I'm not complaing though - physical, tick-off-a-list jobs are a welcome relief from the day-to-day at the office (I've not had time off in a while). Put some shelves up here, fix a door knob there, organise some cupboards...all cathartic stuff :)

However, like many folks who run their own business my mind constantly wanders back to Jojet. Automatically drawn back to planning a future campaign or to pick over the bones of a previous experience.

And it is the later I'm writing about now.

Jojet is 10 years old next year - a milestone in anyone's books. In fairness the first couple of years I spent mainly as a direct freelancer (through agencies). It was about 5 years ago that I thought "ok, let's try and win customers direct and grow Jojet - no more agencies".

...and THAT's where the fun began!

Going from the sheltered world of agency freelancing I became quickly aware of my business short comings. Whilst richly equipped with technical, creative, web expertise & passion - I was sorely lacking in sales & marketing, pricing strategies, products etc etc. In fairness I still class myself as weak on some of those BUT (and this is important)...at least I am aware of that now and try to put steps in to address it.

So, in my desire for greater transparency etc, I thought I'd openly blog on where things have gone wrong and where lessons have been (hopefully!) learned.

The first one is this (yep, I'm planning a series here!):

"Not every client is right for you"

In the early days I would chase every bit of work; lower my price whenever they asked and, generally, was over accomodating. If I didn't win work I assumed I'd done something wrong.

Not now.

For starters I have a gut feel if this will be a client I want to work with. Such people have traits: they are open, enthusiastic, trusting, reasonable, friendly, funny, likeable. You get the picture.

The gut feel I get with people I do NOT want to work with alerts me when they are distrustful, wishy washy (can't handle any kind of detail...only want results without accountability), constantly chipping away at price, late payers, argumentative, draining. In short these are people that piss you off and make your working day miserable.

Therefore, it's not about whether the client wants to work with me, it's about do I want to work with the client.

Not every client is right for you.

Joel

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