Difficult Clients: How to Deal With Bad Freelance Clients!

This lesson is a brief introduction to the Mitigation phase and what it involves.

This lesson briefly covers some different personality indicators of difficult clients that can help you spot them before you start working with them.

In this lesson I'll describe how to let clients self-filter so they reject themselves from working with you before you have to do it on your own!

This lesson describes a simple way to test for negative client behavior and compatibility AND get paid for it before you ever start officially working together.

In this lesson we talk about the important of knowing who is involved in a project and how it can affect your outcomes.

This lesson is all about knowing WHO to take orders from and WHO to avoid if you want to bypass problems in a project.

In this lesson we introduce the Preparation phase and get you ready to start your own preparations for difficult clients!

This lesson describes what it means to operate as a freelance professional and why it is important in dealing with difficult clients.

In this lesson we talk about getting things in writing, why and how you should do it, and how it will protect you later on.

This lesson includes resources to help you create your own paper trail to document everything.

In this lesson I describe why you should always record your calls, and a few important notes about doing it (such as whether you need the client's permission or not).

This lesson includes several free resources for recording audio in Skype, Zoom, and by Phone and other sources.

This lesson is all about writing an official proposal as part of your paper trail and for addition defense reinforcement for difficult clients.

This lesson includes a simple example proposal to help you get going with your own.

In this lesson I discuss the Master Client Service Agreement and how it will help protect you up front before you get involved with a difficult client.

This lesson is a link to a free client services agreement template that is designed for freelancers.

This lesson introduces the Scope of Work Agreement, also called the Statement of Work Agreement.

This lesson is a link to a free freelance Statement of Work / Scope of Work Agreement.

In this lesson I describe why you need to get commitments and other promises and statements by the client early on to help protect you later.

This lesson is all about getting paid up front and different ways to do that so you never do work for free again!

In this lesson we start into the topic of Response phase and how you will respond to clients who turn nasty!

This lesson details what you can do when clients disappear on you out of nowhere and with no warning!

In this lesson we'll cover what to do when a client makes you do work but doesn't pay!

This lesson is all about dealing with those pesky micro-managers who can be really annoying (but are perfect clients for some people!).

This lesson covers how I deal with inarticulate clients, and why being vague or poor at communicating isn't necessarily a trait of a difficult client!

This lesson is all about scope creep and how you'll put an end to it once and for all!

In this lesson we'll deal with clients who "love" you but don't value you enough to pay your rates!

Finally, we'll talk about how to fire difficult clients when they've gone too far or become too troublesome.

Before we move into the final phase, we've gotta talk about dirty fighting tactics for when difficult clients get nasty!

This lesson describes the role of flattery and liking and how to use them to your advantage.

In this lesson I describe how to use Positive Reinforcement to gain the upper hand.

In this lesson I show you how to use restricted choices to limit client options!

This lesson describes how to play the victim to build empathy in the client and cause an emotional change of heart.

This lesson describes how to properly use stonewalling AKA the silent treatment to get clients to comply!

This lesson builds on the topic of commitments which we talked about earlier in the course. Now we expand it to social realms.

In this lesson I describe the approach of baiting the client into making angry mistakes that can be used against them later on!

This lesson is a really nasty fighting tactic that involves very subtle, and extremely devious persuasive suggestion!

This lesson wraps up this section by talking about the importance of never crossing the line or losing control of your emotions so you always keep yourself out of trouble!

The Review phase is the final phase of the Difficult Client Management process. In this lesson we'll talk about how to review your approach and how to modify things for better results moving forward.

The conclusion lesson describes what you can do next and where to go from here.