How to Deal With Difficult Freelance Clients: 6 Ways - MakeUseOf

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Once you get into a position where you’ve got enough freelance experience, and you’ve become known in your field, working for yourself is rewarding. However, you’ll need to make many mistakes and deal with a few blows along the way.

One of the most common learning curves for freelancers is to deal with clients who are too restrictive, rude, or just downright bad for you.

If you previously worked in a full-time job, you might feel like you need to tolerate this behavior. But in reality, you don’t. Keep reading to discover how you can deal with annoying freelance clients.

1. Set Clear Boundaries

Before you start working with any client, it’s essential that both parties set their expectations from the beginning. In many cases, freelancers develop toxic relationships with the people they work with because they and their clients aren’t on the same page.

When you start a project, the client will often send agreements that you’ll both need to sign before commencing with the work. And to protect yourself, you must do the same.

In your contracts, it’s a good idea to outline each of the following:

The hours that you’ll be available for.
How many free revisions the client gets.
Fees that they’ll incur for late payments.

Of course, you want your contracts to look professional—but you don’t need to hire a fancy graphic designer for them to do so. Instead, you can use software like Fiverr Workspace. When you sign in, click on the Contracts tab. Then, select the New contract option.

Screenshot showing a screenshot for Fiverr Workspace contract creation

From there, you can customize everything to ensure it fits your needs.

2. Use Empathy

When a client doesn’t agree with you on something, it’s easy to feel like they have personally attacked you. In some cases, you might even start to doubt your abilities—and whether or not you’re cut out to be a freelancer.

But before you respond with a passive-aggressive comment, try to take a step back and think about things from their perspective. It might be that the client had a different idea for the final product or that you tried to innovate, but it didn’t work.

After you’ve understood why they’re annoyed, explain why you took the approach that you did. It’s likely that both of you will learn something from the experience and that you’ll avoid such problems from resurfacing in the future.

3. Use Software to Chase Up on Payments

As we mentioned in our guide to the top freelance client red flags to look out for, one of the worst types of people you can work with are those that fail to pay you on time. This is why it’s so important to sign a contract before; if you didn’t, you have no proof that they’re doing you wrong.

While some clients will actively try to avoid paying you on time, others don’t mean it; they could simply be busy and have other concerns to deal with. In either case, chasing up is an excellent way to get that money into your bank account faster.

You can use several types of software to chase up late payments. Fiverr Workspace has an option for sending reminders, while Fluidly is another alternative.

When you send payments, it’s also a good idea to set a due date on your invoices. Anywhere between seven and 30 days will give your clients more than enough notice to forward everything to their accounting team.

4. Accept Feedback, But Not Bullying

Constructive feedback can help you improve your future projects to deliver better-quality work and, eventually, find higher-paying clients. And not every bit of client feedback is a direct attack on how good you are as a freelancer.

Having said that, the keyword in the previous paragraph is “constructive”—and there’s a big difference between that and being outright disrespectful.

If you notice that a client is consistently being rude to you, the worst thing you can do is tolerate it. The more you let it happen, the longer they’ll continue doing so. Instead, stand up for yourself and tell them that you won’t accept bullying under any circumstances.

If a client doesn’t appreciate your concerns or continues acting in the same way, don’t hesitate to fire them.

5. Remain Professional

a man working on his laptop sitting by the window

When you feel like a client is constantly out to get you, it’s all-too-tempting to lash out and give them a taste of their own medicine. However, doing so is the worst thing you can do. At best, you destroy that relationship beyond repair; at worst, you ruin your industry reputation and limit your future prospects.

While many freelancers like to think otherwise, it’s important to remember that you are a business owner. Think about if your favorite clothing brand sent you a foul-mouthed email; you’d probably never shop with them again, and you would likely stop recommending them to others.

Even if others don’t follow your examples, you must treat others how you’d like to be treated. Do that for long enough, and you’ll attract clients that share similar values.

6. Avoid Working With Them

When you become a freelancer, you’ll quickly realize that some relationships don’t work out—regardless of how hard you try. If you’ve attempted to remain professional, but your client refuses to meet you in the middle, you might have no choice but to let them go.

As a freelancer, time is your greatest asset. If you’re spending your working hours chasing invoices or arguing with unreasonable customers, you’re stopping yourself from focusing on tasks that will move you forward.

If a client is hurting your business more than they help, don’t hesitate to get rid of them. You’ll lose a little money in the short run but will notice that your earnings quickly increase when you have the energy to focus on things that matter.

Bad Freelance Clients Are a Rite of Passage

It’s a common misconception that as soon as you quit your job and become a freelancer, you’ll never have to deal with tough people again. But that couldn’t be further from the truth, especially when you’re bootstrapping yourself in the beginning.

To become a successful freelancer in the long run, you need to have those bad clients and learn from your experiences. Soon enough, you’ll know what to look out for—and how to find the ones that are a joy to work with.