Is it your job to make your clients happy?

Lots of creative professionals seem to think so -- especially the "people pleasers" -- you know who you are!

But I don't think so.

Your job is to do good work -- you have no control over their happiness, or lack thereof. 

And there are lots of clients out there who will never be happy -- that's just the way they are. It has nothing to do with you. 

You can choose to work with them, or not. If you decide to, they will probably be difficult to work with. But that doesn't make them bad people.

Your job, in that situation, is to take care of yourself.

And in a recent interview for the Marketing for Creatives podcast, Marina Barayeva threw lots of tricky situations at me and I suggested how to handle them and what to say. 

Listen to our podcast here.

Here's the time stamp for the conversation...

• [00:21] About the episode and Ilise Benun
• [02:14] Ilise talks about her work with creative entrepreneurs and her marketing tools
• [04:09] How to prevent working with difficult clients
• [04:48] Don’t ignore the red flags
• [06:24] What to do with clients who are trainable
• [10:43] What to do if you need the money but the client is becoming difficult
• [13:37] What to do if the client changes their mind about what they want as the end product
• [15:08] The dangers of not having a contract and how simple a contract can be
• [17:19] How to avoid miscommunication between the client and you
• [17:55] Ilise shares a story of a recent event of miscommunication and what she did to solve the problem
• [20:13] How to use leverage in your favor
• [22:44] Why the training process is so important in building boundaries in your relationship with the client
• [25:45] What to do with an overly involved and talkative client
• [29:24] How the way you charge can impact being surprised by things going wrong
• [30:41] How to deal with a pushy client
• [32:08] The three key actions you can take when you sense a difficult client
• [33:23] Where to find Ilise Benun and what she’s doing currently
• [34:40] For the show notes go to IntNetworkPlus.com and subscribe to the Marketing for Creatives show

 Lots of great "show notes" for this episode too -- find them here.