EP #32: 7 Red Flags You Shouldn't Ignore

Welcome to the Designers Oasis podcast. I'm your host, Kate Bendewald, interior designer, mama, and CEO of a thriving interior design business, built on authentic word-of-mouth referrals. It wasn't that long ago that I stepped away from my corporate architecture job to build my own dream, one that would allow me more time with the people that I love, the ability to serve my clients at the highest level and to make a great living. It wasn't always easy, and I've made my share of mistakes along the way. Fast forward to today, and I've learned a thing or two. This podcast is for you - the inspired, creative, ambitious, and let's admit it,  occasionally overwhelmed interior designer who shares this dream of transforming lives by transforming homes. Join me and my guests each week as we walk through practical ways to build an interior design business you love, and help you transform your client's lives. You can do this. 

Hello, there, and welcome back to the designers Oasis podcast. I'm your host, Kate Bendewald. And I am thrilled to be hanging out with you today. Today we are talking about red flags and what they are and how to deal with them and how to ideally spot them before they become an issue. So let's get into it. Red flags are when a client says or does something that gives you a little sneak peek or a preview of future behavior that may be problematic. Too often, designers either Miss red flags due to a lack of experience, or they choose to ignore them because well, you're eager for the work. Or maybe it was a referral from someone you know, maybe they're in your circle of friends or your community. And so it can be hard to cut someone off or say no or goodbye or this isn't a good fit in those scenarios. But I want to talk about the importance of not ignoring red flags. When the problems that can arise when you ignore red flags or miss them altogether, can be truly devastating. It can cause you to lose sleep, it can give you this gut wrenching feeling. It'll make you question your sanity. But worse, it puts you at risk for tarnishing your reputation by bad mouthing you to others in your community, or publicly posting reviews that are not an accurate reflection of the whole story.

Furthermore, in addition to countless hours of lost sleep, endless emails and calls, trying to resolve issues, the strain on your peace of mind, distracting you from other clients or from getting new projects, it could cost you money if you need to settle with a client who is trying to take you down. So the stakes are high the risks when you ignore red flags, or you're unaware of them and you miss them are high. And so my goal today is let's get clear on what some of these red flags are, so that you know how to spot them, and you know how to prevent them from snowballing into bigger issues. Ideally, you can spot red flags before you engage with a client and a long term commitment. So your early client engagements should give you ample time and opportunity to really spot red flags. Now, sometimes red flags are overt in their undeniable their actions or words that are absolute deal breakers. And you will need to end the engagement without a doubt and there's just no question about it right. But other times, red flags are more covert. They are nuanced and layered. Typically this shows up as this like prickly feeling that you get one of my friends called it this little tingle that you get shown Hmm. It makes you stop and wonder what's behind that. 

So when that happens, my advice to simple words, get curious. Sometimes red flags aren't actually red flags, it's just naivete on the part of your client. They may not realize that their question is raising alarm bells for you. But they're just simply asking because they don't understand. Okay? So what you when you start to get those red flags that maybe are not so in your face, and clear and obvious, maybe they're the ones that are a little bit more subtle. I want you to start by being generous in your assumptions. And most importantly, I want you to have a candid conversation with your client, now is not the time to tiptoe around a possible issue that will wreak havoc down the road, your livelihood, your reputation, and your sanity are all at risk when you ignore red flags. All right, so let's get into it. I have I think, how many did I list out here, I've got about six, maybe seven. If you count, that last one is a red flag. So we're gonna get into into some details, I'm going to share some stories because a lot of these come from my own experience, I will just say that today, red flags are so much easier to spot, I've gotten really good at putting the right language in place on my website, and in my, all of my communications with clients that, you know, over the years, I've been able to hone a process where I do attract clients that are ideal fit, and they are the kinds of clients that I want to work with. Does that mean that I'm immune to having a red flag client who's really troublesome slipped through the cracks? No way, we none of us are right, we're never immune to this. 

So if and when it happens, I want you to give yourself a little grace, and let it be a learning experience. But ideally, this episode is going to help you get a lot clearer earlier. So you can try to avoid these sticky situations the best you can. Okay, so the first red flag is negotiating. If you come into contact with someone who wants to negotiate with you on say something like your contract or your design process, they want you to eliminate the step because they don't see the value. And that is a red flag. Your contract is thoughtful, you've probably spent a tremendous amount of time and money putting it together so that it is meaningful and fair and covers everything. 

Very early on in my career, I worked with a client who had this high rise apartment and she was a really high, highly known well known realtor, prominent Realtor in town, she did a lot of high end homes. And she definitely made it known to me that she could make or break me and my reputation and helped me get into this like next level of homeowners. And to be honest, that was very enticing. Right off the bat, she wanted to negotiate with me on I don't even remember what anymore, but something in my contract. And I ended up, you know, very politely pushing back and explaining why that was an important part of my clause. And I wasn't able to negotiate on that. And with some back and forth. She agreed and we eventually moved forward. And at that point, I thought, you know, things are okay. And the reality was, for the rest of that project, everything was a negotiation, it was a sport.

And it just made the whole process it key and cumbersome. And it didn't flow. And it was just one of these scenarios where there would never be any pleasing her. And so we did have to part ways. Now, I've had other clients asked me to negotiate something in my contract. And, you know, I said, No, this is in here for a reason. And we had a conversation around it. And then it just was a non issue. It was it was one of these things where I realized that this wasn't a habit like this wasn't a sport for this person. It was just kind of a naive question. And once we had that conversation, we understood it we could move on. So every person every client is going to be different. You need to read the room, read the body language, read the nuance, get to understand talk to them, have a conversation understand what's behind the ask because that conversation is often going to reveal to you what's what's really behind there and help you make a decision on whether this is something that's going to be a deal breaker or not. 

Photography is another clause in the contract that tends to come up quite a bit. I've had a client who was By she was a prospective client, I ended up not working with her, who was by no means a celebrity, but she did not want any photography taken of her house. And I explained to her, you know, this is a really important aspect of running my business and being able to build a portfolio and share the kind of work that I do. And if I'm not able to take photos of your project, my design fees are going to be different. And I'm going to need to read rewrite the the proposal, and that was a deal breaker for her. And I wasn't willing to negotiate on that, because I was really in a period of my career where building my portfolio was my number one focus, I've been able to negotiate this in different ways with other clients. One example is I had a client, we like to include some lifestyle photos whenever we're doing a photo shoot. And so anytime we can bring the family and, and have people in the photos, it just creates a more impactful set of photography for us in the long run, especially for social media. So I had designed to KidSpace and I wanted the kids to be featured in a couple of the photos. And understandably because they were young kids, you know, the parents didn't want their photos just floating around the web. I get it. What we ended up doing, and I've done it a couple of different ways. In this case, these boys love superheroes, you know, we did, we threw on some superhero masks and some capes. And it was hands down one of the best photoshoots we've done. And other times I've taken pictures of the kids with their family with their back to us. In one case, we had designed this Murphy table when it folded down as a table when it was up, it was a chalkboard. And so we took some photography of the little boy and his dad playing tic tac toe on the chalkboard in this way, we weren't showing anybody's faces, but we're still able to get those lifestyle photos along with the photos of the room. 

So negotiating isn't off limits, get clear on what's behind the ask. But if it's negotiating for the sake of negotiating, I'm going to say run for the hills. So all right, that was Red flag number one moving on. The next one is the inability to make a decision, indecision. I think it's really important early on to understand the client's decision making ability. Are they quick decision makers? Or do they really need to mull things over for some time? Now listen, guys, I'm married, my husband is an Enneagram, five, the thinker. He needs a lot of information. And he usually has a lot of questions where I am the decision maker in the house. I'm the one that makes the decision and moves on. But I get it, he needs a lot of information in order to make a decision. I joke with him like he would be a terrible client, but he gets it and you know what our, our family is balanced? Well, because of the two of us being able to work together. But all jokes aside, you want to work with people who do have the ability to make a decision and move on. Because the problem is it's going to really slow your design process down, it can throw everything off course. So one of the things I do is I include a very simple question in my in depth questionnaire. 

So it's the one that goes out prior to the consultation after we've had a discovery call. And it just simply asked, Tell me about your ability to make a decision. And then I think there's a couple of different options. And I would say don't write people off if they are slower to make decisions, but do plan for it. Maybe your paid me excuse me, maybe you've had your proposal a bit to account for the added back and forth communications that may be required to help them come to decisions. The other thing is, ask them what kind of information is most helpful when making decisions because if you know that in advance, then you can prepare the kind of information that might be helpful and get to a decision faster. Here's another story for you. I worked with this very sweet woman when I was in Texas, and we had painstakingly remodeled her kitchen and it was done. Now I knew she needed a lot of information when working with her. So she came back to me and she hired me again to help her with paint schemes for the exterior of her home. I knew that she was challenging when it came to making decisions but I liked her. It was a cool house I wanted to get a new fresh paint job. So I proceeded and I will tell you we went round and round so we gave her mockups for every paint scheme that we had come up with and we started with three we gave her you know the main color the trim the door, I think there was maybe some sort of accent necessary but so we started with three which turned into five, which turned into eight and 10. And I will tell you no less than 15 options and variations to the point that it just became laughable. It was like, I had to shut it down was like there is nothing here that is going to work for you, that's gonna make you happy. So you figure it out. But it was a bless her heart. You know a good person, but it was just a real drain on us creatively to keep doing that. So, sidenote, a year later, after we had moved back to Colorado, I saw her post on Facebook soliciting friends advice for what colors she should paint in her house. So we may have been dealing with that for a whole lot longer had we not shut it down. Now. It's not one of these things where it was detrimental to our business or where I was fearful of her attacking my my business, did I lose a ton of sleep? No. But it was soul sucking from a creativity standpoint, it wasted a lot of my time where I could have been getting new clients helping serve my other clients, and working on my business. You know, nobody needs 15 different variations to be able to make a decision so that that indecision was really debilitating in this case. And then the day there was nothing to show for it. And that's not what we're here to do. We want results. We want our clients to get results. We want to build our portfolio. So that was definitely a red flag that I chose to ignore, and it ended up really not working out in the end.

Okay, so moving on. Number three clients who expect discounts. Notice, I didn't say ask about discounts. Asking about discounts is very different from expecting them. And I'm talking about both discounts on services and product. So let's start with expecting discounts on your services. First of all, this diminishes your expertise. I want you to approach a client who asked you about discounting your services with a touch of empathy, you want to appreciate that they're about to invest. But I want you to remind them that you're saving them time, money and mistakes and that the savings isn't going to come in your service fees. So remind clients, I am slow, I am expensive. And I will do great work and I will help you get results. Here's another quicker story. I remember very early on I had a client who had just sent her a proposal for a whole home furnishings project basement, first floor, second floor and rooftop deck. So four floors worth of furnishings. It was not an insignificant project scope of work and my design fees at the time reflected it today. 

I know that as design fees were and I would say they got a bargain. But at the time, that's where I was and it was fine. So she reached out to me and said, you know, you can appreciate that we're about to spend all this money. Do you think there's room for any sort of discount in your design fee? He's, and that was my exact response what I said a minute ago, I can appreciate that you're about to invest quite a bit in your home. And in me, and with that investment in me, I'm going to provide the expertise, it's going to help you save yourself time, money and mistakes. So ultimately, they said, Yes. And we went on for a mostly successful project. At the end of the day, what I realized with her was, it was just a habit to ask for a discount. She wasn't somebody who nickel and dimed me the entire time. But I had a conversation with her about it, and I stood my ground. And the fact that she respected my answer, and didn't continue to try to negotiate showed me that she was just asking the question, it wasn't that she outright expected it. 

I want to talk about expecting designer discounts on product. Because this is a really important one, and it comes up so often, I am a part of a number of Facebook groups for interior designers, in addition to the one that we run here, designers Oasis, and no less than once a week, I see these conversations come up. So end of story, if someone's trying to use you for your discount, it's probably not a good fit. Now, I'm gonna sound kind of old when I say this. But back in the old days, that was a common practice. So I think there's this continuing misconception about how our industry works. Maybe a friend told them that that's how it works. But things have changed over the years with the advent of online retail. So the industry has changed, and the model has changed. So here's how I position it to my clients. I say, my clients pay retail pricing, never more, sometimes less. And the reason I say sometimes less is because generally speaking, my clients do pay retail, I keep it vague. And like, worst case scenario is you're gonna pay retail, you're gonna pay the same price that you would pay if you were to go out and buy this yourself. And the benefit of the client is the turnkey process of us managing and overseeing all of the expediting, ordering, delivery, so on and so forth. So they get it. But the part where I say sometimes less is, I have definitely had projects and clients that had a really healthy budget, a big scope of work. And all in all, I didn't discount individual items, but I took the overall retail costs for everything. And knowing that I was providing trade only sources, I was getting a really healthy margin on my on the products with my purchasing power, that in that case, absolutely, I could extend an overall flat small discount on the overall package, which sweetens the deal for the client, and they love it. And we both win. So that makes it kind of a no brainer. 

But in the beginning, I leave it fairly vague to allow for some flexibility, because we might not know exactly where things are going to shake out until we get into the actual sourcing part of a project. So that's the phrase I use, feel free to take that and use it for yourself. My clients pay retail pricing, never more, sometimes less couple places where you can include this is in your FAQ section and your services and investment guide. It's really important that your clients understand this early. And that way, if your client takes issue with it, you can address that early on, you don't want this to come out down the line, you want to be clear about how you're how you price your products and what to expect. I want to push back on this idea of radical transparency with your clients. Your clients don't need to know all of the details. I think it's fine for your clients to know that you make a commission on product that you sell. And that is a standard interior design business practice. But they don't need to know all of the specifics on exactly how much you might be making. The reality is that's your commission you receive from vendors that belongs to you. And you get access to that pricing because you bring them repeat business, in your role as an interior designer. It isn't a discount that your clients are entitled to.

When you give away your discount to clients. You're actually doing a disservice to the entire design community. So I will plead to you to not use this as a competitive tactic. It doesn't do the design community any favors. I'd like for you to think about reframing this question with your clients that if it comes up and I think it should, I think you should, you know, tell your clients up front in your communications and in your services and investment guide, your welcome guide and of course in your contract, you know they can expect to pay retail pricing. If it comes up and they, you know, want to ask you for discounts, reframe it, that this is a commission that you earn on your sales, that you're not taking anything from them that they're owed, you're not taking away discount that that they're entitled to. So just take the word discount out of your vocabulary, and replace it with the term commission. And I think those conversations will go a lot smoother. But the point is, if you have a client that expects a designer discount, versus just trying to understand how things work, that would be a red flag, and you want to make sure to have that conversation. And if, you know, if, if it doesn't go over well, and they don't like that idea, then they might, they might want to work with a different designer, good luck finding one that will actually give away their discount. I know, I know that there are designers that do that. And that's what they use as their competitive edge. But that's definitely not what I propose you're doing for your design business. 

Alright, let's move on. The next red flag that I want you to be really mindful of is anyone that ignores clearly defined boundaries? First, you need to be setting up the boundaries that you expect in your business. Often, communication is the clearest example that we can use when talking about this. So how to communicate with you. How should they contact you? When are you available? How long after they reach out to you? Can they expect a response. So you set these boundaries in again, things like your welcome packet and your contract. By the way, I will link to these in the show notes. I have a welcome packet template, I have a services and investment guide template, I also sell my proposal and contract and that's all in the designers voices, shop, shop dot designers, wasted.com. But most importantly, whether it's mine, or when you come up with yourself, it's just important that they use these tools to help you set these expectations early, and have these conversations that are going to prevent bigger issues down the road. So when you have them in your welcome packet and your contract, then that opens the door for you to be able to have conversations with your client. And then you have to be consistent. If you don't want to text with clients that it's important to set that standard early. If they were to text you. first offense reply with Would you mind sending this via email, that way I can respond there. If you do it a second time, my recommendation is either a non reply or a gentle reminder that texting is reserved for friends and family. And the best way to reach you is through email. So quick story, and some of this is personal responsibility. So I want you to be clear about the difference between personal responsibility and, and people who are, you know, real boundary breakers. But I had a client who blurred the lines between friends. So it wasn't surprising when they sent me a text message with a question about their project, because they were a friend write? Well, because there were a friend, I sent a reply without even thinking about it. And eventually, it turned into a text conversation. And I'm in the middle of trying to prepare dinner and hanging out with my kids. And all of a sudden I'm in a funk. And in this case, it wasn't really a red flag because of the relationship. But I set the standard by responding. So eventually, I had to say, we need to move this to email or have a call and they got it. Okay. So something like that is you just need to have a conversation, you need to communicate with them. But someone when you've done that, and they continue to be repeat offenders, and really sabotaging your personal time or how you communicate or whatever boundaries you've set forth in your business. Those are definite, definite red flags. So pay attention to those early and often. 

Next one is the client that ghost you. Have you ever had a client that was so eager to get started working with you only to ghost you when it came to getting a response from them. You want to work with clients who understand and respect your process and design timeline, who are eager to work with you. If you send an email and it takes them more than three days to get a response, I'd say that's a red flag. Pay attention to how much you're having to nudge them. If you feel like it might be helpful. And you've got a client who is slow to respond. And you might say I need a response by x date. In order for this to continue to move forward. Someone who ghost you for weeks at a time is definitely someone who is going to be complicated to work with and the ripple effect of that and moving shifting deadlines and milestone dates can really affect your overall business and your ability to serve your other clients. So it's important I think one way to a good way to circumvent this and kind of prevent this from happening is to really outline your milestone dates at the beginning of a project. So things like when you're going to kick off the project, when will you deliver the concept design? When will you be having a design presentation. Even if you don't have the exact date, you might say, the week of acts or the week of the state. And as you get into the project, you can sort of nail those dates down more specifically. But the point is, when you set those milestone dates early, they understand that you've got a schedule to maintain. And then and this should also be reiterated in your contract. And then it's important. 

At every point, you let your clients know, we're going to have the concept design presentation on this date. And you have until blink date to provide your feedback in order to keep the project timeline on track. Same thing for your design presentation, they need to have a deadline in which their feedback is expected their final feedback so that you can do whatever round of revision you might need to do and move on. And then the final and really, really, really important piece that I want you to if you don't take anything away from here today is this. You also need to indicate what are the reproduction repercussions, excuse me of disengaging with you disengaging with the project. Ideally, the if, you know within reason I give them a chance, do your due diligence, make sure they haven't fallen off a cliff or something, but they just have really fallen off mid project. Their project goes on hold indefinitely while you turn your attention to other clients who have been waiting in the wings for you. Right? So you take them off of your project timeline. And they're going to have to wait and get at the end of the line while you serve your other engaged and paying clients. And if do they get a refund? No, you know, the, the the Your contract should outline that if they you know, get their concept design, and then they go weeks without responding to you that you're keeping their money and they can get on your calendar when you're ready. I know this sounds harsh, and I know this sounds really inflexible. But the implications of letting a project continue to flail like that, because it's not going to get better, right? If they're doing it. Now, it's going to be that way through the end of the project, if you let it, but it's going to impact your whole business, it's going to impact your ability to serve other clients and it can really throw everything off. 

So communicating early that they need to be engaged. And the best results happen when they maintain good communication and not responding is a major deal breaker for you. Okay, so moving on. The next one is just about respecting your process. And it's a real close friend of the last one we just talked about. But what I'm, what I'm talking about here is if you have somebody that comes to you, and they really want to tell you how things are gonna go. Right, a project is a collaborative effort between you and your clients based on the process that you outline.

I don't remember what episode it was. But a couple of episodes ago, I talked about the importance of making sure that when you talk about your the features, the aspects of your deliverables, that alongside it, you're telling your clients why this is important. Why is a mood board important? Well, it's important because it helps set the tone for the rest of the project. And you want to make sure early, that you're headed in the right direction. And that they can help steer that ship and guide you in a different way if it's a little bit if it's feeling a little bit off, right. So you can't just talk about what you have the deliverables that you're gonna give them without talking about why they're important. So if you do that, and a client still tries to say because they maybe they want to try to save a little money on your design fees. I don't need a mood board, I just want to I just want you to get straight to the sourcing. Well, that's skipping a step in your process that you have thought about this process. You've done it with other clients, you know, it works, it works, it works, it works. They need to trust you that everything that you do in the design process is intentional, and it is there for a reason. And they're gonna get the best results when they trust you with this process and go along this with you. But if you've got somebody who doesn't respect your process, they're trying to tell you how it's gonna go and the timeline and when you're going to deliver things. That is a huge red flag. 

Now very different from having a conversation about how long will it take for us to get these reach these milestones, right? But if a client comes to you and says, oh, and I need this in two weeks, that kind of language of demanding and being flexible and disrespecting your process and not having a conversation is hands down a major red flag that you would want to really pump the brakes on and say, well, we'll wait a second. So here's what's going on. And here's what it's going to take, does this work for you. And if it doesn't, then you got to, you got to move on, you got you can't, and it's not going to work for you guys to work together. It's just even if you really want the project, if you can't, physically and emotionally achieve some, like you don't want to break your neck trying to meet this arbitrary timeline. And the reality is, if they're unrealistic about how long things take good luck finding a designer, any designer worth their weight, that's going to be able to give them a meaningful and thoughtful design in a timeline. 

So any timeline that works and is is doable, so they need to respect your process and not come in telling you how the show is gonna go. So along those lines, I want to wrap up with this last one, which, in a way kind of summarizes everything we've talked about today. And this has to do with tone. So I want you to consider the tone of how people communicate with you. And if something feels off or abrasive, it is a very clear indication that you need to pause, you need to understand what's going on, to kind of understand the character behind this person and what's happening there in order to decide if it's going to be a good fit for you or not. And I've listed out a couple of home and I'm talking about tone of voice and how they talk to you how they communicate with you. And also in their, you know, physical behavior, their body language, right, you can get tone in a lot of different ways. And if you're keyed in and you're tuned into it, you can find red flags if they exist. So arrogance, right, arrogance is a deal breaker, this is the kind of a know it all attitude telling you versus asking you that's just a big one, and diminishing your expertise, ignoring your recommendations. So I just a quick example, had a client who wanted to do something in their home was taking wood floor all the way up to their fireplace. And I explained to them that they had to have a non combustible material within a certain, you know, range of the fireplace itself. And she downright dismissed me and, you know, just sort of laughed it off. And, and I wasn't, I wasn't gonna argue with her too much. But this was a consultation. And between that and a couple of other things, I realized that she had her mindset, in a lot of ways about a lot of things, and that it wasn't going to be a, it wasn't going to be a good relationship to get into. I mean, these, these projects take a long time, right. And they're, they're very intimate. So you want to make sure that you're dealing with somebody that you you really jive with. But yeah, ignoring your recommendations habitually is a red flag. Anybody that is Kurt, anybody that is demanding, that is inflexible or impatient, pushy, paranoid. So if they read your contract, and all of a sudden, they're, you know, they have this heightened level of paranoia around things going wrong. You know, you got to protect yourself and you don't you never know who you're engaging with. So that's there to protect both you and them. And it's in both of your interests, that, that you have that in place, that kind of paranoia or paranoia that you're not spending your time well, or that you're cheating them out of something or that you're whatever, but just paranoid people in general are big red flag clients, anybody that's flaky, you know, they got to be able to show up and engage with you. 

Absolute disrespect will not be tolerated. Pessimism. This is one that really grinds me, you know, pessimistic about the process or how things are going to work or, you know, whatever, that's just, it's a real, it's a real downer. They're perfectionist, right? There's no such thing as perfection. As much as I would love that. So, you know, if you're working with somebody that has perfectionist tendencies, you're gonna want to address that. Yes, we aim for excellence always. But excellence aiming for excellence and perfectionist, perfectionism is is are two very different things. Anybody that is an ethical, so if somebody is trying to for example, they want to get out of paying taxes, sales tax on their products, when they're buying them from you, is unethical. So you want to really address any unethical behavior. years or tones, very, very early, trying to think of some other examples of unethical behavior. But, you know, sort of lying to contractors or lying to people about anything related to the project, you know, those kinds of behaviors would be cause cause for pause. Oh, I just came up with a new phrase calls for pause. Yes. So when you see these red flags, it doesn't necessarily mean you have to run for the hills. It's just caused caused a pause, and you can get curious. Last one is unrealistic expectations. And I'm going to wrap up with a story here about some clients that I worked with. In the past. This is, you know, a scenario of really inflexible, and Curt clients who wanted a lot on an unrealistic budget and thought that I should be able to make that happen for them. Now, I had worked for these clients two times in the past. But both times, there was always some uneasiness. It always felt like I was walking on eggshells. But we had again, this is a scenario where we had some mutual we I wouldn't necessarily call us friends, but we had some mutual connections through our community. I'll leave it at that. But yet, when they came back for that third time, it was for primary bedroom, and I still said yes. In fact, this is kind of where we're getting back to personal responsibility. This is where I went wrong. And so I want to make sure to adjust that. I skipped a really important step in my process of working with them. Because I had worked for them in the past, I sort of knew their style and knew their home, I knew the space that they were talking about. I felt like I could skip the consultation. They told me they wanted a primary bedroom makeover, and they had $25,000 to spend, which sounded fine, right? So I went ahead, skip the consultation, I gave them the proposal and the contract paid, and then we got started.

It wasn't until that point that I realized what they after we were already in engagement with each other, I realized what all they were hoping to achieve with that money. And some of the things on their list were definite budget breakers, which included, you know, re carpeting not just their bedroom, but the entire first floor and the stairwell going down. And as well as an entire closet, renovation versus making over the existing space wanting to really demo it and reconstruct it with plaster walls, and so on and so forth on top of all of the furnishings. So there were some new things that came to light that had I done that initial consultation, I may have learned that. Needless to say, Here I was I said, we're going to do our best, right? I told them at the beginning this all of a sudden, this 25,000 Doesn't seem like enough money, knowing what you're after now, but I said, let's move forward. Let's get the quotes. Let's see where we are. And that's what we did. And I proceeded and I you know, I got the quotes for all of the labor the the carpeting, the closet renovation, all the wallpaper, replacing lighting, paint, etc. You name it, plus the furnishings, right. And when it came time for the presentation, the budget was over what they had set out. It wasn't tremendously over. But it was over a you know, I don't remember exactly. But it wasn't, in my opinion doing this as long as it wasn't a shocking amount over right. And this is where it goes from bad to worse. When I shared the breakdown of the costs for what they wanted. They were furious, I can totally understand being disappointed that something you want is outside of your budget. But the hostility that ensued, made any chance or opportunity for creativity, or problem solving go completely out the window. I tried to outline some other options that would be in their budget, but they refused to budge. And instead of being willing to come to the table and have a conversation about redefining priorities, or helping me allowing me to reselect some things that would help them save money. 

They outright refused, completely disengaged with me and wrote a scathing email attacking my character. You know, I want to say it wasn't without some responsibility on my own part. After all, I skipped a step in my process, but they refused any problem solving approaches. They demanded that I make a square peg fit in a round hole with no willingness to budge, either on their budget or on the scope of work. If on the other hand, they had been willing to come to the table and have a conversation even if they were feeling disappointed which I get it. I would have done absolutely everything in my power to revisit design options and to get them closer to their ideal budget right. We could have made something work Instead, I had to cut them off and say goodbye. And in the end it cause countless nights of unrest and turmoil fear that they were going to post indiscriminant comments about me in this Facebook group we were both in, not to mention, I had no work to show for it, it caused me and my team and my designers that had helped me on the project, a lot of anxiety and stress. And it took my attention from other projects. So I wrap up to tell you that story, because we're not immune to these things, even after doing them for years, and you get better. You know, in that case, I ignored the fact that there was already a tone, working with these clients, that was unsettling. And I chose to move forward anyway. And the end result was really no fun at all. And so I want you to avoid this at all costs. So here's the good news and the bad news. The bad news is that you haven't really arrived until you've experienced about a client consider it a rite of passage. 

But the good news is that it gets easier to spot red flags, and there are fewer and farther between, you get better at asking the right questions, you get better at uncovering potential hotspots. And most importantly, you get better at saying no, when something just is not going to work out, you know that it's not worth the pain, the frustration, the the risk to your business on the other side, if you proceed, after you've identified some real clear red flags. So I hope that helps you today. to spot them easier and to feel more confident when it comes to handling them. Whether that's having a frank conversation and putting the kibosh on sticky situations, or walking away when you know something's not going to work. And all of this, my friend, leaves room for those dreamy clients who trust you who trust the process. They're eager to work with you. They're flexible and honest. They share your name freely, and they can't wait to dream up the next project with you. So yes, to more of that. I hope this helps. I will see you guys real soon in the next episode. Bye for now. Thank you so much for letting me spend part of this day with you. If you're loving this podcast, please share it with a friend who you think might also love it. Or perhaps you can take just 30 seconds to open your podcast app and leave us a five star rating. And if you have just an extra minute, go ahead and leave a review. This helps me so much and it helps other designers like you to find the podcast. It also adds fuel to my motivation to keep making great episodes just for you. However you choose to help, please No, I appreciate you so very much. Thank you, my friend. Have a wonderful rest of your day and I'll see you next time