Firing a nightmare client

Well we parted ways with our nightmare client, for better or worse. I did everything I could to appease them and save the situation, because the money was good, but ultimately even I had started to feel the money wasn't worth the aggravation. There is also the fact that my career has been rising fast on the feature film side and I just really don't need the stress and pettiness from corporate work for an unappreciative client. If a feature film director and a feature film DP (my DP has just booked his second feature in as many months) can't make them happy, maybe they need to think harder about what they're really looking for.

Ironically, and hilariously, we've used the video we did for this company to promote our company to other, competing corporations in their industry to good success. In fact, we booked 2 virtual tours with this one company, they loved the work we did for them, then we booked 4 more that shoot next week, and tentatively they're planning for 3 more that shoot later in July! So it has been pretty sweet and gratifying. The rest of our clients love our work and it's probably for the best to move on from the nightmare client.

Still, it's a frustrating lesson that I guess you can't please everyone. There is also that sense of disappointment because booking this client, when we thought we had the entire contract, was a huge validation of what we were doing with the company and the corporate work I had done in the past. Losing the contract stings for sure in that sense. But at the same time, I have my feature to pave over that sense of annoyance, because ultimately that's where I want to be anyway and corporate work was just supposed to buy me time, haha.
 
So I guess its bad that I have one client that is numbers 1-9 all rolled into one... and at this point it looks like he is walking away with owing me alot of money for completed projects...awesome...
 
I fired a $100,000+ client last year. It was the best thing I ever did. The change in the attitude alone at my shop was worth getting rid of this stress load. With this client gone the free time has more than allowed us to replace the lost billings. GOOD RIDANCE!
 
Nightmare client you say? I just severed ties with the worst of the worst. I don't really feel like writing the entire story here but basically this "client" went through about 3 or 4 videographers in the last year in my city. He was the type who'd phone 5 or 6 times a day, constantly emailing, texting etc, any day of the week and at any time...no boundries! The projects always grew and he constantly wanted more as well as asking to check over my progress by having me upload the videos bla bla bla...not time consuming at all! Getting paid was always a pain in the ass and the last time I saw him he tried to stiff me on payment so I lost it on him and threatened to sue his ass. Needless to say he paid up and that was the end, or so I thought....and then I received this email:

You have been paid and there are errors on the cut.
Be a professional.
(And again, I really appreciate your effort in labeling the disks.)
Again, such a professional touch.
On the DVD, There are 2 glaring spelling mistakes.....WHMIS...it only has one i
(and it’s in a title sequence.)...and shepherd is misspelled in the credits....twice.
We need a new copy.
I don’t know what you were thinking when you wouldn’t let Bob (his client not mine) view a
usendit version? Now you look like an idiot.
There is only one way to fix this and that is for you to correct your mistakes.
I need a disk ASAP.
Donny

My response:


Hi Donny,

My apologies for the spelling errors, please bring the hard drive to me
and I'll be happy to fix the mistakes for you. For your viewing
pleasure I've attached an interesting article related to film
production...it's GREAT!
http://www.insidecrm.com/features/client-from-hell-091707/ Please read
it and let me know what you think about it. It deals with fascinating
articles such as "how to deal with an internet tough guy, etc".

Bring the hard drive and you'll have a fixed version within 24 hours.

Warm regards,

Sir Darren of Smithenshire


and then I added this in the next message: subect line PS


Lay off the insults Donny, you're on thin ice. Or did I not make my
point on Thursday?
 
We just fired our largest client. After 10 years of badgering us regarding price and lack of communication on their part we said good bye. Now the company, who took over from us, wants our help dealing with them! Good luck Chuck!
 
People always evaluate the cost of action, but they never evaluate the cost of inaction. The one problem client may be paying you well, but you are preventing yourself from finding a client that can pay you an even higher rate.
 
Good stuff. There are "those certain clients" that just don't respect boundaries and expect your never ending tech support or consulting for free, only to scheme some way to replace you because the don't want to pay your already heavily discounted prices. My experience is I keep those clients and have to hear about it from my wife who complains to me about it, making it even worse.
 
This post made my day. I have this conversation on a daily basis with fellow business owners. Getting the right type of clients is step one. That solves most of the issues!
 
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