pm:I had a client tell me Friday that it would be OK to “take the weekend” and try to find the name of a person a source had mentioned. The source did not have the name, just the example. I said, “That’s OK–I googled for a few minutes and you may have to take the example out if you can’t have the source saying it.” Take the weekend? That was almost a firing offense.
KLO1468
Said this on January 21st, 2008 at 10:09pm:I recently fired a client and handed them off to another friend who was just branching out on her own. I was totally upfront about the challenges associated with this client, but she was willing to take them on because she wanted to build her portfolio. In the end, it all worked out and they actually got along much better than I did. A year later, she’s still working with them. But it sure was liberating to let them go!!
HisGirlFriday
Said this on January 22nd, 2008 at 9:44pm:Along these same lines - I recently saw an ad in a magazine that had the word “No.” printed on one blank page. (I think it was a car ad.) I cut it out and pasted it above my desk to remind myself to turn down work that is not worth my time financially, emotionally or creatively. Yes, I need to keep putting food on the table, but I’ll be able to do that better if I’m not stressed out all the time.
Hurrah for a great post! This is always so inspiring!
diane
Said this on January 23rd, 2008 at 12:29pm:I’ve just had a few months’ sabbatical and am finding it hard to get back into the swing of things.
During my time off I worked on a few pitches, and have sent out 25 of them this week, with only 2 sucesses so far.
So right now *any* client is a good client!
Jules
Said this on January 23rd, 2008 at 3:56pm:Today, I was going to “fire” a client(motivated in part by you Renegade gals) but I asked for a rate increase instead. Within five minutes, the editor doubled my rate. No need to fire now.
LindaFormichelli
Said this on January 23rd, 2008 at 4:21pm:You go, Jules!
ZWriting
Said this on April 1st, 2008 at 7:22pm:In my 25+ years of freelance writing, I’ve worked for various local papers and magazines. Until recently, I’d truly never had a bad experience in my writing career (some challenging interviews, for sure, but have always felt backed by my editors).
As a writing instructor, though, I wanted to follow the advice I gave to my students and try working for some different publications. In fall 2007, I queried a neighborhood newspaper; the pay was low and they bought all rights, but still, I decided to take the plunge.
They gave me an assignment and, when my first article appeared, I barely recognized it. Out of the gate, it had a huge grammatical error and the rest of my snappy opening paragraph was replaced by some jumbled sentence fragments. I phoned the editor immediately who was as surprised as I was about the article. He said, “I don’t know what to say. Your article was fine, so I don’t know what happened.” It sounded as if tiny little gremlins came in the night before publication and rewrote my article. I sent a copy of my original article to the subject with an apology.
This was a foretaste of things to come; still, I did other work for them and had some positive experiences with articles appearing as I wrote them. However, the editors were often very fussy, demanding picky rewrites that added little to an article’s quality or readability.
Around Christmas 2007, I had two articles due, completed them in record time, and knew they were both kick-ass. One editor contacted me right away but instead of saying “thanks,” he screamed that it was “outrageous” that the article was so long (they’d given me no word count limits). He hadn’t read it, but insisted that I do a major rewrite, taking out the most of the interviews he had me conduct.
As for the second article, I’d lost track of how many times the other editor had me rewrite it. He asked me to add things he’d forgotten to tell me, and to remove things that he originally asked for. When the two articles appeared, they were butchered beyond recognition and once again I sent the originals to the subjects with apologies.
Well, I was tired of killing myself for peanuts, being embarrassed by the articles, and having to make amends to my subjects, so I decided to fire the paper, even though they didn’t know it. I had this ongoing fantasy of telling the editors where to go and how to get there, but in the end, I said I was busy when they called me to do more work for them. They call every few weeks now and I continue to be “busy.”
As I tell my writing students, it’s a bit challenging when you write for local publications—you literally write where you live. This particular publication is part of a family-run newspaper dynasty that’s gone on for generations. Besides this newspaper, various family members are involved in local politics, TV and radio and playing David to this Goliath made no sense. (The amusing thing is that my name is still on the masthead as a contributor, but I haven’t written a thing for them since that December disaster.)
When I shared this account with my students (they are new writers who want to get published), they were so grateful. One said, “If this had happened to me, I would have been devastated and would have never written again.”
Lessons learned: don’t bale after one experience, but if it continues to spiral out of control, then don’t think twice about leaving. As much fun as revenge fantasies are, don’t burn bridges; instead, chalk it up to experience and query other publications. No sense in staying in a bad relationship.
LindaFormichelli
Said this on April 2nd, 2008 at 8:39am:ZWriting, what a terrible client! Good for you for firing them.
Kathy Holmes
Said this on April 10th, 2008 at 12:17pm:I haven’t really be in the position to fire a client, but I did recently not take on a client when I realized the compensation wasn’t enough to cover the time involved on the project. I thought the time would be better spent looking for a more lucrative project.