My View on Clients and Us, Freelancers

I don't want to put this wrong, but let me tell you something that I firmly believe now: Not all clients are kings. In fact, saying 'Client is king' is kind of wrong too, because that sounds like the service provider had lesser degree.

Well, I didn't have this belief until recently. Before, I did think that I want to do everything my clients ask, I want to fulfill all their requirements, and so on. But somehow this didn't work out too perfectly.

For example, well, I have been learning days and nights on web designing. So, every design decision that I made is the product of my knowledge, what I have as a designer. When a client told me to "resize that font, it's too glaring", it made me feel sick inside, because all the decision behind it just get ignored. Well, of course, simply changing the visual is pretty simple, but it made me felt like I betrayed something. Felt like now, by obeying him, I'm giving lower quality work, that I'm doing something below my capability.

Not all clients are kings. "The wrong client can kill morale, force good employees out, and cost you big opportunities," says 37signals. And it is true. Especially the morale-killing part.

'Client is king' (sometimes) makes client think that we're their servants, someone willing to do their every word. This is not right. Both clients and service providers have equal degree. So what if you have the money? We have the knowledge to deliver.

Think about it. I believe the whole freelancing thing is more like a barter: of their money and our skills. No one side should have higher power than the others, because this decreases the quality of work in one or more ways.

Plus, bad clients might piss freelancers off, and then they might make blogposts like this in return.

Now, what to do when you already found yourself stuck with the wrong client? I don't know. But I have done some experience on it. Wait for the next post, hopefully I will be able to tell more story.

Labels: freelancing