Cartographer's Toolkit

I recently wrote this email to a group I belong to, in response to one GIS professional’s problems with a client. I’m publishing it here to provide some extra dialog about my consulting philosophy.
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Hi [name removed],

So sorry to hear about your difficulties with this client. The best type of client is someone who appreciates and wants to support small business, period. The other type of client does not appreciate anything. Is there anything in between? I’m not sure.

I am so thankful for all the wonderful clients I’ve had over the years who truly appreciate my contributions, and I try to return it tenfold by keeping them informed of all kinds of things they might otherwise have not paid attention to (recently I made a friendly suggestion to one client that they should get a twitter presence and helped them w/ some tips on how to get started). Thankfully I’ve only had two truly difficult clients in 10 years of having my own business. I won’t go into the details on those but my first principle is to always finish the work that I said I would do as I feel that is implicit even if there is no contract in place. After that I simply don’t do more work for them. Obviously you should not do more work for anyone who doesn’t value your time. You might also read up on workplace bullying and/or consultant bullying because it can and does happen. Establishing and maintaining a friendly relationship with your clients is also well advised because it is just much easier to deal with miscommunications and create a healthy amount of mutual respect. Always remember that you are your client’s peer and not your client’s subordinate. A subordinate stance will be death to the project and cause disrespectful feelings all around.

There’s a really great book called Crucial Conversations.

Some people will disagree with me concerning logos but I do not place a logo on maps that I make for people. They paid for it, it is theirs. I always furnish all files that the client requests and try to furnish everything up-front without them needing to request it. Including AI files. Your value isn’t in the AI file but in the skills that you have to create custom solutions so you aren’t giving that up at all. Giving them all the files is important because that’s what they paid for and I have found it increases my credibility (i.e., I’m going to give them as much value as I can). Personally, then, I would take my logo off and send them the AI files. I would then never work for them again because there’s a bad vibe going on there. But you’ll feel good about wrapping it up in a professional manner.

So basically only work for people who seem enthusiastic about you and seem to respect your expert opinion. In return, you’ll be enthusiastic about them and the project! I’ll bet this is just one little bad experience and that most of the rest will be much better. Most people are a pleasure to work with.

–G