In this episode:

client ‘red flags’ to look out for
my personal experience with client work

At the time of recording this episode, I wasn’t taking on any more client work and was going all-in on my online store. Since then, almost a year later, I have started happily taking on the occasional website and design client, so this ‘client checklist’ is still very relevant for me.

What’s your gut reaction?

A very simple question to ask yourself, yet one that I tended to ignore often. As mentioned in the episode, we don’t always have a choice and have to do some work that we don’t love. But if you have trouble saying no to projects (and people), and have the capacity to turn some down, then paying attention to your gut reaction can reveal a lot.

Is this a project you’re excited about taking on?

If, hypothetically, money was taken out of the equation, would you still feel the same?

Before you say yes…

The first, most obvious question to ask yourself is: have I had a bad experience with this client in the past? Or am I dealing with a client that shows similar patterns, behaviours or red flags?

This is a mistake that past-me would constantly make. I often got blindsided by the prospect of getting paid that I would justify the client’s past behaviour and fool myself into thinking that it would be magically different this time.

What has gone wrong in previous situations? Is there a pattern (i.e. something you can control or manage)? What can you do to ensure that you’re not repeating the same mistakes with the same or with new clients?

Client ‘red flags’

Keep in mind that what I consider a red flag might not be a concern for other people at all - it can be pretty subjective and dependent on a person’s personality and work style.

1. Constant phone calls

Lots of people are fine with phone calls, and may even prefer them, but not me. I am not a fan of phone calls at all. I hardly call anyone, ever, and when I do, it’s normally a time-sensitive issue that can be resolved in a 30 second call.

I’ve found that most phone calls can be resolved in a simple and short email, often quicker than an aimless call, but it is also great to get the request or question in writing. This minimises the possibility of a misunderstanding or scope creep later on.

I’ve always found phone calls inconvenient because they tend to arrive when I’m in the middle of something. As a creative, ‘flow state’ is crucial and being disrupted by a phone call, that isn’t urgent or essential, can be detrimental to my work.

Of course, at times phone or video calls can be more effective for communication and clarification, but I prefer to schedule this in with clients to set healthy boundaries and avoid the expectation that I am always available to pick up my phone.

2. Communication over text or instant message

Personally, I prefer not to communicate with clients over text, DMs or instant message, because unlike email, instant message often comes with the expectation that there will be an immediate reply, even outside of work hours or days. And again, it’s always better to have things in writing to avoid future misunderstandings.

While a valid way of communicating informally and occasionally with clients you know well, I still recommend email for the official record-keeping and professionalism. Plus, it’s just a bit more unnecessarily awkward to invoice clients over an Instagram DM.

3. Scope creep

It’s natural for projects and briefs to have some changes - and it’s good practice to anticipate it and add some buffer into your timeline - but if there are any significant changes that weren’t previously agreed upon then typically, the client will be billed for the extra work. This is nothing new and is generally understood and accepted by both sides.

However, there may be some instances where the client, intentionally or not, asks for additional things, often small but still beyond the accepted scope of the project, and therefore doesn’t expect to be charged extra for it. But these little things do add up over time and so, it can be helpful to be clear with terms and expectations beforehand to avoid this scope creep.

Set clear, healthy boundaries and you will have a better relationship with your client, while respecting your own time and energy.

4. Client mismatch

This one’s not necessarily negative but can lead to difficulties further down the road. It’s likely that you have a certain style, or way of doing things, whether you’re a designer, illustrator or photographer. But you may still get requests from clients that don’t realise that what they’re asking for is completely different to what you normally do or what you’re good at.

Of course, it’s at your discretion if you want to take on a new and challenging project that’s different to what you’ve done in the past, but it can lead to confusion and frustration if the client expects you to create something that doesn’t align with your skills or your brand.

To ensure that your client works with the best person for their project, and to save you a headache, it may be the best solution to refer someone else that might be more suitable. No need for any bad feelings and you get to refer a friend - win-win!

I never know how to start this.
Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the (un)planned Podcast.
Today I'm going to be answering one of your questions.
So today's question comes from Bambi from @deerbambino and she asks:
Bambi: "Hey Jess, my question for you is: as somebody who used to struggle turning down creative opportunities, do you have a checklist that helps select the projects or commissions that you now undertake? I think you would provide a very valuable insight into this reflection that goes into that decision.”
Thank you Bambi for such a good question, a tough question too.
And it does bring back a lot of memories because I don't do client work anymore I used to a lot when I was a photographer.
I did a few art client commissions but I found that I didn't really enjoy it all, so I feel very fortunate that I don't have to do any client work anymore. But I can share some of my learnings from when I did a lot of photography projects and client work.
I just want to clarify: yes I used to find it really hard to turn down projects because I found it really hard to say no to people
And a lot of the time, the clients were friends of friends or just friends in general, so I found it really hard to say no to them because I didn't want to let them down but the second part of this is that I totally acknowledge that it is a privilege to be able to turn a job because I do remember the time when I had to take on every job I could get. I was very grateful for every job I could get, no matter how bad it was because it meant money, and I needed money and so I totally understand that not everyone has the privilege of saying no to a job.
Obviously there are exceptions, even if you are desperate for money, there's probably some jobs that you just would not take but I'm going to answer this question with some assumption that you do have some sort of control over what projects you do accept.
So like I said, I don't do anymore client work but the same principle or checklist/process still applies if I do have to make a decision so the first question I always ask myself is: what is my gut reaction? Am I really excited for this project?
When I first read that email, when I first hear about the project, am I really, really excited for it?
Or is there some part of me that's just inwardly, kind of, recoiling or contracting because I don't have a good feeling about it?
And it might not just be the project itself, but it could be something about the client that makes you not so excited.
So I think it's good to pay attention to your initial gut reaction. Also ask yourself if you would still feel the same way if you weren't getting paid for this project. So obviously money is really important and money pays the bills and we all need money but if we take money out of the equation, just hypothetically, would you still feel excited for this project?
Is it something that you still would really, really want to do?
And by taking money out of the equation, it helps you think about the project and think about you feel about it without the promise of the money.
That might not be relevant for you, but for me money was a really big influence and in a lot of situations, it did blind me to a lot of red flags - whether it was the project or the client.
Another really obvious question to ask yourself is: have I had bad experiences with this client before? And it sounds really obvious but I've made this mistake so many times.
I've had a really bad experience with a client and I think, no, it'll be different next time or I get blindsided by the money and I agree to do the project again without really changing anything and so I keep making the same mistakes again.
So if you've had a bad experience with a client before, unless you're going to change something significantly to make sure the same mistakes don't happen again... and it doesn't even have to be the same client, it could be a very similar client that you recognise some patterns, some similarities and you know it didn't go well last time, don't make the same mistakes again.
But to also go a little bit further into that, what has gone wrong in previous jobs for you? And how have you addressed that? Are you addressing that? Because from personal experience, I know I just kept making the same mistakes over and over.
I wasn't communicating clearly enough, I wasn't setting boundaries, I wasn't getting enough details to a job before I said yes. So make sure you have a look at your past jobs and look at the past mistakes that you have made to make sure that you're implementing things to avoid that in the future.
So I want to go into some of the 'red flags' for me personally, that I think are red flags, that helps me decide whether or not I should say yes or no to a job.
And now because I do have that privilege of being able to choose if I want to do client jobs, for me it has to be a wholehearted yes. I have to absolutely be thrilled, so excited for the job that I say yes to it. If I don't, then I don't have time for it anymore.
So now it's a little bit easier for me to say no to jobs because I just honestly just don't have the time for it anymore now that I'm doing the YouTube and the Patreon and these new podcasts but back when I did have a lot of time, it was a lot harder to listen to myself and to listen to what I actually wanted.
And I know some of you might be in the same position but here are some of my red flags:
So the first really big red flag for me is that the client wants to call me all the time. So me personally, I do not like phone calls. I don't mind phone calls if it has a purpose and if it's short, but from personal experience, a lot of clients just like to ramble on the phone and they want to talk to you and get things off their chest without really thinking it through themselves.
One, that takes up so much time, two, I don't like being expected to pick up the phone whenever they call me, I want that to be scheduled so if I didn't mind phone calls but the client was calling me all the time, I would make sure to communicate that you cannot just call me out of the blue, you would have to schedule in a call. I think that's really important but client boundaries is kind of like a whole nother topic that we'd go into.
And I find that a lot of the time, clients can communicate the exact same thing in a very, very short email so I don't like them offloading the work onto me in a phone call and I also love to have things in writing.
Another thing is that if a client messages me a lot, like text message... text messages are kind of a weird one. It's up to you where you want to draw the line. For me personally, I don't think text messages, or Instagram messages, you know DMs, are a good idea at all unless you really, really know the client very, very well and you trust them.
I think it's much better to stick to email, it's more professional, you'll have everything in writing but mostly, they will not expect you to be on call every single minute of the day. They don't have that access to your attention.
When people use instant messaging platforms or just text messages, a lot of the time they expect you to reply instantly. So if a client is texting me a lot or messaging me on Instagram, I would try to divert that to email and keeping the communication formal. It's a lot harder to be formal on Instagram messages or text messages.
In addition to that, because of the nature of text messages and Instagram messages and Facebook messages and things like that, there's not really an etiquette yet, not in the same way that there is with emails. People understand that people don't really check their emails at night and no one expects someone to respond to an email at night. If they do, big red flag.
But if a client is messaging me at odd times of the day, at night or really early morning and expects a response, that is a huge red flag because they are expecting full access to my time and not respecting that they are not the only project that I have on hand. Obviously there are exceptions, it could be a really, really big project that does need all your time but most of the time, I'm assuming that's not the case and the client doesn't need to be messaging you at 10pm with a request or to get your thoughts on something. Keep it to email. That's a big red flag for me if I can't get the client to respect my office hours and also how I prefer to be communicated with.
So another red flag for me is if the client keeps adding to the scope. So this one is kind of at the beginning of the project, but maybe more closer to the middle as well.
So in a lot of cases, you've agreed to do a project. The client has pitched something to you, it sounds good, you agree to do it and then over time, they keep adding little things or changing little requests. And of course, projects change, briefs change and that's natural, you're supposed to make some room for that and charge the client for that if there are any significant changes but red flags for me, and this happens a lot with friends I've realised, is where the clients think they can just keep adding on things for you to do without being charged extra. They phrase it in a way that's super casual and just a 'little extra favour': "Could you also do this? Or do you think you can give me maybe, like, one more?" so I would say, be careful of those.
If you can manage those clients, if you have systems in place to deal with those requests then absolutely go for it.
At this stage of my career, I have very limited mental energy and emotional energy and if a client is scope creeping like that, I just don't have the energy to deal with it. And obviously it depends on the client, but for me it is a red flag.
A lot of little changes and requests and scope creeping like that, it might seem like a minor thing or the client might want you to think* it's a minor thing and 1 or 2 changes is totally normal and that's to be expected but when it's a lot of little changes that you don't think are anything significant but when you take a step back and look at all the things that they've asked you to do and it's so much more than you agreed to do, that's scope creep and they're (the client) maybe not intentionally trying to get you to do more than you agreed to so that they don't have to pay you.
So the easy solution to this is to charge them for it before you agree to do it or before you do anything extra.
I know it's hard to set these boundaries with clients and it can feel really awkward but you need to do this in order to protect yourself and to make sure you're not agreeing to do a project that will really, really drain you and that you will really regret.
So make sure you know what your red flags are and where you draw the line. You need to have some sort of boundaries otherwise clients will just keep taking and taking. You need to know yourself well enough to know where you will fail.
I think another really big one, which I think is important to mention, it hasn't happened as much to me because photography's a little bit different to art in that way but if a client is asking you to do something which might not necessarily be in your style. I think that one can be a bit of a red flag, that one totally depends on the project and the client but in the same vein if they don't know what your style is, they don't know previous work that you've done, you're just an illustrator that they know of, because someone recommended you, or you're just a photographer. It's always exciting to get a new job and something challenging, but you also want to make sure that you are the right person for the job.
Are you really excited to do this and do you believe that you can do a good job? There's nothing wrong with admitting to the client that you're not the best person for this, you might realise that it's beyond your skillset or it's just something that doesn't really excite you because you're just not the best person to ask for it.
So the checklist doesn't have to be a negative thing, it doesn't have to be that the client is a bad person, and you don't agree with their morals, and the project is really boring, it could just be a simple mismatch of interests. Your interests just might not align and you might feel like you're not the best person for this job and they're not the best company for you to work with.
There doesn't have to be any bad feelings about that and I think it's really important to communicate that in the beginning and I know it's hard to turn down jobs for that reason as well, to admit that you're not the best person for it, but I think it's great to know other people in your industry that do similar things to you but have somewhat different styles and you can each share jobs.
And on a related note, if you have a problem saying no to projects, I mean that's a whole topic in itself, but one way to say no in a really nice and polite way is to recommend someone else for the job. Especially if you think you don't have the skills for the job or you just don't have the time, the workload to do the job.
And it's a great way to network with other people and to have connections with other people in your industry because you could share jobs in that way as well. But also remember that saying no to a job is not closing that door, it's an opportunity for another door to open.
If you took on that job that you didn't feel that excited about, you could be saying no to a job that would be absolutely perfect for you. Again, under the assumption that you can choose what jobs you want to do but I think the main question to ask yourself when you get a client job is: am I wholeheartedly saying yes to this job? Am I very excited for this job? Do I feel like I can do this job really well and I think, I believe, that I'm the best person for this job?
So I hope that answers your question Bambi and I hope that helps anyone else. There's so much more I could say about clients but just in summary, when it comes to selecting projects or commissions to take on: 1) do I feel good about this project? 2) am I being respected by the client in this project? and 3) would I still love to do this project even if I wasn't getting paid?
So I guess, putting yourself first is the main thing here when you're taking on client projects because there is a mental, emotional and sometimes physical cost to taking on a project. And it's up to you to decide, whether that client or that project is worth it for you.
Make sure you have clear boundaries and you're not disrespecting yourself.
So thank you so much for listening to this episode, I would love to hear your thoughts, I would love to hear your client experiences. I feel like there's a lot we can share and learn from each other but thank you so much for listening and I will see you next week.