I celebrate each and every one of my new (and existing) clients - but here’s what I learned from the ones I stopped working with
Hi there,
when I last visited my parents I found a business card in my old things. It was the first one of my former colleague from the (tree) nursery we both did our apprenticeship as gardeners at. That nursery was always struggling - they never had enough money and were always just one step away from being bankrupt.
For me this experience confirmed my self-belief that I wouldn’t want to be self-employed or have my own business ever. My colleague obviously didn’t have those qualms at all - right after getting his certificate he started his own business - which by the way is doing great (naturally I checked up on him and his business when finding that old business card).
Over the years I noticed I had problems with the same stuff again and again - no matter where I worked. I wanted to stay true to my values and that didn’t fit with the “vision” my bosses had of how their employees were supposed to work.
After the interview for my last job, I drove home and said to myself: “I don’t want to work for that man“ (the boss) which turned to “I don’t work for anyone“ after two thirds of the way. I should have taken this thought seriously but my head won and I worked there for over five years.
Now I’ve been self-employed for almost 3 years and I regret nothing. It’s not always easy and I could do with more work but I enjoy it immensely. The most important things are: 1. I can live and work according to my natural rhythm (I won’t start work before 9 AM but can happily work at 9 PM) and 2. I can do things my way and according to my values.
This is very important for all of us, being true to ourselves and our values, especially in our businesses.
I value every one of you who works with me and I want you to be aware of this. This is why I communicate with you the way I do: You’ll always get a reply to all communication and I try to answer your questions and help in any way I can. I don’t do this for money - I do this because this is important to me. I see you and me as a team, we work together on your designs to make them the best they can be, so you can feel confident and proud.
Although I could do with more work, i.e. more clients, I stopped working with three existing clients and the cases were quite different from each other. They illustrate different values I want to keep true to.
Obviously as a designer, you don’t work as a team with your customers but I think the following examples can help you too - not just in working with me or some other service provider but generally with how you can be authentic in your business - and people will recognise that and value you for it.
Not respecting my boundaries: One of my clients couldn’t respect my boundaries and expected me to do things I didn’t want to do, e.g. knitting their patterns to help with their self-esteem. And one situation showed that they didn’t trust my words. So I told them what my work includes and what my work doesn’t include. I was prepared to talk about the situation but they decided to stop working with me after gaslighting me about what happened. It wasn’t easy but I was relieved too. My boundaries are my boundaries for a reason.
I talked more about boundaries in this newsletter: https://urbanyarning.com/newsletter-archive/personal-boundaries
Terms of working together didn’t fit: In this case I decided to stop working with this particular client (a publisher). They complained about the quality of my work (indirectly in an email to all people involved in a rather big project) and held me responsible for not making sure the patterns adhered to a style guide which I never had. Jobs for them were always to be done preferable two days before the job came in, but patterns never arrived on time (sometimes not even in time for the deadline by which I should have sent them back) and they are slow to pay my invoices. Not optimal conditions to work together, so I decided to end this collaboration.
The slinking away client: They never said they don’t want to work with me anymore. They never said anything, except that they loved working with me and liked my work. We worked on a few projects over the years - but now I noticed them publishing several new patterns (independently, not in a magazine or book which is something totally different) which I never saw. And they talked about “their” tech editor (which wasn’t me) as an aside in a social media post about something else.
It’s totally okay to decide to work with somebody else! But please, if you decide so, let me know directly! I won’t be angry or mean to you.
Communication is so important!
Just this week I got some information from a designer I’ve worked with for a while now. It reminded me to do things I do anyway in a way which was insulting. I could see where they came from and how this came to pass and I know they are very happy with my work and it wasn’t meant to be insulting. But because I didn’t feel good with this, I let them know, we talked about this and everything is well again. It took us two not especially long emails to do so.
Because this means I lose potential jobs and therefore money, these decisions (if they were mine to make), were not easy to make.
But I want to be true to myself and authentic in my business and so I was able to make those decisions and that makes me very happy!
Talk soon,
Frauke
P.S.: There was one time in my last job when I was asked to apologised to an applicant who was very angry with my boss and sent me an email to give to them. The applicant mentioned in that email that they knew it wasn’t my fault. But my boss forced me to apologise in my name. After I did, the applicant called me and asked why *I* apologised, he had explicitly said he knew it wasn’t my fault and expected an apology from my boss. - I was made to feel like a small child by my boss. Things like that can’t happen to me anymore. I have a lot more responsibility now but I can handle things my way which is a very good feeling.