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Patrick, I completely agree with you, which is why I have never publicized my difficulties with problem customers. But something in my reptilian brain really s

by edw519 15y ago

Patrick, I completely agree with you, which is why I have never publicized my difficulties with problem customers. But something in my reptilian brain really still likes this. Let me tell you why... You say "Work with better clients." Working with better clients means avoiding the bad ones. Avoiding the bad ones means being able to identify them. Being able to identify them means being warned. It's almost like seeing an obstacle in the highway and wanting to warn others going in the opposite direction. But how do you do that? I once had the idea of putting a giant tattoo "Avoid me." on my bad clients' foreheads. The biggest problem with bad clients isn't that they took you, it's that they never go away; they just keep popping up over and over, only to take advantage of others. One former client of mine is the perfect example. He never paid his bills, he was extremely abusive, he was often very unethical, and would do anything to make an extra buck. He would pop up all over the country with a different name, starting the cycle all over again. I recently noticed he just got out of jail with a brand new name and web site. If only I could find a righteous way to warn others, "Run the other way!"

mechanical_fish 15y ago
I recently noticed he just got out of jail with a brand new name and web site. This is an amusing and dramatic example of why, while it's all good fun for one's reptilian brain, the tactic of trying to call out problem customers by name isn't going to help very much: People with negative reputations have nothing much to lose by starting over. Whereas those with positive reputations do have something to lose. And the problem with throwing mud is that some of the mud inevitably gets on the thrower. This is why the effective way to warn people about problem customers is in secret, generally over drinks.
benohear 15y ago
Asking for something like 30% up front is a very good way to filter out problematic clients. I regularly don't even bother to collect the up front payment once they've accepted it, but if the client refuses then it's a red flag. Often it's the client himself who chases me up to make the payment. That's a very good sign.
patio11 15y ago
If you want to perform (for lack of a better word) a mitzvah for the community, rather than picking out a single abusive customer, use your experience and teach people how to pattern match. Memo to young Rails developers: "I have an idea for a website. If you build v1.0 I'll pay you a whole thousand dollars and you might get equity if it works very well." has never had a happy ending. (Slight overstatement there, but it won't weigh on my conscience.)
- jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
  "Pattern matching" is like astrology for smart people.
  - pavlov 15y ago
    Maybe you can drop the "for smart people" -- the same kind of magazines that blather about horoscopes tend to run lots of stories along the lines of "How to recognize a narcissist".
    - jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
      no, dumb people just use guessing, actual astrology, etc. smart people use "pattern matching" because it makes bigotry (which is a form of guessing) seem smart.
      - rhizome 15y ago
        I think you're dancing around the word "discrimination" which is actually a fundamental aspect of thought and language, and is how humans can tell, for instance, the difference between good and bad. Are you saying that people shouldn't have standards?
      - lukifer 15y ago
        poTAYto, poTAHto. The fundamental engine of consciousness is fuzzy pattern matching; when done poorly, it's called "guessing", and when done well, it's called "intuition".
zupreme 15y ago
I think by, "Work with better clients", Patrick really means, "Stop doing work for cheap clients". I agree with him that payment from clients in the 5-digit range tends to go much smoother than from those at the bottom of the barrel. I would also add that, when you charge a higher rate, you also can justify higher initial deposits and milestone payments along the way. This gives your client more "Skin in the game" which makes them more likely to honor the contract terms so that they can receive the final deliverable. When I first started doing freelance development I made a practice of undercutting everyone else to get the gigs. This did earn me a fair supplemental income, but it was not a business model as clients at this level (<$1k) tend to have very little vendor loyalty and will just move on to the next cheap provider when you eventually try to raise your rates. Since restricting myself to projects of $5k or above things have gone much smoother and I'm alot happier.
henrikschroder 15y ago
I like http://clientsfromhell.net/ http://clientsfromhell.net/ Same idea as this, but funnier and more about learning to laugh about the stupidities of some clients and moving on.
lsc 15y ago
while I agree that calling out unethical behaviour might be best for the industry as a whole, for an individual? calling out someone else is almost always self-destructive. There are two sides to any story, and just like how an insurance company will avoid a customer that gets in accidents even if it wasn't their fault, in business, people often avoid people that get in a lot of disputes, even if they were the wronged party.

by edw519 15y ago

mechanical_fish 15y ago

I recently noticed he just got out of jail with a brand new name and web site. This is an amusing and dramatic example of why, while it's all good fun for one's reptilian brain, the tactic of trying to call out problem customers by name isn't going to help very much: People with negative reputations have nothing much to lose by starting over. Whereas those with positive reputations do have something to lose. And the problem with throwing mud is that some of the mud inevitably gets on the thrower. This is why the effective way to warn people about problem customers is in secret, generally over drinks.

benohear 15y ago

Asking for something like 30% up front is a very good way to filter out problematic clients. I regularly don't even bother to collect the up front payment once they've accepted it, but if the client refuses then it's a red flag. Often it's the client himself who chases me up to make the payment. That's a very good sign.

patio11 15y ago

If you want to perform (for lack of a better word) a mitzvah for the community, rather than picking out a single abusive customer, use your experience and teach people how to pattern match. Memo to young Rails developers: "I have an idea for a website. If you build v1.0 I'll pay you a whole thousand dollars and you might get equity if it works very well." has never had a happy ending. (Slight overstatement there, but it won't weigh on my conscience.)

jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
"Pattern matching" is like astrology for smart people.
- pavlov 15y ago
  Maybe you can drop the "for smart people" -- the same kind of magazines that blather about horoscopes tend to run lots of stories along the lines of "How to recognize a narcissist".
  - jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
    no, dumb people just use guessing, actual astrology, etc. smart people use "pattern matching" because it makes bigotry (which is a form of guessing) seem smart.
    - rhizome 15y ago
      I think you're dancing around the word "discrimination" which is actually a fundamental aspect of thought and language, and is how humans can tell, for instance, the difference between good and bad. Are you saying that people shouldn't have standards?
    - lukifer 15y ago
      poTAYto, poTAHto. The fundamental engine of consciousness is fuzzy pattern matching; when done poorly, it's called "guessing", and when done well, it's called "intuition".

zupreme 15y ago

I think by, "Work with better clients", Patrick really means, "Stop doing work for cheap clients". I agree with him that payment from clients in the 5-digit range tends to go much smoother than from those at the bottom of the barrel. I would also add that, when you charge a higher rate, you also can justify higher initial deposits and milestone payments along the way. This gives your client more "Skin in the game" which makes them more likely to honor the contract terms so that they can receive the final deliverable. When I first started doing freelance development I made a practice of undercutting everyone else to get the gigs. This did earn me a fair supplemental income, but it was not a business model as clients at this level (<$1k) tend to have very little vendor loyalty and will just move on to the next cheap provider when you eventually try to raise your rates. Since restricting myself to projects of $5k or above things have gone much smoother and I'm alot happier.

henrikschroder 15y ago

I like http://clientsfromhell.net/ http://clientsfromhell.net/ Same idea as this, but funnier and more about learning to laugh about the stupidities of some clients and moving on.

lsc 15y ago

while I agree that calling out unethical behaviour might be best for the industry as a whole, for an individual? calling out someone else is almost always self-destructive. There are two sides to any story, and just like how an insurance company will avoid a customer that gets in accidents even if it wasn't their fault, in business, people often avoid people that get in a lot of disputes, even if they were the wronged party.