The Best Client

“It’s a great design. Beautiful, classic, elegant and sleek. It hits everything on our wish list, can we add in some cheetah or leopard print?” -Client From Hell

Anyone who has worked as a freelance contractor in any visual design discipline knows the exasperating effect of a bad client. Spend just two minutes on this site and all the pain resurfaces.

Why are great clients so rare? Why are there so many bad ones? I think it has everything to do with two specific character traits.

last week, I had meetings with two great clients that embody the best qualities. One I’ll mention by name and the other I won’t.

The Training Guy

At my full-time job, I’m designing a new intranet for a department that does their own curriculum, IT, tech support, finance, etc. They also have their own training group of one. This training guy (I’ll call him Gary) has been producing training materials for a long time and many of them make their way to the intranet.

While working on the site, we soon realized we would need to make wholesale changes to the way training is done for this organization. It also meant we’d have to talk to Gary.

I wasn’t looking forward to this. Trying to change an entrenched process in a large organization is like coaxing a cat to fetch a stick. What’s more, I didn’t relish the notion of asking Gary to change how he does his job. But it was clear that the user experience would benefit.

Much to our delight, Gary turned out to be one of the best clients. He immediately embraced what we were sharing with him and its value to the end user as well as the business. Within days, he had examples of this new style of training and several improvements as well. With his expertise and flexibility, the new site will help people get the training and help they need.

DoughGirl

Tami Cromar is a rising star among local Salt Lake City entrepreneurs. She bootstrapped her boutique cookie shop with her own savings and has worked hard to make it a place people share with their friends. Her hard work and innovation has made her business grow quickly and almost entirely by word-of-mouth.

One of factors of her success is the strength of her brand. She created a unique tie-in between cookies and the fairer sex. Each of her delicious cookies is represented by a woman’s name and accompanying vintage pinup. It makes for a very uncommon experience and one that people remember.

When I first pitched the idea of working with her, I wondered what the working relationship would be like. It was clear Tami had great taste and brand savvy. She also seemed to have an uncompromising vision for her business.

My experience of working with exacting clients has often been difficult. They often refuse to compromise on anything and try to micro-manage the design process.

As it turns out, Tami is also one of the best clients. Working on this project has been some of the most fun I’ve had in years. Tami is uncompromising but only where it touches the broad vision for her business. She has opened the door for us both to collaborate on everything from logos, to signage, menus and everything in between. She often asks my opinion on pricing and other aspects of her business as well. And what’s best is that it’s a true collaborative effort. There is tremendous give and take and working together makes ALL of her design work better.

Two for the Show

In thinking about these two clients and the other great clients I’ve had over the years, I realized they all had two traits that made them fantastic to work with.

The first is a lack of hubris. You have to have a certain level of confidence and even an ounce or two of ego in order to start your own business. It’s essential. But a lot of business owners are unable to benefit from the experience of those around them because they think they can do it all themselves. Their over-inflated impression of their own ideas and skills blind them to all the benefits of learning from others. Working and learning with great people elevates the quality of ALL the work and makes it more enjoyable and fun.

The second trait is caring more about the experience than the money. Both of the people I mentioned above have this in spades. Of course Tami cares about finances and profit. But as I’ve observed, she spends the majority of her time making the experience of buying a cookie more than just about the exchange of money. She is constantly coming up with new ideas to make things more enjoyable. She also seems genuinely happy to meet with customers and get THEIR ideas. She solicits them in person as well as over Twitter and Facebook and wherever else she can get them.

Gary shows both of these traits as well. He recognized our involvement for what it was (trying to help the end user) and not as a bad client would have seen it (trying to do his job). He showed his maturity and self-confidence. He demonstrated his desire to make the experience better.

Mediocrity for Fun and Profit

There’s a third class of client that I haven’t mentioned yet. I’ve had many clients over the years who were neither controlling nor caring. They had mostly successful businesses but never achieved the kind of customer loyalty and buzz that the other folks generate. They aren’t bad, per se, but they aren’t great either. Most of them kept their eye on the bottom line and tried to stay out of trouble.

Working with these folks wasn’t a fantastic experience. They looked at design as pushing pixels and making things pretty. Any suggestions further than that were met with ambivalence. Sometimes they even took suggestions but didn’t seem to really care. For them, the bottom line was about inventory or suppliers or some other metric. They didn’t see how design can be a powerful tool for transforming business into something great.

Denial Ain’t Just a River in Egypt

So how does a designer find the best clients? Not to be corny, but I think it starts with the designer. If you’re not the kind of person who is open to others’ ideas, you will likely never have this kind of client experience. Your own pride will get in the way of YOUR ability to listen and learn from your clients.

Secondly, there are things to look for with potential clients that will tell you whether they will be great or not. It works a bit like an interview.

• Ask them questions about their customers. If they are don’t seem to understand their customers, it’s a red flag.
• Ask them about how they see your role. If they only see you as a window dresser, they won’t be open to anything else.
• Listen for the way they talk about their own role. A big warning for me has often been potential clients who promote their own “design” background in the first meetings. Often, this is them inviting themselves to micro-manage.

Finally, don’t be afraid to fire a client. This doesn’t have to be confrontational. But ultimately, you are in control of what kind of work you’re willing to do. The best clients lead to the some of the most enjoyable work you’ll have as a designer.