Infographic: 8 Types of Clients to Avoid at All Costs

Everyone needs to work for somebody.

Whether you have a direct relationship with the clients that buy your services, or you get passed client feedback through other team members, getting frustrated with a bad client is an almost universal struggle.

Today’s infographic comes to us from GetCRM and it helps to make light of some of these tragic client experiences.

Clients to Avoid

Regardless of your industry or job title, there’s a good chance you can relate to these eight hilarious (but true) archetypes of clients to avoid:

What’s more dreadful?

The client that permanently disappears and never gives an ounce of feedback, or the client that is all over you 24/7 and claims to know your field better than you?

Whether you’re a tech entrepreneur or an investment advisor, it’s likely you’ve had run-ins with at least one of these larger-than-life archetypes.

The Eight Archetypes

According to the infographic, here are the eight archetypes of clients to avoid:

The Design Expert
They think that they have an eye for design, and think that their suggestions are vast improvements on whatever you’ve put together.

The Indecisive Executive
Their feedback could be useful if it didn’t always contradict itself. This client tells you to go one direction, and then to reverse in the exact opposite.

The Confused Commander
Reminiscent of Dilbert’s boss in the famous comic strip, the Confused Commander hires you for something they don’t understand and then provides advice on how to do it.

The Ghost
After dumping a load of work on you, they disappear – never to be seen or heard again. Hopefully they paid upfront.

The Client Who Cried Wolf
Everything is an emergency to this person. Heaven help you if there actually is an urgent problem, because it will likely be sandwiched between 10 other “issues”.

The Feedback Failure
This person has very specific feedback ideas and needs, but utterly fails in communicating them to you. Statements are general, subjective, and open to interpretation – and that doesn’t help move things along, at all.

The Penny Pinching Visionary
The Penny Pinching Visionary has a tiny budget, but massive expectations for your work.

The Workaholic
This person is seemingly awake and connected 24/7, and is wondering why you haven’t responded to their last email.