Welcome to this next lecture, how to deal with client issues. Okay, so the definition of a nightmare client is a client who either wastes time or money, which is, of course, essentially the same thing. Now first of all, I'll have to say that nightmare clients or client issues are extremely rare. Nine out of 10 clients are fantastic. However, you are more likely to get a problem with this when you are first starting out in the web design business and you shouldn't really ever have client issues because you will develop a way of spotting them before they crop up and therefore never having them. And there are several ways of doing this and the first way of avoiding these issues is, of course contracts as more or less central to have a contract with a new client, especially if that client is an independent person and not part of a larger organization.

And here is a sample design contracts that I will attach to this lecture. And you can use this but if you want, you can google one and use another one, I'm going to go through this one and show you the most important points that you need in a contract. First of all, if you're using this one, you're gonna have to change a few things here. So you're gonna have to data's and enter the client name and the client company there where the x's are, then you're gonna have to change and put in your name and your company there. So you're referred to as the consultant and the client is referred to as the client. And then after this, we're going to define the work and in this example, it's development of a logo, website, business cards.

So there you've done the date, your name, the client name, and you specify I'd work after that there is a clause on the confidentiality. And then after that, there's a description of the work. I've given you a sample here of one that I've actually used because this is quite good because it specifies the number of logo design options that you're sending. And this is quite good because it gives the client a finite number. Now, you can be flexible on this, of course, but it's great to have a finite number because it means that logo design won't go on forever and ever in a day. And there are similar descriptions of the business cards and similar description of the number of website visuals, and you don't want that going on forever as well.

This all serves to concentrate the client's mind if they know that they've only got certain amount of options. They will keep this in mind and it's a really good thing to do. And here you put the description of the world website functionality. So you're going to say it's going to have a contact page, it's going to have a blog, you're going to be able to edit the pages fitzer e commerce page, you're going to specify the amount of products, you're allowed the currency, whether you're going to have shipping, etc, etc. So anything you can think of the functionality that you've discussed with the client, maybe the client has actually given you a written reference of this, that should go in here, because in the paragraph afterwards, it says very importantly, if there is any further functionality requested by the client, then an hourly fee will be charged for this.

So this is really important. And this is the sort of thing that happens if you don't have contracts, you'll get clients saying, Can you do this? Can you do that and if you haven't got it in the contract, then you'll be tempted to do the work anyway and not get paid for it. So payment schedule, very important. The starting date is this and the finishing date is this and this is How much it's gonna cost and very important, you want a payment now and a payment upon the completion of the job, very often, this payment will be 50% of this payment. But obviously, you can work that out with the client.

So moving down, there's lots of things here that protect you. If there's any excessive changes, then it will be charged at an hourly rate. If there's anything outside the description of the work, it will be considered an extra charge. These are all great things to have expenses. Of course, if you need to buy stock photography, then the client will be liable for those expenses. There's permissions and releases and this is to say that you hold the copyright unless you sign it over to the client.

To be honest with you, these things never crop up legally you are entitled to the copyright of the design unless you sign it over. But it really doesn't matter. I haven't seen an example of this coming to court or having any disagreement with it. Usually you just Do the work and the clients happy and the client pays for it. But it's good to know that these things are in there. And there's a very good clause here for termination because say you finished 75% of the job.

And the client says, Oh, I don't want to do this anymore. This will make sure that the client will pay you for the extra work you've done. He's already paid you 50% but you've done 75% of that work. So you need that extra 25%. So that clauses in there, this agreement is in accordance with UK, you can change that to a different country because I'm pretty sure that this contract is just for people's peace of mind rather than a but it's just a really good thing to do here is the place to sign. Remember, contracts with new clients especially and clients that are not part of large organizations.

Also how to avoid client issues before them they happen. Remember to watch out for those red flags we've already talked about. red flags. Things clients say such as this won't take you very long. I'm really on a tight budget. If you do this for free, I'll recommend you to a lot of new great clients, or if they waste your time and ask for proposals for for different websites when they're just looking for free advice.

So with those sorts of questions, you should politely run a mile. And there's some more questions that you can ask the client here in our next point, that if they don't answer, you should run a mile as well. And these questions are, what is the purpose of this project? When do you need it completed by what is your target market? these sort of questions that we'll talk about later on? If the client can't answer them, it's a very bad sign.

And another red flag I've noticed as well as if a client doesn't like email. Now, some people don't like email, and it's fair enough, but I've found that spad clients don't like email because they like to throw You up and talk and talk and talk. And you don't have any record of the conversation. And they refer back to it later and said, Oh, you said this when I phoned you, and you're not really sure whether you did or not. So, I do like to keep client communication terminal, and wherever possible on email. Okay, so usually this never happens.

But sometimes you have issues with clients. And if you do, never email them, or phone them straight away, leave it and come back to it. And if you can sleep on it, try and go through the project, again with a fresh pair of eyes or ask a friend. Remember, it's just as likely to be your mistake as it is theirs. But here's a few things you can try which might get you out of a problem. One of the problems you can have with clients is when you've done a design for them, and they just look at one element and they say, can you change that to yellow and you find a few Do it kind of messes up the whole design.

And if that's the case, then you can use this copy and paste this into a email. And that will help you with that particular client request. So moving on, when a client asks you for too many revisions, remember, you've specified in the contract that you can only do a certain amount of changes to the project. So this helps with the direction of the project. And if there are further changes, you have to say that you have to charge the client an extra hourly rate because you haven't accounted for this. And sometimes the client just asked too much, and they do out of hours requests.

Maybe they come to expect a 24 hour service, which is difficult for you to do. And here is something you can copy paste into an email to make sure that the client respects that they're asking for a little too much Sometimes a gentle nudge like this is all a client needs. And this is very rare, but some people expect you to work for no money at all. And if that's the case, you have to put your foot down and say, You expect to get paid for what you do. So remember, 99 clients out of 100 are fantastic. They know what they want.

They tell you what they want, you do what they want, and they pay you. And that's what happens, although not necessarily in this order. Because as I say, most of us like to ask for 50% before upfront, and then hundred percent on completion. However, if you do get problems, and if this or none of the above works, and you've tried everything, then I'm afraid you have a nightmare client on your hands, and you must get paid for what you've done. So this is where the contracts and the emails come in handy. You've got it all down on paper, digitally speaking, and these are admissible In court.

Now I am talking about the UK here. But again, I'm pretty sure that this will apply in your country as well. And if you're from the UK, there's a link here, where you can file a small claim. But most countries have a similar service. And these claims are usually sorted out by mediation before the court stage is even considered. In other countries.

Of course, you can always contact a solicitor and get them to write a letter to the client restating your claim. And this won't cost an awful lot. And I have done this in the UK. And I just want to show you an email I got back from the client now. So here is the email and as you can see, I had a claim for nearly 600 pounds. So it's quite a reasonable amount of money that somebody didn't want to pay me and I spent smaller amounts of money to get claim through the courts for the money and the claims I realized it was too much bother for him.

He didn't want to go to court and so he paid the money. But don't worry, relax. These issues are extremely rare. I've had two of them in the last six years and I've worked for about 200 different clients in that time. These nightmare scenarios can be avoided before they even happen by clear prior communication, awareness of red flags. And of course the contract.

So you sever relations with a potential nightmare client before the project even starts. So I hope you enjoyed that a little bit about client issues and hope this doesn't happen to you. I hope you don't have to find this lecture important. But there it is. Anyway, and I hope you enjoyed it. This has been Rob from Rob carbon calm goodbye.