#123: Bryce Bladon on How to Avoid Clients from Hell!

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia. Hey there. Thank you for joining me for episode 123 of the High Income Business Writing Podcast. My name is Ed Gandhia and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to take their writing businesses to the six figure level or the part time equivalent. Just a quick reminder that you can find all the details show notes to this episode just by going to b2b launcher.com forward/episode123 so see if this sounds familiar. So you've ever been in this situation with a client, you get a comment like it's not quite right. The only problem is this is the 12th round of edits. Or maybe you've heard something to the effect of all right, we're ready to get started finally, but we need the first draft tomorrow. And hey, can you lower your fee a little? You know, you're a lot higher than what we paid our last rider. If you've ever dealt with prospects and clients like these, you know how frustrating it can be. And I think many of us have. You know, they're not fun. I would even say that they might even make you feel like you should be back at your day job. That that's, that's how terrible it can be to work with these types of clients. And in this week's episode, we're going to talk about these crappy clients, or clients from hell as my guest calls them. And yeah, we're going to vent a little. We're going to joke around a little bit. We're also going to discuss how you can identify these problem clients before they unleash hell on you. And more specifically, how to handle these difficult situations with grace and professionalism when they do happen. Because sometimes they will happen even though you have and you will have a more robust screening process and protections in place in order to avoid as many of these as possible. But sometimes some do get through. My guest is Bryce Bladen and Bryce is an award winning writer, creative consultant and strategist. And he is the editor in chief of Clients from Hell, a blog that collects anonymously contributed client horror stories from the front lines of the freelancing industry. He is also the host of a podcast of the same name, Clients from Hell, which is hilarious. So without further ado, let's get right to our interview with Bryce Bladen.

Foreign.

Such a pleasure to have you on the show, Ed.

Such a pleasure to be here Man.

I am really looking forward to talking with you. This is a very relevant yet sometimes painful and inevitably hilarious topic sometimes. Because sometimes you can't help but just laugh and at the way clients act. Right.

Well, it's that or cry a lot of the time. So we tend towards humor whenever we can. It's just such a universal experience, man. Even the best of us has had at least one crappy client experience.

Yeah, right? You look around and go, is this person, like, human? Are they living in the same world? Did they speak the same language? What's wrong with them? So we're going to get into all that, but before we talk about clients from hell, why don't you give us a little bit of background? Tell us about yourself, where you came from, what kind of work you do, and then what you're up to these days, what your focus is.

Absolutely. So I'm Bryce Bladen. Most people know me for a little website I run called, you guessed it, clientsfromhell.net, which collects anonymously contributed stories of woe and tear from the front lines of freelancing. We go for a humorous slant whenever we can. Sometimes there's not a joke to be found, but that's that. Personally, besides the blog, I've been freelancing for about 10 years, mostly as a writer, but these days, I'm hired as a consultant, usually for creative or content strategy. And, yeah, I also have a podcast. Guess what that's called? Clients from Hell. Really, really got a niche here when it comes to dealing with crappy clients.

That's awesome. That's awesome. So you're one of us. I mean, essentially, you know, you're not someone who compile stories and that's it. You've never been here. You deal with this stuff all the time. You've been. You're in our world.

Oh, I've been in those trenches.

Yes. Awesome. Awesome. All right, so I think we can all assume what we're talking about. I think many of our listeners are familiar with your.

Your.

With your blog. But just so we're on the same page, Clients from Hell, what are the common criteria when we're talking about clients from hell? You know, what are you referring to, other than the obvious?

Well, you know, one person's devil is another person's minor annoyance sometimes. But a lot of the people we feature on the site are just comically bad and sometimes just like, they live in a different reality. But for most of us, for most people who are just going about their data, freelancing, contracting, consulting, whatever, when you run into a client from hell, you know, they rarely have that, that tail, that horn, horns, hopefully faint scent of brimstone. None of those things. What they do have, and these are just general things I found. But I have gone through a lot of stories and I have gotten a lot of feedback about dealing with clients from hell. And there are some very basic foundations. A lot of these crappy clients seem to. In my opinion, the four most common ones are ambiguous expectations. Like, sometimes this is okay at very, very early on, sometimes it's a great opportunity to either educate your client or point them in the right direction. Like, keep in mind a client is employing you typically because they either lack the time, more than likely because they lack the skill set or resources to complete or do something themselves. So it's okay that they don't know exactly what they need, but, but they should have a goal in mind. They should have a reason for doing this, and they should have a relatively clear idea what they're after. And if they don't, you can expect that project scope to balloon and you can expect all your blind attempts to fulfill their needs to miss the mark and for that client to just get upset. And kind of. On that note, and this is the one that actually gets me the most, as weird as it sounds, a client from hell is unappreciative. A terrible client might expect behavior or time or discounts for no other reason than they think they just inherently deserve it. This is one that comes from a lot of these other things I'm going to be talking about, like these expectations. That's something that could potentially be solved. That's something that can come from like a good person can just have unclear expectations. But an unappreciative client like that is, that is just a personality flaw. You're not fixing that one. And if you give these kind of clients what they want, it only reinforces the belief that, that you live to work for them. And it just sets a terrible, terrible expectation. Nice little sequiter there. The third one, and again, pretty universally bad trait. But just being disrespectful. The best relationships to have with a client are where you're working with a client, not for them. Admittedly, that dynamic can be a little tilted one way or the other. But clients who just do not see you as an equal, they won't see their disrespect as a disservice. It'll just be common practice for them. And they'll think you should be privileged to even be there and get paid whatever you're getting paid, if you're even getting paid. And the last one? The last one is. Yeah, the last one's my biggest pet peeve, actually. You know, I'm going down this list and I'm just like, no, this is the worst one. No, this is the worst one. They're all pretty bad, but they are. The last one is a really bad client. Will devalue good work. Nobody's thrilled to spend money if they don't have to. I 100% appreciate that. But if a client devalues your work to try to get you to lower your rate or something, watch out. A good client freelancer relationship, really any relationship, is a mutually beneficial one. And clients should feel like they're getting value out of their freelancers, and freelancers should feel valued by their clients. I mean, it doesn't need to be a kumbaya guitar circle, but you should both feel like you're helping one another, and you should be helping one another in some way, shape, or form. And if one half of this business relationship is just putting you down or poking holes in your work for no other reason than to try and poke holes in your work, there's a difference between quality control and. And bullying. And this is definitely more on the side of the ladder.

You know, one of the things that freelancers ask me frequently is, man, is it me or our clients just getting worse and worse and worse? What are you seeing out there in terms of, you know, is it a trend, number one? And number two, with more freelancers entering the marketplace, is that having an impact on these factors?

You know what? I might say something a little unpopular here, but I honestly think if we do have a trend, and we very possibly do, all my evidence would be anecdotal, but if there's somebody that would hear about there being more clients from hell, it's probably me. I think it is both clients and freelancers are contributing to there being more clients from hell. Now, I don't want to victim blame here, but because freelancers are just. They're going to consistently be more and more empowered to go out there and work for themselves. There has never been more software. There have never been more tools. There have never been more ways to work for yourself online. And that is all fantastic, and that is great, but that also means there is an influx of inexperienced workers who don't know what to look for when it comes to a client's from hell. They haven't had that negative experience that is often a learning experience yet. And likewise, on the flip side, of this, there are a lot of clients out there who are relatively inexperienced at being clients. And you throw two inexperienced people together, you can have something amazing happen where you both make each other better and you can have something terrible happen where you both just have the worst experience of your life. As far as a trend, I honestly couldn't comment. But it's my opinion that most client from hell experiences really do emerge from a lack of expectation. Sorry, a lack of experience and the knowledge of like what to look for. You haven't honed your gut yet for what the crappy clients really look like, what they act like. And as a result you're kind of flying a little blind out there.

And those are some really good points. I hadn't really thought about that. And you're right, I would add. One thing I've noticed is that especially over the past 10 years, I've seen a significant difference in the attitude of many clients. Not because they're mean people, but because they are expected to do a lot more with less. And 10 years ago they had a staff of three and now it's just them and they're doing the work of two or three people. And just the expectations internally are so warped that they tend, and this has just been my observation, they tend to kind of push that downhill to, to their freelancers, many of the bat ones at least. And I think it's, you know, it's just kind of they shouldn't do that. But it's something I have seen with a lot of them.

Oh, absolutely. Expectations on so many levels come into this. Like there is, you know, the one on one expectation of when you engage a client and try to figure out, you know, the scope of work, what it is you're going to be trying to do. But they' the expectations that come from a lot of these freelance job boards where hire a freelancer, they'll produce this thing for $5. Like I said, you've never been more empowered to work for yourself, to have these opportunities. But the double edged sword of that is it's kind of a global marketplace. So somebody in a country with a much lower cost of living can do that work and potentially even great work. But it's not realistic for somebody somewhere with a much higher cost of living to meet that same cost expectation. But to a relatively inexperienced, or in this case, let's say ignorant client, they just see this guy that I don't know and I don't know the context here, can do it for $5. Why are you charging me $50 an hour or things like that.

Yeah, yeah, that's great points there. It's definitely the job boards and more people coming in the barri to entry are so low now that there are some people who are getting in the game who probably shouldn't get in the game. But so. So you mentioned something a few minutes ago that I want to kind of touch on, which is the kind of the screening, you know, and I know that a lot of that comes with experience, but how can you identify some of these potential problem clients before they unleash hell on you? Right, because it's still going to happen. But I mean, I think we can all do a better job of maybe identifying some indicators early on.

Absolutely, absolutely. There are. I'll start from the simplest to getting slightly more complicated with it. The simplest method, and this one has not let me down since I've started listening to it, is to listen to your gut. If you are your first time meeting a client, something seems off and you just can't put your finger on it. I couldn't tell you why this works, but just experience and instincts will often serve you well. Every time I have gone against my gut and been like, let's give this guy a chance, let's see what she can do. Let's see if this project will actually be great, my gut ended up being right in the end. This person was putting on a happy face and they just were not the person I thought they were. Super unfortunate, but it is what it is. But let's get to more actionable stuff than, you know, trust yourself. The first one is easily the simplest one. IBM's approach to client qualification. I think it's from the 70s, if not earlier. It's called Bant B A N T. It's dead simple. Budget, authority, need, timeline. Can the client afford your services? Does this person have the authority to actually hire you, to actually work with you, to get you everything you need to complete the job? And this next point is the point that I see those inexperienced freelancers maybe missing the mark on. And that is, does the client have a genuine need for your services? This is why expectations need to be clarified. This is why you need to be clear on exactly the work you are doing and why you are doing that work. I've seen freelancers take jobs that they are in no way qualified to do, but they took the job for the paycheck, Then they have an upset client, then they blame the client. And I'm not saying that that client was necessarily the best person in the world in these instances, but you know, it's a two way street a lot of the time and you got to make sure that you are actually doing work that is of value for your client and you do that by qualifying them. And the last point, another obvious one, the timeline. Does this timeline work for you and your client? So the four basic pillars of qualifying a client budget, authority, need timeline. Can they afford you? Is this the person you should be working with? Can they give you you need to get it done? Do they have a genuine need for your services? Can you provide real value? Do they have a problem you can solve? And does the timeline work for you and your client? But those, those things aside, working with the right client for the right reason, it's the first step to a solid relationship. But that doesn't completely insure you against bad people. That requires a combination of questions and gut instincts. Obviously the latter is difficult to describe, but if someone sets off warning signals, it's probably for a good reason. But for the former, here are some questions that I just have that I've had over my career. And as you get more experience, do look into what questions you're asking clients that tend to correlate with the right kind of answers, the information you need to know. Because that's just why I have these eight questions on standby. They come up almost every single time I was working with a client. I have literally hundreds of questions like these. But the most basic ones are like, what inspired you to reach out to a writer? Like, what was the catalyst? What was the reason? And this will give you a lot of great insights into why a client is approaching you to tailor this in a different direction. At Clients From Hell, we have a lot of designers and it is so, so common for a client to think that the reason they're not getting sales because there's some sort of design element on their site that isn't singing. You know, it's, it's the font, it's the colors, it's none of those things. If you're reaching out to a designer to get more sales, you're gonna have a disappointed client who's gonna get upset, who's not gonna want to pay you, and if you would as a designer take on that job knowing that they want to get more sales and you're not gonna do any work that will get them more sales. Well, yeah, you see why this is one of the first questions I ask.

Yes, it's a great question and I love that it's open ended. So you just get them. I mean, it begs a Longer answer it.

Absolutely.

A sentence or two.

Yeah. And this helps you so much with trying to position yourself with that client too. Understanding the catalyst is the first step to understanding the problem, which is the first step to figuring out if you can actually help this client and if you even should. The next question, two part question, depending on how you met this person. But why did you reach out to me specifically? Or conversely, what was your process for choosing a writer to work with? Again, this gives you a lot of insight into how your client thinks, how your client operates, what they're looking for in someone, and how they see you as a freelancer and potentially what they see you actually doing. Again, getting clarity on those expectations, first and foremost. Client, relationship, romantic relationship, any relationship. Having clear expectations is just at the heart of having a good one.

So, Bryce, real quick, let me interrupt you just to get clarification on that last question. The process, it sounded like a past tense question. Are you asking for previously what's been your process or what is your process? What process are you using to make that decision? Is it present tense or past tense?

You know, I'm very impressed you're asking this, but I wrote it that way so you could interpret it whichever way was most applicable to you. In this case, I meant why do you want to work with me? Why do you think we would work well together? Why am I the freelancer you are working with? Is the heart of that question. But if you're working with a client that regularly works with, with freelancers in your niche in your field, whatever, asking after the process for working with those people, just as valid, if not more sometimes.

Yeah, I love that question. I have a similar question. I think I like yours a little better, which is, well, it's a two part question, is have you worked with a copywriter before, for instance, or.

What?

What's your decision process? Your decision making process, like what how are you going to go about this decision? Is usually the way I ask it and I rarely have someone who doesn't want to share that with me. In fact, that would be kind of a red flag because it's asked so innocently, but it's so revealing their answer. Right. It's. They just tell you a lot about how they're thinking.

Absolutely. And a very, very good set of questions to be asking. I would ask both, to be perfectly frank.

Yeah.

And sort of on that note, and this is, this is the litmus test question. A lot of the time, this is the one that'll either make it or break it for whether this Is it from hell? Or if you are just still going through the client qualification process and that is what was your experience with your last writer? Again, not applicable to necessarily every situation, but how the client talks about freelancers they've worked with in the past, why they stopped working with those freelancers and you know, maybe even digging in if they did have a negative relationship, really trying to figure out like what was the issue and seeing how a client responds to that. Are they fair handed? Sorry, are they even handed? Are they sort of fair in their assessment? Do they maybe even take ownership of doing something's wrong in that business relationship? You know, not necessarily, you know, owning their mistakes, as it were, not just putting all the baggage on the person who's not there to defend themselves and seeing how they talk about that person will reveal to you a lot about who this client is as a person. It'll also give you some insight into, well, what you can do to really upset this client potentially. And that again, just clarifies expectations a lot of the time.

I love that.

Yeah.

Let me ask you real quick, if I may interject about this happens a lot. The prospect who wants to talk price right out of the gate happens a lot with direct clients. But agencies are notorious for this. Or what's your rate? You know, you just sent out a prospecting email and that's the first thing they want to ask you. I know that that doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be a bad client, but what are your thoughts or advice of whether it's an agency or a direct client when that's what they want to talk about very early on?

I'll be frank, I'm coming from a place of privilege in this regard. Now I'm booked up for the rest of 2017, so when I get asked question just out of the gate, I tell them, well, my rates very much vary depending on the scope of work, the length of the engagement, you know, all these very important factors. But if you're just looking for a rate without knowing any of that, it would typically be and I give them twice what I would usually quote for my hourly rate. I also clarify that, like to be clear, it is usually much less than this. But I need a lot of those details before I even think about committing to. Just clarifies how serious your client is, how willing they are to give you that information. But it's also a great way to turn off clients if you're not willing to put in the time, as it were, as I'm not, I don't have time to waste with tire kickers these days. And again, that is very much a place of privilege. However, more ubiquitous advice, as it were, would be to schedule if you can. And I think you should be able to, especially if you're serious about potentially working with this person. Schedule a meeting. Doesn't need to be a long meeting, but schedule a meeting where you can have an actual conversation and do have a figure in mind that is your absolute lowest you can reasonably do. Do not share this figure. And then whatever you quote at the end of that meeting, and for the record, the purpose of this meeting is you will say it's like, yeah, I'd be more than happy to go into my rate, but there's some specifics of this potential project I need to know. Let's have a quick chat and I'll share my rate with you then. Great way to qualify them. Great way to get all that information you need about budget, authority, need timeline, great opportunity to ask some of these questions. And then at the end you should have a good idea of what a reasonable rate would be. And by the way, that absolute low issue will go. Do not share that, but absolutely know that you cannot go below that. Do not do that ever in any instance if you can help it, unless there is some sort of value you would get out of this project with working with that client. Just don't sell yourself short.

I think it's great advice. I found that if you can't get a prospect on a conversation, and by the way, I'm assuming with meeting you mean either on site or over the phone or Skype, but if you can't get them to commit to that, there's a good probability that they're not going to be a great client. Now that doesn't hold true every time, right. They might be extremely busy, but I think a reasonable client is going to understand why you're asking for that and they're going to be positive about it. And if they don't have the time right now, they'll tell you or they'll try to make something work. But. But I think it takes a little bit of courage to ask that if you haven't done it before. But man, I just want to second what you just said because it's. I don't think there's a substitute for that. And I see too many freelancers avoiding it because they're shy or they don't have the courage or the self confidence to ask for that call.

Absolutely. And guys, those of you who are shy, who are introverts I so get it. I despise having phone meetings. I wish I could do everything over email. I mean, I'm a writer. It's how I communicate. Communicate myself. But again, when we talk about expectations, if somebody just asks you your hourly rate, unless you are very confident in A working hourly and B, whatever the rate you're going to quote is, don't come out of the gate with that because that is just an immediate question where a client will immediately decide, yes, we'll take this to the next step or absolutely not. And if you're good at what you do, you probably deserve to get paid a fair bit. And if what you're doing actually provides value, you can more adequately speak to that value and how it influences your rate if you actually have a conversation with the client. Otherwise you are just shooting back an hourly rate and conversation. All the power is in the client's hand. You don't have any opportunity to defend yourself to justify your rate. None of that. You're giving up all your power.

Agreed.

Great.

All right, so let's shift gears a little bit and talk about kind of a next phase in a relationship would be if you decide, you both decide to do some work together. I know you're a proponent of using a contract with clients, so tell us about. I think some of the reasons are very obvious, so we don't need to get too much into that. But. But I'd like to get your take on why you like to use one, but more importantly, what basic elements you like to include in your contract.

Absolutely. Okay, so again, contracts, one of those things that seems really scary, like a lot of extra work, a lot of extra hoops to jump through. It really doesn't need to be. Like I was saying earlier, freelancers, clients, we've never been more empowered to freelance, to work for ourselves, to do all these things. There are so many free resources for a good contract. I think the freelancers union used to have like a sort of like thing you could fill out to make your contract dead fast. Clients from Hell if you sign up for our newsletter, we will give you four contracts for four different styles of work absolutely free. Sorry about promoing myself.

That is awesome. And I was going to ask you for that anyway, so great.

But there's a very good reason for that and that is not having a good contract or a contract is at the heart of a lot of bad client experiences. A good contract, it aligns expectations. It clarifies who's responsible for what and when. It serves as an excellent. What I like to call an early roadmapping opportunity. You know, just taking a long view of the project, how you both see it going, what everyone expects to come out of it, what is reasonable to expect, what is not. Like if, if you have the opportunity, work, walk through this contract with your client. Make sure it works for both of you. Because the last point, and probably the most important point is it protects both you and and your client. This isn't just something to protect yourself. I can appreciate why some clients are a little scared by contracts. And that is just the idea that you are locked into this person, you are making a commitment to this person. So you want to make sure that you're both comfortable with whatever that arrangement is going to be. There is one last resource I'm going to recommend and that is Banzai. I think they do like a dollar invoicing per invoice, but they also give away free contracts. Hello, banzai.com no way sponsored or anything by them, but just an excellent resource for freelancers that I believe is completely free and part of that being it covers all the stuff a good contract should have. It's. And again, let's be clear, your contract is your single best defense against unscrupulous clients. It's one thing for a client to be like, I'm not sure I'm ready to make that commitment now. It's another thing for a client to say, I will never sign a contract. I don't do contracts. And that's your way of knowing that this person, they're giving themselves an exit strategy in a very, very, oh, how should I put this politely? In a way that doesn't reflect well on them. So a quality contract, it should include the terms of your estimate. Describe your service or product as exactly as possible, include down payment information, invoicing schedule that should accompany your estimate. Clarify if you are, you know, depending on the scope of work, rush fee, terms, taxes, cost of being late on payment, an expiration date for the estimate if it's relevant. Any additional resources. I realize most of us are writers, but if fonts or images are part of this larger project cost, ideally they should be included. Next big point is the timeline. Spell out deadlines, milestones, communicate how long your turnaround time is expected to be. Again, this is a very robust contract I'm prescribing right now. But this was one of the best moves I ever made in my business was including going through the contract with my client as part of my onboarding process. It's just, it's changed the scope of the project a lot of the time, but in a good way. And everyone just comes out so much happier for it. And you get a educate your client more on the value of working with you. And you also get a really clearly underline how it protects both of you. Sorry, go ahead, Ed.

No, no, I think it also I was just going to add that it does make you look like more of a professional. Right. It adds a level of professionalism that you wouldn't have without it. If you're just keeping it very informal. And I know that's. Again, we're trying to keep things and I get that kind of informal with clients who want to appear as friendly and easy to work. But I would venture to say that most clients are going to respect that. You know, you're not without being weird. You don't have to be weird about it. It's just this is how I do business.

Absolutely. Next point, revisions. How many revisions does Your estimate accommodate? 3 is my solid number, but completely up to you. It really does again depend on how big of a project this is. You know, there's a big difference between three revisions on a 500 word article versus a 50,000 word book. Fourth point, feedback and approval. Does a client need to sign off on each milestone? Email confirmation Hard copies Who's the main point of contact for this stuff? If you're working with an actual company or something, rights is very important for a lot of writers out there. For your portfolio for publishing things to your personal blog, just clarify if the piece can appear in your portfolio, if the rights to the work can be resold at a later date. Things like that are just great to clarify right away. Confidentiality. Acknowledge that you and your client will not make any private information public during or even after the working engagement. Guarantees and warranties. If there's an issue with your work, say I don't know, there's a spelling error in the final brochure. What are your obligations to the client? How long is the work guaranteed? How much will the client need to pay if they need any help beyond this period? Again, as just straight writing is concerned. Not typically something that comes up. But if you're like me and you kind of have a service that complements your writing, let's say you do SEO, maybe design, maybe you include the images for your whatever. This is where guarantees and warranties become much more useful. The eighth point, the client freelancer relationship. It should clarify that you're a contractor, not a regular employee. Your contract should outline when and where you will complete your client's Work if you need to be on site. If you are going to be working from home. The ninth one, and this is probably one of my favorite things I've ever added to my contracts. That's the termination terms. How much are you entitled to if the job is cancelled? If that happens, who owns the right to your work? A lot of questions that need answers here, but it is a great way to make sure a client does not waste your time. Termination terms are just so excellent to protect you if you are. Because for larger projects there is a lot more lead up time, there is a lot more handholding with clients, there is a lot more figuring things out with clients as you move forward. And if the client just turns around and decides to cancel it after a month, you have essentially wasted all that time. Unless there are terms in your contract to protect you. Likewise, there could be terms in this contract to protect your client from you doing this. But you know, and there are also exceptions like if, you know, a close family member dies, it would be very unreasonable to think the person could just keep pumping out the work as it were. And then the final thing, the 10th point. Disputes. In the case of a dispute, how will you and your client handle it? Any third party involvement? Who is responsible for legal fees? Not sexy stuff. I don't have a lot of additional advice to add there, just that it's never been easier for you to just send your client a contract, have them click it to accept it and to put in an e signature. Hello, banzai.com was my suggestion for a lot of you folks, but there are so many services out there you'll just have to google them. The most valid criticism I've heard of contracts at the early stages is I don't want to give my client another hoop to jump through. I appreciate that one. Back in the day you would have to have your client print out the contract, sign it, fax it, all these things to do that are just slow down the work, make more work for your client and give them more reasons and more opportunities to back out of the arrangement. But now it's as simple as an email and just clicking ok. And even though I talked earlier about walking through the contract with your client, that could be something you guys do together and then you can send that final contract over via email when you are done doing that.

Do you actually do that? Do you actually walk them through the first time you engage with them through each of these 10 steps?

Absolutely. Last four clients. It has absolutely been a part of my working procedure.

And is it the kind Of I'm assuming it's just kind of a real quick overview. Hey, this first section covers this. The second section explains this and what happens, the event of this or that or the other. You're not going through it with a fine tooth comb, in other words.

Oh, no. Like I said, I find this as more of an opportunity to just clarify, take a step back and look at the project as a whole and who's responsible for what. And just making sure that the client client understands what they're responsible for and what you're responsible for and make sure you're not missing anything in that arrangement makes sense.

So, moving on in this life cycle, a couple of other questions for you. One is, when things do go wrong, which they will, I mean, it's just inevitable, it's bound to happen sometimes. What are some practical tips for communicating more effectively with your client to make sure it doesn't escalate?

Well, I've had the good fortune of only finding myself in the situation where I'm like, I need to get out of this arrangement sooner than later. One or two times in my career, however, I have worked with people who have needed to do that and I've kind of tried to coach them through it. Again, an annoying answer, but an honest one. This is why qualifying your clients is so important. It is so much easier to get out of it scot free earlier on than later on. The more committed you are to the client, the stickier the situation is going to be and the more unpleasant it is and the harder it is to get out of it. But my advice is to get clarity, to confirm basically everything that still needs to be done. Make sure that scope of work is defined, make sure you know exactly what you're responsible for, and then you have a couple options from this point forward. My way of dealing with it was to set up a regular schedule for delivering the work, for communicating on the work, and also basically telling my client that the deadline, I am not working beyond that. This is the end of our working arrangement. I would give a very polite, professional reason for that usually. But that is where I go from your friend, the freelancer, to the polite professional. My communications are regular, but they are clear, they are brief, they are to the point, and getting to the point is how I would deal with that. However, I appreciate that for some of you guys, you want out of this, you need to get out of this relationship. The simple answer there is to own that fact and to have that conversation with your client and to figure out how to make it work for Both of you. Not exactly ideal if you're dealing with a true client from hell, but figure out what you're responsible for. Protect yourself. And I think the best piece of advice I can give because there are so many different situations out there, but when you arrive to the conclusion that I need to dump this client, he is the worst. Do not do it while angry. Do not write that email when you reach that breaking point. Take some time. Calm down. Figure out everything you're responsible for. Figure out exactly what you've delivered. Collect emails. You know, protect yourself. Do everything you can to make sure you've done everything you could to resolve this amicably.

Yeah, it's hard to do that when you know you have Satan on the other end for sure, but I think it is very sound advice. I know I've regretted many more things that I said or written back in the heat of the moment than those that I took the time to really kind of calm down and think through. So excellent advice, Bryce. This has been outstanding. I've really enjoyed this conversation and we didn't really get into some of the stories, but I encourage everyone to check out clientsfromhell.net you are going to laugh, you're going to cry. Some great content there and I want to make sure that people know how to connect with you. So any, you know, you give us. Great tip with some resources we can get on your site. Any other parting advice or resources you want to encourage the audience to check out?

Oh geez, so many. Let's see. Let's see how I can do this efficiently. Well, check out clients from Hill.net, you'll get a laugh, you'll get a chuckle, you'll get a heavy sigh, most likely. We also do a lot of of courses for freelancers. That's school. Clientsfromhell.net I have a podcast called Clients from Hell. You can check that out on itunes or however you like to get your podcasts. As far as resources, well, my good friend Ed Gandia has a lot of great stuff out there. I was telling Ed before this call, I realized while giving a friend some advice from some notes I had taken from a product I had purchased years ago, and it was Ed's. So if you guys are just people who listen to this podcast and you do want to take a good step, invest in yourself and your business. Check out Ed's stuff. It's genuinely good and I'm telling you, not as a guest, but as somebody who actually invested in it and actually returned to it years later. Still found it very much of value. Can't think of a better testimonial than that, Ed. And also, thank you for producing that.

Yeah man. So that was the paid portion of the show. I'm going to send you that gift certificate here after we stop recording. Bryce, thanks for coming on, man. Really enjoyed our conversation, and I know our listeners did as well.

Excellent. I enjoyed it too. Thank you so much, Ed. And thank you to everyone who's listening.

The High Income Business Writing Podcast podcast is a production of B2B business launcher. Learn more at B2B launcher dot com.