Freaking Hate Clients

yeah but if I write nothing that is false , what would the case be

 

Whatever he can come up with. It doesn't have to be a solid case for him to sue you. Anybody can sue for just about anything. He doesn't have to pay a lawyer, you do. It would be a way to get back at you financially even if you win. It would cost you money to defend yourself.

Just a friendly warning of the possibilities

 

An attorney has the time and knowledge to tie you up in court for a long time. He can sue you and you will wind up being really miserable. It's best to let it go..........hard and unfair as that will be. Why do you think there are all those nasty lawyer jokes?

We did some SEO work for a client who was continually whining and crying about his physical and mental health because he knew I was a Psychotherapist in my prior life. This man has been in business for 30 years and claimed to have problems working with Paypal. I persisted in emailing him until he reluctantly paid up. Then he was angry at me and said he would not do business with us any more! As if we would have worked with him after that.......

We are working with a few clients now who are delightful people and pay in advance without being asked. They are real treasures! I will certainly go the extra mile for them.

 

I just turned off a non paying site today, it felt pretty good

on flip side of this I do have some clients who have been great to work with

 

Good for you Ferret. I have one client who hadn´t paid me for a while. When he asked me to comment on the general traffic being received by my other clients (as in is everybody´s traffic down at the moment?), I said I didn´t know and that I had been cutting down on my client list. I said I had decided that it was time for those who paid peanuts to go and find another monkey.

This guy paid me in full, in cash, two days later

 

e10, good for you! I had another client who was supposed to pay me the Friday before July 4th weekend. He went away for 4 days and got defensive saying he had worked hard and deserved time off. I don't care if he took a year off - just pay me first! He did not respond to several emails, then said he would pay "later in the week". Of course, did not and when I pursued him the following week, he was annoyed and paid, but very reluctantly. I hate when they (1) do not respond to emails (2) respond and get defensive bringing up their own life problems (3) Give you a definite date when they will pay, do not and get defensive when you remind them of their promise. If I have to chase clients to get paid, even after they finally pay, I will not work with them again.

 

I'm no expert on the legal side of this; but I worked for a hosting company that wouldn't shut down email because of legal ramifications. Never made sense to me- Lock em out of their control panel and make the mail bounce.
Then when they call; they have to talk to billing first.

I started the hosting thing because I've been doing it as a real job for so many years; it just seemed natural - and I saw what my previous employer could do in a month....Unfortunately; that doesn't always last.

My customers are ok; don't give me any problems, but the *stress*. If I notice something up, I stress until I get it fixed - and usually because I broke it. Doesn't take long, but I'm out of my mind until I fix it.

Then; I discovered (shivers) affiliate marketing in the last year.. Much better plan. No stress to speak of. I've always liked the feeling of money coming my way with no stress....

 

Sorry to hear about your dilemma - what assinine reasons for not being able to pay. Good luck overcoming all the bizarre excuses for non-payment; in the future, you could give two payment options: a) payment for full term of service if paying by check. The service will not be activated until the check clears; or b) they need to provide their credit card number subject to verification. Once it's verified, you should charge them for a month in advance. Everyone seems to think they are dealing with non-profits!!!

 

I do graphic art... clients like to think that 25 changes to one banner should not raise the price. Worst part is I do the changes and they pick the first one I did ..more then half the time.

 

I like to let potential clients know up front they can contact some members of my family who I've cut off at the knees ... there's no better reference

Seriously, I have suspended accounts on my own family for non-payment; I tell folks if I'm willing to do that to my own family, how much tolerance do you think you'll receive. It's not bragging, just fore warning - very few issues and problems as a result.

 

If you don't have some strict guidelines, some clients will run and walk all over you. Those are often the ones most likely to screw you over when they think they don't need you anymore. Boy, I wished I still got paid from those who are benefitting from my seo work 4 years later. If you deal with attorneys, it is a strange situation. On the one hand they pay huge pay per click bucks and seo is really a much better deal for them. But when they look at the contract and recognize a goof on the seo's part, some of them will take advantage right away.

 

Ninety five percent of the time my clients are great, only rarely do I have a problem and since I work closely with clients over along period of time it's not too hard to work something out. I'm definitely VERY strict with new clients, but it can be suprisingly easy to get them to pay before a project starts if you've got good references. I actually find dealing with SEO clients easier than design clients on this.

I have one client I've been doing stuff with for over two years. He's a dream, and always let's me do what I think is best without batting an eyelash.

 

you meet good and bad clients .
thats the way it goes. you have to identify which is good or bad at start if possible.

thats all you need to know for a start

 

I have found for web design that locking the client into a

1) sitemap
2) number of intial versions
3) penalties for changing a design, after it has been approved

Has eliminated most of problems in that area,

in SEO clients most of my problems come from people who won't pay to target competitive terms, so being greedy guts I take some small fee for non-competitive terms, then they get ranked, the site doesn't make the moeny they hoped. So then they don't want pay for the terms.

 

The worst thing with seo clients is the ones that don't listen. They wind up wanting to help, create a "directory" on their site and then get screwed over. Before you know it their "directory" is filled with viagra and banned pages and their rankings drop. It's a good idea to specify in a contract that they cannot make those decisions without you.

 

We're all forgetting that clients have money.

Some clients suck, some rock.

The one person I still do article proofreading for is a great client - definate but long deadlines, lets me know exactly what he wants, accepts my changes, pays OK and on time, happens to be my father

My favourite (NOT) type of clients are the ones who me with a question that has already been answered at least once, then send another email 15 minutes later saying "OMG you haven't replied REPLY IMMEDIATELY". Thankfully I have a more patient business partner to fob them off to nowadays.

I might spend 75%+ of my waking hours in front of the computer but I am only human. Believe it or not, I can't reply to all emails instantly (I have to go to the bathroom sometimes, and I try to have a social life (even if it is only grocery shopping ) at least once a week).

 

20% of my clients rock, 40% are cool and the rest is making things hard on everyone. And that is not based on results we get, many of them like to be babysat and call about things that are not related to our services. They fell in love with our sales person and are interested in chatting with him about all kind of stuff hehe

 

LOL

Been there, done that. I have a client who I've told over and over again that if she wants me to make a change she needs to send that via fax or email so it will be documented. Unfortunately she loves the phone and still just calls me. She spends 5 minutes telling me about the change, and 30 minutes jabbering about nonessential stuff. Then I have to write her an email back to confirm the changes she requested. Ugh!!!

It was a great motivator to start charging for phone time. Now clients get a set number of meeting/phone hours per month as part of their maintenance fee, and anything over that is billed hourly.