Throw all caution to the wind and dive in.

I used to spend lots of time weed­ing through the (seem­ingly) des­o­late bounds of the design com­mu­nity only to find dis­il­lu­sioned design­ers (web, graphic, and logo) grip­ing about how much they hate clients. And, if they don’t hate their clients, they hate doing work for other peo­ple in gen­eral. They’d much rather be artists, work­ing on their craft and cre­at­ing inter­ac­tive artistry on the web  (sounds like some­one needs to start a fire).

As much as I under­stand the need to vent one’s frus­tra­tions to a will­ing audi­ence, they’re all for­get­ting one cru­cial mat­ter: clients are what makes their busi­ness, be they good, bad, or in-between. With­out clients, we free­lancers would be ulti­mately screwed. If you’re not inter­ested in work­ing with clients, then it’s time to con­sider cre­at­ing stand-alone prod­ucts as a rev­enue stream. Or, you could do what I do: only work with peo­ple who seek you out specifically.

I work with dif­fer­ent kinds of peo­ple. Engi­neers and tech-centrics. The writ­ers. Non-profits. Coaches. Pho­tog­ra­phers. Younglings that are just start­ing out. Peo­ple that know what they want. Peo­ple that don’t. Peo­ple that want to love their blog but don’t. Peo­ple that love to write but don’t know how to get peo­ple to love their con­tent. All kinds o’ peo­ple. So what do they have in common?

They’re excep­tional.

If you work with excep­tional peo­ple, your work will be excep­tional. If you really believe in the work you’re doing, you will find a great and deep sat­is­fac­tion in the end prod­uct, even if it may not be time­less and you may hate it six months later.

Not every excep­tional per­son has a lot of money to throw at a web­site. Some­times, all they’ve got is $500, the abil­ity to love you up, and to rec­om­mend your ser­vices to all their friends. Non-profits aren’t in it for the money. They’re in it for the love. Sounds like squishy BS. I know. But that’s the beauty of it: it’s not. When you work with peo­ple that love what you do in a real and gen­uine way, they will give back in ways that will catch you by surprise.

My very first client was Kelly Diels. She didn’t have any extra cash to throw at a design. I loved what she did so damn much that I said that I was com­pelled to design her site. Give her an online iden­tity that she could be proud of. So I did. Then she wrote me a bio in the form of a love let­ter.

I sat down with Danielle LaPorte in a crowded cafe on Com­mer­cial Drive to teach her how to use iMovie a few weeks before she launched Fire Starter Ses­sions. She wanted to pay me. I wanted her wis­dom. So she gave me a copy of the video-book after it launched, com­plete with named acknowl­edg­ment. I fell out of my chair that day, wore my cof­fee, and pre­tended that I did it on pur­pose. When I saw my name in FSS, I fell over on the floor. Total acci­dent. Total surprise.

Dave Doolin gave me $200 to see Lady Gaga in con­cert. He asked me to redo the typog­ra­phy on his web­site in return. “Screw that,” said I. “I want you to have a beau­ti­ful web­site.” So I redesigned it. Took my time. Worked on it when I had time. We launched it last week­end. He inter­viewed me about being a designer, writer, and gamer. It drops tomor­row. Then he gave me his new eBook, free of charge. He brings me code. Every­one knows how much I love code. Now you all know how much I love Dave.

Every time that some­one sends an email about doing a web­site for them, I send them my quirky design ques­tion­naire. If they dig the tone, they’ll dig me. If they don’t, we part and go our merry sep­a­rate ways. They’re not pissed off I don’t get them. I’m not pissed off that they wasted my time. We’re happy, chilled out folks that just don’t see the world the same way.

I’m pro­fes­sion­ally out of my mind. I may or may not be back in five minutes.

I throw all cau­tion to the wind and dive into each project. I work with excep­tional peo­ple that allow me to do a lit­tle piece of what I love. They trust me. They ask ques­tions. We revise. We iter­ate. We start fires. They get a web­site that is all them. I cre­ate friend­ships from part­ner­ships and part­ner­ships from client relationships.

Next time you dive into a work project, throw all your per­sonal bag­gage aside. The client is not the enemy. The client could be your friend. That per­son with the “stu­pid ques­tion” just needs to be edu­cated. If no one gets the value of your design deci­sion, then tell them. Explain away. If they still don’t get it and refuse to play nice: no-gotiate your way out. Let some­one else take on the project. Be gra­cious. Be graceful.

Be kind.

Be gen­er­ous with your time. Be flexible.

Most impor­tant: be your­self. Gen­uinely. 100%. You.

Tagged as: clients, creativity, giving