Nightmare Clients Red Flags
I’ve been pretty lucky in the fact that I’ve really not had many run ins with difficult clients.
Whereas, I’ve heard nightmare stories around clients refusing to pay artists for their work or being overly critical and micromanaging.
Let’s go through some of the red flags you can look out for to ensure you work with clients who are respectful and value your work.
1. “I know we haven’t got the budget to pay you but it would mean so much to me if you could do the work and it would help you get exposure.”
Exposure does not pay the bills.
Yes there are seasons in your early career where you tend to take on more unpaid work to build a portfolio, experience and marketing material. However, if you’re looking for paid work and a client offers exposure instead of money it’s normally not a great sign.
2. “I don’t know what I want, but I know when I see it”
The reason why this rings alarms for me is because clients who typically take this approach to commissioning an artist, will be indecisive yet critical, you’ll be stuck doing endless rounds of revisions and edits.
It doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t work this client though. I would recommend talking with them to get a real clear vision of what they want before committing to the work.
3. “We really want to work with you, we need it done asap”
Clients that come to you with unrealistic timelines do make me feel anxious.
If a client sees real value in what you do, why would they want to rush the process and possibly jeopardise the quality of the finished result.
However, if you do have a window for work that needs a quick turn around. A lot of artists charge ‘rush fees’ for commissions like this. They’ll add an additional cost to their normal rate to account for any late nights or weekends they may have to put in to get the commission finished on time.
4. “I don’t want to pay a deposit before I see the work”
It’s common practice for creatives to charge 50% of the project cost as a deposit before you start the work.
It may be a red flag if they’re reluctant to pay the deposit as it could mean that getting paid the rest when you’re finished is also a struggle.
Sometimes a client doesn’t always have the funds to pay a 50% chunk of the cost. In this case it’s up to your discretion if you’d like to set up smaller payment instalments for your client to make up the cost.
5. “I’m excited to have you working for us, I actually do a bit of painting on the weekend myself”
Now this sentence on its own is pretty innocent but it’s important to take note of other conversations you’ve had with this potential client.
As artists we tend to run into a few aspiring artists who unfortunately never ‘made it’. Now these are the clients who will micromanage you as they want to feel super involved in the work.
This can be tricky to work with because if you’re not strong about your stance you’ll lose all creative control and end up making work that looks nothing like what you would have actually created. Often looks worse than what you would have made.
Be assertive and respectful. They’re paying you to be the artist, therefore stand by your creative vision.
6. “Yeah we’d love to book you, it would mean a lot for you to work with us” *then ghosts*
This has happened a few times now where we’ve had really positive interactions, I’ve sent over a proposal and then just heard nothing back.
I never chase up these clients. I know that if I did it would give me a better chance at closing the deal, however I want people to work with me that value what I do and are happy to pay the rates that I charge.
If I start to bend peoples’ arm to book me I’ll end up with clients who aren’t fully happy and committed to working together, leading to more bad than good.
