Don’t Ignore the 6 Red Flags of Toxic Clients Who Want To Destroy Your Business and Kill Your Energy.
How to identify, manage, and protect your business from their draining tactics
Photo by bruno neurath-wilson on Unsplash
Bad clients are cancer to your business.
Ignore it and they quickly spread. They infect other clients you work with. They invade your mental health and suck the life from you.
These clients are ruthless. Their goal isn’t to solve their problems, it’s to make your life a living hell.
As a creative entrepreneur, this can destroy your business. Your quality of work relies on the quality of your mind.
Here’s the story of my short (thankfully) foray into dealing with a devil client and what I’ve now implemented to prevent this from happening again.
#1: They do this.
Bargain.
This is the first and biggest red flag.
There is nothing wrong with negotiating the project scope, but they should never try to make your rate cheaper. For any reason. Period.
Bargaining sends the message that they view your service as a commodity. They don’t value what you bring. They don’t view you as different from anyone else.
Bargaining is fine if you’re selling a mass-produced widget.
But if you’re in the creative economy like us, the value you bring is inherently unique to you.
You don’t bargain with your value, so don’t bargain with your price.
Right from the first message, this client wanted to bargain. That sent up a flare internally but I chose to ignore it. Big mistake. Idiot.
Once I set the expectation that I was opening to bargaining, the floodgates roared open. This became a constant point in our conversations.
They felt they had the right to ask for cheaper prices while asking me to do more work.
Be reasonable BUT unapologetic about your price.
#2 They don’t respect this.
Your time.
This client was incredibly pushy. Even before they paid me.
They messaged me repeatedly on LinkedIn and Medium. They created a false sense of urgency to meet about their project.
Even when I said I was traveling overseas and working fewer hours, they pushed and pushed me to meet. They couldn’t wait 2 weeks when I had more time.
I understand if the project was urgent, but it absolutely was not.
They didn’t even appreciate that I had made time for them while traveling and pushed again to start working together while I was traveling.
Looking back, I should have pushed back and set firm boundaries. But hindsight is 20/20. I am still relatively new to this game.
If they don’t respect your time, they don’t respect you.
#3: They subtly do this.
Undermine you.
My age became a constant topic that was brought up in our conversation.
They were in their late 40s to early 50s and came from a traditionally hierarchical cultural and corporate professional background.
“I have children who are similar to your age.”
“You are very young to be doing work like this.”
“Do your parents help you run your business.”
WTF?
Mentioning it once is fine. Constantly bringing it into the conversation was a passive-aggressive attempt to undermine me.
I won’t lie, it shot my confidence a bit. I started to doubt myself and my abilities.
F*ck that.
Anyone who constantly gaslights you or makes you feel worthless, eject.
#4: They have this mindset.
Skeptical. About every single thing.
Despite coming to me for help, they constantly questioned everything in a pessimistic tone.
Every process, idea, or recommendation was met with a wall of criticism and a ‘why that wouldn’t work for me’ attitude.
They felt everything was too ‘salesy’ or ‘pushy’ and that making any money online was a scam. But yet they needed help to make money online? LOL.
I could now see why they were in the situation they were in — a failing business, with no alternative source of income.
With this mindset, our work together was doomed to fail before we even started.
Say no to any mindset you don’t vibe with, it’s not worth any amount of money.
#5: They constantly do this.
Break commitments.
They say one thing one week and act to contradict it the week after.
This client would push (not ask) for weekly coaching sessions, then never get back to me on a date. It would be months before our next session (we never ended up having it).
They would go cold on me for weeks at a time.
Seeing my messages but not replying.
But then would expect a response from me within an hour, or be available for any small query they had.
I would set the expectations and criteria for success and they would move the goalposts according to how they felt. Maddening.
#6: They would do this.
Constantly interrupt me.
I would lay out a full agenda and plan for a coaching session, and they would just interrupt me with whatever priorities they had, derailing the whole session.
Despite agreeing to this agenda and the purpose of the coaching session in advance.
This destroyed any momentum and rapport in the conversation. It made it awkward, confrontational and painful for both of us.
In retrospect, it was a sign of disrespect. And not valuing the work I do and the effort that I put in.
I know I made mistakes too.
I let this happen through my own actions.
I fully acknowledge it takes two to tango.
So here are the changes I am going to make:
Qualify leads, and be more selective with who gets my time — using surveys and questionnaires to vet prospects. I will ask future prospective clients to fill them out before they can book a meeting with me. I’ll also make the meeting only 30 minutes with a clear agenda, not just ‘chatting’.
Negotiation is okay, but compromising is not— especially on the important stuff. Payment terms, payment structures, and of course, pricing. You have to eat at the end of the day and you have no security after this project is finished.
Calling out behavior and dynamics — I am not going to walk past standards I can’t accept anymore. I even hate that I compromised my values for this client.
In the end, I had enough.
After they tried to get me to do more work for free, I called it quits.
I channeled my inner Ariana Grande and said, ‘thank u, next’.
I did not invoice for the work I did. I didn’t want the argument. By that stage, I would have paid them to go away.
I hope you never have one of these devil clients. It can take months to recover from their impact.
But if you do, let this article serve as a roadmap for what you can do and how you can recover from it.
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