Comments on: What To Do When Clients Say X But They Really Want Y

By: Around the Horn: Week of February 2nd | The Freelance Rant

Around the Horn: Week of February 2nd | The Freelance Rant — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:47:37 +0000

[...] Freelance Switch: The lines of communication with your clients need to be crystal clear. Quite often, they are not clear themselves when trying to determine what they want from your services. Here are ways to bridging that communication gap. [...]

By: Estuardo Choc

Estuardo Choc — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:30:00 +0000

Very useful! At this moment I’m having a very similar problem with a client, she knows what don’t want for her website but at the same time she doesn’t like what she needs -that is exactly what I think she wants-, so this is very weird for me, cause she don’t like my propositions and we don’t know what to do. I tell to my freelance friends everything and nobody loves that lady anymore -at least my circle gives me the reason hehe-. Thanks for the help, I’ll try to use your tips with her.

By: bugsy

bugsy — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 05:13:48 +0000

i’ve been struggling with this a lot lately with one client of mine. useful post, but still not sure what i’ll be able to get across. sometimes, even though i despise it, i still have to work from inside the box.

By: Nathalie Lussier

Nathalie Lussier — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:53:14 +0000

Thanks for all the kind comments everyone!

@David Zemens – 1955 Design: I wasn’t sure how to explain 2001, since it wasn’t the start of the Internet but it’s still a far cry from 2008.

I hope my ideas will help others when dealing with clients in the future!

By: Maicon

Maicon — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 21:35:23 +0000

I will utilize this topics. Thank you!

By: Jacki Hollywood Brown

Jacki Hollywood Brown — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 21:20:27 +0000

GREAT POST
I had a similar problem with one of my clients. I was trying to help her get her bills organized so she could pay them on time. Nothing I set up seemed to work for her until she said, “I just want my bills to be paid!” Finally I realized she didn’t actually WANT to pay them. I sent her to the bank with instructions to set up all of her bills (utilities, phone, internet, etc.) on an equal billing system with
pre-authorized payments out of a bank account she set up just to deal with her bills. Worked like a charm and she never had to pay late fees again.
Sometimes you have to listen to what your clients DON’T say.

By: Alek

Alek — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:57:27 +0000

This is an excellent post. Understanding what a client REALLY wants is a very fundamental issue for freelancers. I’ve been in the exact same situation many times where I offered an alternative to copying a site the client likes, and my design was actually more successful at meeting their needs. To understand a clients needs BEYOND what they are able to tell you is definitely something that gets easier and easier with experience. But it’s a lesson we all learn many times.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:40:57 +0000

The one frustration I always have with my clients is they tell me they want whatever they think I can do for the least cost. It’s virtually impossible to get them to articulate their bottom-line needs; what they want to tell me is their vision of a cheap solution to a problem they won’t discuss with me in depth.

What usually ends up happening is a process I like to call “spec by problem log”. We deliver what the client asked for, they point out the “deficiencies” (which are really just features / functions they didn’t think to include in their proposed design because they didn’t fully understand how our software operates), we send them a revision, and the process gets repeated until the client gets what they really need. It always ends up costing them more money than if they had just let us sit in on the initial business planning meetings so we could learn what problem they were trying to solve in the first place.

By: Alex Holt

Alex Holt — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:28:39 +0000

This brings up an interesting point.

As a freelancer you are providing a professional service which you (should) know more about than your client. From the word go, i always stress to my clients that I am a professional and that i will only give them advice if i think it is important. That way, when they ask you for bright pink blinking text on a magenta background, you can start your “that’s stupid” response by saying, “as an expert.. i really think this is a bad idea.. and i think you should trust me”. Once you’ve laid down the law, you’ll find that clients are grateful for your candid advice

By: Melek

Melek — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:16:13 +0000

i went thru this exact thing about 4 days ago. met with client. he wanted a logo. but not a logo that looked anything like his other company’s logo. not the same colors or subject matter (altho they were similarly aligned). so i did something different, hip, and eye-catching. and he came back with “no, i think i want it to be more like my other company’s logo….just like it in fact”. Awesome.

i thought i was thorough in the meeting. i thought i knew him from working with him before. but i think now i realize he’s afraid of anything new. he’s older, so maybe i should have thought about that too.

not sure how to deal with that issue exactly. i will, however, still get paid