Building Relationships with Quality Clients

Quality clients appreciate what you do, value your time, and respect your boundaries. But how do you build those relationships and weed out the ones who want to micromanage or bully you about rates? -- Connect with me on your favorite platform: https://pods.link/aardvarkgirl -- We had a great chat on Clubhouse a few weeks ago about finding quality clients. Specifically, how do you find good clients who are willing to pay appropriate rates? This is something I feel like everyone in business deals with, no matter how long they’ve been doing it. It can be particularly challenging for those whose businesses are new but their experience is not.   What makes clients quality? They appreciate what you do and let you know it. They understand that all the time you’ve spent developing your skills has value and are happy to pay for it. They trust your workflow and know you’ll get the job done. They make you a priority whenever they have a new job for you. Sometimes they put you on retainer because they know they need you.   When is a client not quality? When they are demanding and inconsiderate. When they try to bully you into charging less. When they want to micromanage everything you do and make comments like “I don’t understand why that would take so long” when they don’t even know how to do it themselves. When they don’t respect your boundaries and expect you to be available whenever it’s convenient for them.   I’m fortunate to only have quality clients now, because I won’t accept anything less. But it took some time to establish my process and to learn how to weed out the undesirables more quickly. All of that comes with time and experience. There isn’t any way to guarantee a new client is going to be a good one. You don’t really know until you start working with them. What you can guarantee is that you are not willing to put up with any behavior that doesn’t live up to the standards you have set for yourself.   Only you can define what is quality and what is not for you. I think it’s helpful to define your business rules so you are clear about what’s important to you. I have rules about time, rate, and location. I have set office hours when I am available to clients that are based around my own personal schedule. I don’t work past a certain time, usually 4pm or 5pm depending on the day. I don’t work weekends (and working means responding to emails, calls and texts as well). There are always exceptions and if something is urgent I’ll make myself available to help, but I prioritize my down time.   I also stand by my rates. I feel that it’s important to be flexible to a degree, but I have a minimum and I won’t take any job that pays less than that because I don’t feel it’s worth my time. I’m always polite when I have to say no, but sometimes budgets just don’t align and that’s okay.   I don’t do in person meetings unless there’s a solid reason for it, and when I do, I charge a higher rate and include my commute time. My whole business is formulated on flexibility. I’m able to hop between clients and projects as needed because I’m at home and can prioritize and shift things around. When I’m somewhere in person, that client is essentially paying for my exclusivity during those hours, which costs me time I could be using elsewhere.   When you have clarity about your own rules, it’s easy to identify when someone isn’t being respectful of them. If, of course, you’ve communicated with the client about expectations – yours and theirs. You can’t expect anyone to read your mind, so you can’t really get mad if they aren’t respecting a boundary they don’t know you have, so keep that in mind. It’s important to talk about these things up front.   Another thing to keep in mind is to not concern yourself with others. I see a lot of posts in business groups, and hear from a fair amount of people, about everything that is problematic with people undercharging. It’s an epidemic and I don’t like it, but we can’t prevent people from offering s