“Too many cooks in the kitchen” can lead to traumatic projects. You’ve probably been there. The client greenlights the project. Everyone is thrilled to get started. In fact, they are so thrilled it seems the entire company wants to have input on the direction and deliverables. You might have seen…
We’ve all been there: a client approaches us with a project, and in their mind, it is going to change the world. Unfortunately, their “world-changing” idea is attached to a budget that is too small to accomplish their vision. You want to politely tell them they are unrealistic and need…
The Client Won’t Reply – Email This The project was going smoothly, and then, all of a sudden, a day goes by with no response. One quiet day turns into two, then five, then two weeks, and no response to your check-ins. If you work in the creative industry long…
The 10 Minute Project Update Email That Will Spare You (and Your Client) Emotional Agony Transitioning out of the day to day operations of my agency was a scary step. What will the clients think? How I will make sure they are confident that my team is on top of…
The Project Is Ending and the Client Wants More Changes – Help! You’ve been working on a project and the client keeps asking for more and more changes. They have exceeded the number of rounds you included in your agreement and you need to push back and start charging more for…
Sometime last year, I shared an Instagram post about “what to do when a client ghosts you (i.e. doesn’t reply to your messages or phone calls). One person posted a comment on that post to the effect, “If they ghost me, I just block their number and block them on…
I know I’ve mentioned this in a variety of content, but when I started freelancing my contracts didn’t just SUCK, they were NON-EXISTENT! I would literally just give my client a single page PDF with a list of “things” I would do for them next to a price. It was…
I have had some nightmare project disasters. Like the time I waived a $70k invoice just to tell a client, “We are done.” Or that one time I refunded a client $54k to get them out of my life. It is easy to use the excuse, “They are just a…
