I really hate calling it quits on clients, especially clients that I’ve previously had a decent experience with. However, sometimes you still have to call it quits – whether they aren’t willing to pay you, or aren’t willing to pay you enough for the amount of time which you put into their site.

I’ve recently had to call it quits on a client I’d been working with for some time. In the past they had been a very good client and allowed me my space to work, but whenever said client changed for the worse, I knew it wasn’t fair to my other clients (or even to myself) to continue with the casework.

In my five years of experience, I’ve learned a few good lessons concerning protecting myself as a freelance designer. Yes, protecting – putting a rubber wall up for my own sanity. And honestly, I do hate quitting a project. I take my projects very seriously; I incubate them the way a hen does her egg, because I am very passionate about what I do. In addition, after my experiences in schooling, I was taught that quitting was bad. Quitting entailed giving up, and giving up would not help a person achieve their goals. In light of this, I will instead refer to it as ‘protection’.

• If a project is going to cost more than you are being paid, don’t take it. This is a common fallacy among newer freelancers; they are excited about winning a project and will bid lower than they are worth just to get the project to begin building their portfolio. However, this will, in turn, hurt them, as they could be working with other clients that will pay them what they are worth.
• Take money up front. I can’t push this one enough. If a client isn’t willing to pay you up front, who’s to say that they will pay you when the project is finished? Now, I’m not saying demand full payment; rather, a deposit of 30-50% up front should not be too much to ask, even if you work by the hour.
• Give the project the time it needs. If you think that the project is going to probably take a week to complete, or several weeks, do not let the client talk you into doing it in a few days. I ran into this trap before for a single page site; I knew that I would not be available to code it immediately as it was already late Friday and I was going out of town that weekend, and the client wanted it done by Monday morning. Giving the project a deadline that isn’t going to kill you, or take time away from things which you need to do such as attending to your family, will benefit yourself and your client in the end.
• Don’t allow one client to take precedence over every single other client. Unless there is a good reason (which there are few of, unless you are not good at taking care of clients), give each client the attention they deserve. Give your clients respect, and (hopefully) they will do likewise. I have respect for each of my clients as people, and generally keep a very good relationship with each of them because of this.
• Make a contract. If you work so many hours, you want to be paid what you originally asked for. Unfortunately, however, the world is not a perfect place, and some clients will try to scam you so that they don’t have to pay. Make a contract, and have them sign and date it, and document it. Each of my clients have folders which are in one large folder, which is consistently backed up so that I have an electronic copies of everything. This way, if things go badly, you can defend yourself.

I honestly wish that the world was a better place. However, it’s okay (and encouraged) that you take steps to defend yourself as a freelancer. As it stands, web designers are not a generously paid lot, and taking a few steps on your own will go a long way in the end.

My number one rule, however, is to always be highly respectful of my clients’ time, and to be understanding that not every client is going to know as much as I do about web sites. In addition, I’ll admit that I’ve had to deal with some age discrimination; I appear to be much younger than I really am (by six or more years), which, unfortunately, I’ve found no real cure for other than to allow my breadth of knowledge concerning web design and my integrity to help me through.