The clients I no longer want.
Making a list somehow feels like I’m creating my algorithm for success.
I enjoyed working with my clients this year, it was steady, but not without a few hiccups. When it comes to freelancing, hiccups are understandable and acceptable, because without a little snafus from time to time, you can’t really improve for the next client. No client is perfect. However in 2025 as I’ll be prospecting who I’d like to work with, I have comprised a list of types that I no longer wish to work with.
NO MORE COOL CLIENTS
I worked with those types of founders in the past, which is why I know now, it’s not worth my time, energy and brainpower. They’re also too busy being cool to remember to pay an invoice on time. On average, a fashion, beauty brand, anything the “cool kids are into” generally do not pay the highest. So now I tend to look for founders who have a strong, sustainable (financially speaking) business model where none of it is about being cool. It wasn’t until I removed the “cool” factor out of my work motto that I then found the path to the founders who come w/strategies and problem solving ideas, but just needed an extra person in the room to collaborate with and make it happen.
THE POOR COMMUNICATOR
I have worked with clients abroad from Singapore, Seoul and India. Is it hard with the time difference? You don’t even want to know. In general, I am okay with time zones, but when it comes to anything beyond Europe, I am lost. When you work w/clients abroad be prepared for the occasional 8pm weeknight call your time and 10am next day clients time. But time zones aside, I need a client that is a strong communicator no matter how near or far they are based. I never leave a client email unread for more than 5 hours at the most. I reply even if just to say that I’m working on it. When I don’t hear back from a client for more than 2 days, I am very annoyed, because in this fast paced world, it takes less than a minute to reply “okay thanks will get back to you by ….” I can’t stand missed opportunities and a client not responding within 48hrs, to me, is a losing game.
THE GET RICH QUICK CLIENT
A client has an idea with a quirky twist to a common, traditional whatever and they want to become a household name from it. (I still laugh inside) I have only had one of these and it lasted as short as the unrealistic timeframe the client was hoping for it to be. They’re usually in an excited rush to launch, market it to the “masses” (always dumb 101) in hopes of becoming the next big thing. It could take years to be the next big thing. I was so turned off and relieved by their disappointment when they realized that it wasn’t working the way they thought it could. If you’re in it to be rich and famous, let’s not work together.
NO ADVERTISING
One of my questions at every discovery call with a potential client is “how do you acquire customers?” Followed by “how do you retain your customers?” The few times that I came across small business owners stalling at the answers simply because they didn’t know how to answer either, an email always followed, by me, saying how it was great learning about their business, but unfortunately … “ It doesn’t matter to me if you’re a bootstrapped business or have investors, I need to know what advertising and SEO marketing is being done in order to maintain profits. How else do I know if I’m going to be paid on time.
POORWEBSITE.COM
A no brainer. I did have one client whose website was a total eyesore and made me sad every time I was on it. The font, the heading, the lack of good copy, the lack of not enough product images. Here are some tips from someone who has looked at thousands of fashion/beauty/e-com sites:
Your typeface is your brand. It’s worth hiring a graphic designer for this if necessary.
Your About page should include a brief bio no more than 1 short paragraph. Your mission statement should only be 1 strong sentence. I see 3 paragraphs and I worry about this founder’s state of mind. Nobody asked for an extensive background and no one is reading it. And tell people where your products are made and please brag if you work with a factory or production that pays honest fair wages, customers love knowing that.
Produce beautiful product and editorial images. White background flats are also ideal these days should a freelance writer/editor for a distinguished publication find your site and wants to publish in a story (some only uses product flat lays).
Include your social media links. I am constantly surprised when I don’t see them on the home page.
Basically invest in a good website, it’s your calling card, your HQ.
LACK OF SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE
This might sound brutal, but even if you’re a small business owner, you have to muster up the bandwidth to be frequently present on Instagram and/or TikTok. Observe and learn the current trends and put your own personal touch to it. Shoppers shop on their phone, they buy what they see on TikTok, they want to be invited into your brand’s world somehow for the taste, engagement and what you’re selling. You don’t have to post every day, but even a good engaging post once or twice a week is suffice to bring in new followers and customers. Quality not quantity. I can no longer work with a client who’s not going the extra mile and staying current.
MEN CLIENTS
To be frank, I stopped working with male clients a few years ago because I just didn’t enjoy it. Let’s just say a lot of mansplaining was involved and I needed to be elsewhere.
Using this opportunity to close the door on things or rather people I don’t want, really validates what I’m making space for in 2025.
NOW HIRING
Pistola Denim is hiring an Asst Graphic Designer (Los Angeles)
Slate Studios is hiring a Jr Photo Producer for Luxury Fashion/Beauty (Paris)
Atost apertif is hiring a Freelance Graphic Designer (Los Angeles)
Charlotte Tilbury is hiring a Lead Graphic Designer (London/Hybrid)
Are you hiring?
5 GOOD THINGS
This podcast interview with artist Tracey Emin (she rarely gives interviews)
The annual Booooooom photography contest - deadline is January 10, 2025
Let this poem by Nikki Giovanni who passed earlier this month, be your Roman Empire
After a week of online window shopping, I’ve decided on my 2025 weekly planner, I am officially in my hardcover era.
My personal opinion is that TikTok will not get banned - if at all or at least not right away in 2025. It’s a long, annoying road of repetitive discourse and I can only imagine mountains of paperwork needed to remove an overly successful business from a country that over a million Americans are financially living off of. I got this idea from an acquaintance who works at YT, he tried to imagine if YT were in the TikTok boat of doom and how that would affect their content creators financially. You know who the winners in this entire scenario would be? The lawyers. It’s always the lawyers, they are going to be the big “crisis chasers” to the downtroddens from AI infringements and what possibly could be the TikTok ban. Imagine everyone lawyering up against the government. That is a mountaineous sh*t of paperwork.
In the words of Madonna in her cult 1991 film doc “Truth or Dare”, in a scene where she can’t be bothered by time wasting questions, she iconically snaps at the makeup artist, “do something else, do my eyebrows”. To the whining members of Congress or whoever the old people are doing this nonsense, do something else, do my eyebrows.
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This is going to feel good …..
Out of office,
DNAMAG
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