What Makes A Great Client?

Great clients are made, not born.  This, to me anyway, is axiomatic.  You have to have a fantastic process that is intended to serve and enrapture those clients that care about you, your art and your creative business.  The more you guide your clients, embrace their fears and fulfill their visions, not just at the end of the project but every step of the way, the better the work will be.  To be specific, if you are practiced in the art of transferring power, willingly, from your client to you and your creative business you will have earned the trust to overcome requisite obstacles and earn the permission to do what you do.  Before a client signs with you, they have all of the power (and money).  You want their business and it is theirs to give.  As you move through though, clients will hopefully make narrower and narrower decisions (and payments) until they are left with an ultimate yes and a zero balance on your fees.

All of that said, great clients also have attributes that make them great presuming there is a fit in your process with who they are.  There are three primary attributes you should be able to assess: 1) Motion In Fear; 2) Resolute Decision Making; and 3) Patronage.

Motion In Fear

All clients of creative businesses are scared.  The result you offer is uncertain no matter how many times you have done it before.  Ahem, that is why it is called creative business.  Some clients want certainty where there is none and drive you and your team crazy when they cannot remove the fear of uncertainty.  Unless you have a business built to deal with these clients who want this kind of access (this would be the one place that hourly fees might work), you need to appreciate the difficulty this client represents and actively seek to avoid them altogether or place strict boundaries around your unwillingness to deal with their active and ongoing uncertainty.

On the other side of the coin are those clients who embrace their fear but look to you, your art and your creative business for solutions to their concern.  If you are powerful in your ability to communicate your ideas, these clients will find solace in your vision.  They will still have fear but can live with it as they have intention for how to resolve it.  These clients embrace where you are heading and can live with the uncertainty that you may not get there.  All of this said, if you are not a good presenter, these clients will run over you as they will likely try to take over design to allay their fear.  If yours is more of a collaborative process, these clients are not for you.

Regardless of how a client moves through their fear, the one thing you and your creative business cannot do is to tell the client to not be scared.  Yes, you are confident in your ability to design and execute and the client wants to believe in your ability, but fear is not rational and needs acknowledgement before it can be resolved.  Not, “don’t be scared” but rather, “I see your are nervous, here is what we are going to do.”

Resolute Decision Making

Resolute decision making is a natural offshoot of how a client moves through fear.  You might think the client that says, “I trust you, do what you want.” is the dream.  More like a nightmare since they trust you until they do not and then they never will again.  You and your creative business are not mind-readers and your path is always informed by those who you are meant to lead.  Instead, the dream client is the one that can make decisions as you would have them be made.

If you enjoy a ton of collaboration, these clients can work with you to build a decision on top of the last decision until design is completed.  However, if you think “too many cooks kills the broth”, the collaborative client is not for you.  Again, for those with deep and powerful presentation skills, having clients who are capable of making large, permanent decisions is the dream.  These clients see what you see, say yes and allow you to move on without ever looking back.  The clearer you are with all that you do (when, why and how), the better these clients will be.  Options for these clients is a non-starter — they want to be guided and if you refuse to guide their fear will explode and you will literally get nowhere until you finally choose.  Resolute decision makers demand confident exposition.

Patronage

Clients who want to own your work as their own are of value if, and only if, you can see your work as it is without need for acknowledgement.  Being truly comfortable behind the scenes is, of course, possible, but you have to appreciate the strength it takes to be there.  We all know those clients who refuse to call your work yours and instead seek to marginalize you at ever turn.  Ultimately though, we should all seek acknowledgment for the art we put into the world.  These are patrons who endow your creative business and do so in the effort to find the fantasy they seek.  When the fantasy manifests, they deeply acknowledge the craft, talent, experience and wisdom it took to make it happen.  Patrons come in all forms — they can be complete collaborators and demand an absurd amount of attention, but then turn around and celebrate your work to whoever will listen.  There is even a certain amount of redemption in PIA clients if they can see their way to patronage.  Not that it is ever an excuse to be awful, by the way, just that it can be a modicum of humanity.  In the end, great clients show respect, professionalism and integrity that is given to them by you, your art and your creative business.  Success is in the relationship and candor as to what it means to be an artist for someone who cares.

The entire point is is for you, the creative business owner, to figure out the characteristics of what makes an amazing client for your art and your business.  Then share it with the world so that the world knows who should show up.  Much better than just hoping and praying that Mr. or Mrs. Right will magically appear.