The clueless mistress and her older boyfriend
Despite what some might think upon reading the title of this post, it’s not about a troubled love story gone wrong. It’s actually about a type of people you should stay away from, if they ever approach you for any design work. Their inability to understand the requirements of a professional project or to emphasize with the needs of a designer makes them an unnecessary stress generator and a very unlikely source of profit.
These two were one of my first clients and to date one of the most annoying people I’ve met. Needless to say, at that time i was lacking any experience whatsoever in dealing with problematic people, while also craving for any contract i could get my hands on to start building my portfolio. It turned out that both of these things would come back to bite me, as i was struggling to bring the project to fruition. It was late in the summer when i first met them. The guy was a middle aged foreigner in search of greener pastures. Along with two older associates of his, came to my hometown to expand his existing business. In circumstances which escaped me nor interest me for that matter, he met this rather classless (to avoid the term skanky) young woman who would become his mistress. If i were to take a wild guess i would definitely go with the bar/club hypothesis as the stage of their first meeting.
She was the kind of person who would wear bright, poorly done make-up, shamelessly smoke one cigarette after the other without refraining from blowing smoke in your face while ostentatiously chewing gum. He would often have a pretty poorly maintained look, with the more than occasional unshaven beard and sweaty T-shirt complete with the same smoking habits. Just writing this down makes me wonder what in the world was i thinking going forward along such clients. However, i take it as a valuable lesson about things you should avoid in a business context.
Essentially, we were supposed to build them an online catalog for the several ranges of products they were distributing. Besides the occasional sweaty/smoky setup of our meetings or the half an hour to two hours wait, things went rather smoothly the first few times we’ve met before actually starting to work on the website. We weren’t even concerned about the somewhat low profit we were going to make from it, because we felt the project had potential and it would help us in the long run. However, things started to go sour just a week or two after that. Upon presenting them with the graphic templates, they started requesting all sorts of changes, some of which were not making any sense and I’m sure eventually worked against them. On top of that, they would keep requesting us to try and execute their suggestions just to have an idea about how those looked like. After all, if your line of work is even touching on marketing services, then you should first take care that you can market yourself the best possible way. Otherwise, clients might think you’re just a smooth talker lacking substance or the ability to follow through.
As a designer you should avoid that at all costs. It is a complete lack of respect to your work and a clear proof that your client has no idea what they’re talking about or what they want. If ever in such a situation, then you’re at the mercy of random luck or some good old NLP. Because you’re working with virtual raw materials, people usually believe that rebuilding a concept or making unlimited revisions should be free. In other words, your time is worth in their minds less than that of a house painter or a carpenter. That’s not really motivating anyone to do more than they’re normally required.
A similar situation is when your clients insists on having more than one template to choose from. While that’s a somewhat decent request, it should also act as a signal that they’re clueless about what they believe to be representative for their product. It might also mean they’re unwilling to spend even the least amount of time to think about it or take the responsibility if their ideas turn out to look below standards. In other words, it’s so much easier to blame it on the designer as being lazy or not getting in touch with their muse.
While aesthetic elements are always subjective, you can’t say the same thing about programmed features. Just a week short from our planned deadline, we received a call that they wanted several changes to the website. If that had happened days after starting the project, this would have been fine, but having spent a lot of time implementing features (designing the database, building the admin, developing the interface etc) it came as a nasty surprise. Suddenly, we would have to rewrite consistent parts of the website. In such cases, again, we have to deal with different perceptions on the amount of work involved. More often than not, i hear people using the words “few quick changes” for what turns out to be a week’s worth of programming. It’s about the same as when they count the catalog section on a business website as just one page (heard it so many times).
Initially, we had made an unwritten promise to upload their products into the database, provided the number was reasonable. We felt it was a good way to test the website while using actual content. However, words have different meanings to different people. That’s how they ended up suggesting we could manage transferring several hundred items. Needless to say, we grew tired of doing community service at around the 100th mark.
To finish on a high note, after all the extra work we had done for them, when it was time to get paid, they bargained till the last minute. I would normally understand that from a business savvy, calculated individual. However, these were the kind of people who would drop 100 dollars at a coffee shop or rent an office in a high priced residential part of the town. There’s no other way to read this than a complete lack of professionalism and respect. If i were to face the same scenario again i would probably say “pass” from the get go. A clearer brief than the one i had in place, a bigger check and a firmer approach in dealing with their requests would help a lot. Also, i wouldn’t stray away from trying to explain the aspects they were unfamiliar with. While it doesn’t always work, there are a lot of people capable and willing to know or learn more.
Yet, the point of all this is not to complain about this particular experience. After all it happened years ago and now i actually get a laugh just thinking about it. What’s important is to treat yourself with the amount of respect you expect from others. This means anything from following your gut instinct to having the patience and confidence to take on the projects which feel right for you. Above all else, you should treasure your time the most because it’s your best resource.
