Freaking Hate Clients

This past month has been a real example on why I should only work on affilate sites.

 

ohh no details? cmon

 

I was about to go into a huge rant but I deceided to drink some more coffee, see if amazon had updated.

I have 4 clients this month that I am having problems getting to pay.

One sneaked his site of my server (but he says he going to send payment ... ), the others are unresponsive.

Another thing that really irks me about clients, actually irks is a sort of weak word. Soemthing that makes me unreasonably angery is when people ask for a deal because of some stupid shit that I don't care about.

Like "I am a single mother so ... " like being bumb enought to get knocked up means you should get a deal

or even better then that the other day I talked to some people , who basically don't want to pay shit for anything they slip in "We can't pay a lot becasue we just bought a house", they bought a house in neighbor where the avergage home price like $800,000 and because they bought a house they think I should work for cheaper for them.

 

I am with you, you can make more money in a day from a content sit about nose picking than 5 hosting clients pull in a month.

Some of my clients wont respond to me untill the sites are suspended, then within 10 minutes they call me to yell at me with some story about problem I have no care about.

 

Come on have a heart.

 

Hosting client must suck. SEO clients pay up front for me or no work I do. We are very picky on the clients we actualy do accept, it doesn't make since you can do the work for someone and get X,XXX but if you did it yourself for your own site you can make way more.

We like to take on clients just not too many.

 

clients suck

 

I hate dealing with people....

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and unfortunatly I still have to deal with my phone ringing off the hook =(

 

I thought hosting could be good if you, could trouble shoot any server problems, way high profit margin

I have a couple hosting affilate sites, I get couple bucks from them, ever so often I think to myslef, I should try to keep the signups but the thought of a bunch of people calling when something goes wrong terrifies me.

Well since I continuouly charge as long as their site ranks its sort of hard to get people to pay everything up front.

I am done doing seo for other people except new projects from existing clients I think.

 

god bless you guys who make a living with seo... i could never do it

 

sign clients up initially on PayPal subscription or something similar - easier for them to pay something per month than one huge bill for the year or whatever. If the subscription payment does not go through, shut 'em down immediately.

I had one host providor shut me down years ago if I was a day late with payment - a bit extreme, but a learning lesson non the less.

 

will collection agencies help you at all? I know they take a decent chunk but some would be better then none perhaps?

 

I got an attorney in San Deigo who looks like he is ripping me off for a couple thousand bucks, what am I going to do fly to San Deigo and try to take him to court.

I will probably just end up making a nice website about him and put his name in the title tag. Its pretty childish but for some reason it makes me feel better.

It would be fun to see if he actually has the source files for his flash site, I have had some people contact me about changing flash sites without the source, I'm not even sure if you can decompile them to the source file.

 

who is the attorney, maybe I know him

 

The best thing I ever did (FINALLY) was set up a merchant account for people to pay me. Its just a virtual terminal - I don't do the ecommerce with it and there are fees but its SO worth it! If a client wants "rush" - they have to pay with a credit card (time and a half). If a new prospect asks me to edit photos - I can get his credit card and verify its legit without making a charge - and then bill when its done. I also offer a 10% discount on larger jobs (like, over $1000) if they prepay in full, and a LOT of clients do this. That way, they feel like they got a deal (and do), I get GOOD cash flow and I don't have to waste time chasing them.

For clients, they *love* it because they can invest in their business marketing and communication without spending cash - its not my problem what kind of interest or terms they have if thats what they do. Most micro/small businesses at least partially finance start up with credit cards.

The only down side to that - of course - is less $ for me and the fact that sometimes if they prepay, they want it TOMORROW. My policy document and contract that they have to sign clears that up

I won't disagree clients can be a pain but there are creative ways around their idiosynchricies... and where would we be without them, eh?

Happy weekend everyone - I'm off to a renaissance festival without a computer (whoa )

 

I have stopped almost all client work. I could make money doing it but then I would be all stressed out. They tick me off as well with their terrible requests. It's just not worth any amount of money for me. Seriously..any amount. I tell people right away I do not do client work. Anything that requires less than an hour I might just get to fast and many times I do it free as a favor. But taking on a week project...F that.

 

That is where I want to be in six months. No more clients! Just a couple of old regulars that were good to me when I started and the rest of the time working on my own site(s).

 

Not sure if I would do that to an attorney. You could just end up with a lawsuit against you.