The longer you stay in the freelancing trade, the more you will encounter a particular type of client, one of the ‘difficult’ variety. They are essentially the same as normal clients, although they aren’t afraid to make their opinions heard.

Everyone has their own opinion on matters, and it’s not uncommon for freelancers or entrepreneurs to disagree with the clients, making agreement somewhat hard to attain. So how do you deal with this? How do you deal with difficult clients?

(Image Source: Fotolia)

Well, a client is difficult only if and when you fail to live up to his or her expectations. At times, beginning the project by expecting the client to be difficult, will lead to that becoming true. It is therefore, important to understand the degree of expectation a client has from a project or a product and lo and behold, you will find that even the trickiest clients are actually easy to deal with. Here are some other pointers to make life with your clients easier to bear with.

1. Show Clients You Know what You are Doing

For any client who is passionate about a project or who takes his or her work seriously, they are bound to be anxious about every little aspect with regards to the project. How will you deliver this, when is the next sample going to be out, I want this and this and this to be modified that way, can it be done?

The string of questions are endless and even from the get-go some freelancers won’t be able to take this constant badgering because if you want to be honest, I’m here to deliver the project, not to lecture you into understanding how I do it.

(Image Source: smashingmagazine)

But you know what? That’s the precise remedy to the client who constantly breathes down your neck.

I had a client for whom I have worked with for more than a year. At the start of a new project, he began acting strange, out of the ordinary, speaking as if he was unsure of whether I could tackle the task ahead. He started asking questions and with the newfound pressure he was exerting me, I realized that he was starting to turn into a "difficult client". Now, we can’t have that now can we? I thought about it and realized that it was probably the difficulty of the project that made my client act in such a manner. I met up with him and briefed him about my plans on how to tackle the project and wouldn’t you know it, he got the idea and left me be to settle the project.

2. Don’t be Complacent with Work

Another reason why clients can be difficult is due to them not knowing who you are or how you work. The only thing they can fall back on to put their faith in your services is to look at your past achievements or in some cases the first impression you give them at the initial stages of the project.

But here’s where it can go horribly wrong. You can never be complacent because if you do, the client will surely notice and he or she will surely point out your mistakes, why you haven’t been improving or some other similar taunts characteristic of a difficult client.

Well, in this case, it’s not the client’s fault. It’s yours, it’s mine, it’s the person who is providing the service who is at fault. And if you really do not like difficult clients, then do not give them the reason to turn into one! Don’t take things for granted, like taking their silence as nods of approval. They are always judging, always testing, always considering if your level of professionalism is up to the mark and before they assess your quality of work, you better put in some measures to ensure that you had not compromised your work in the first place.

3. Keep Clients Informed

One of our biggest source of sighs come from client complaints. And one of the sources for their complaints come from them becoming aware of what was formerly ‘hidden’ facts. For instance, if they had not been told about certain drawbacks, additional costs involved or requirements needed for a project to go smoothly, they’re more than likely to be upset. And an upset client will indubitably become difficult.

If it is a ‘possible’ scenario, don’t put the word ‘guarantee’ in place. Make all your pay rates clear from the start of a project and not near the end to prevent the client from feeling like you are overcharging them because they were not aware that you charge for revisions.

Entrepreneurs should be especially wary of their use of words, particularly when they write disclaimers for a product. They should make it a point to explain their products and services ahead (where necessary) to prevent misunderstanding or discontent that could arise from it. Never make your client feel like you are with-holding information.

4. Offer prompt solutions

Every difficult client is most likely like that because they are pushing for a solution. Whenever operations hit a snag, the first thing clients look for are the people behind the problem, because they expect the solution to come from the same place. So in fact, they are looking for solutions, a way out, the way to minimize the damage caused or to provide the best alternative for when the original solution could not be used.

(Image Source: Fotolia)

Offer your clients prompt solutions to get the problem fixed. Arrange for the right actions to be taken, rather than wait until the chaos catches up with you. The sooner you can do this, the less likely you have to deal with a difficult client.

5. Be Mega Patient with them

So far, the idea is to not give your clients the chance to become difficult to deal with. But as far as preventive measures go, sometimes some people are just difficult to deal with. Period. It’s not their fault, but it is very tiring to work with clients who just go on and on about how this is not satisfactory, how that has to be done a certain way, or how every little thing is just "not quite right" or "not there yet".

(Image Source: Fotolia)

Where possible, take their criticism in stride and never try to tell them that they are wrong because it doesn’t help the situation. If it is in their habit to find mistakes in every little thing you do, take note of their preferences and try to mold your results to suit what they like. And if all else fails, just steel yourself against their words and get it over with. Be the bigger person and at the end of the project, just pack up and run!

Conclusion

No matter how good you believe you are with your clients, there will always be some ready to cramp you with complaints, and haplessly push you towards the edge. Always bowing down to your clients may not be a great idea, and sometimes the only way to handle them is to stand up to them to convince them of the credibility of your work and opinions. Who knows, that may actually be the key to winning a stand-off with a difficult client?

Have horror stories to share? Tell us what happened and how you dealt with them.

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Weddings are wonderful gatherings of friends and family of the bride and groom to toast to the happy union of the two lovebirds. One of the highlights of the newlyweds’ event is the telling of the story of their love either in a mini-movie (a.k. video of the proposal) or the more common choice, a wedding photo slideshow of the bride and the groom before they meet, how they fell in love and while they were in their wedding attire.

While there are many fancy schmancy photography studios out there who could conjure up these slideshows for your wedding, you can be sure that they use the same formula for all of their clients.

But if you want to inject your personal style into possibly one of the biggest events of your life, maybe you should take this into your own hands. The flowers, the reception, the hors d’oeuvres aside, this is something that you can take full control of with your partner and which is all about just the two of you. If you’re up to it, here are a few tools we think you would love to try out, to tell the world about your fairy-tale love story.

Read Also: 30 Video Editing Software And Online Tools

Kizoa

Kizoa is a free full-featured web application that helps you create your slideshow online. With Kizoa, you can upload photos from your computer or import directly from Facebook to save your time.

There are loads of transitions, animations and effects to choose from, and you can also add background music from their selection or upload from your own collection. After completing your slide, you can save it and send to your email, post in on Facebook or burn it into a DVD to keep. [Free]

Wedding Album Maker Gold

Wedding Album Maker Gold is a premium application to create your wedding slideshows. With over 260 transition effects, it allows you to directly burn your slideshows to DVD which you can then open with any DVD player. [USD49.95]

Smilebox

Smilebox is a simple application for your Mac and PC, and being a computer app, importing photo collections from your hard drive is easier and faster. [Free]

Wedding Slideshow Studio

Wedding Slideshow Studio is a software for your PC and it has options to save your slideshows in FLV, HD video and many other output formats for your convenience without having to convert your end result. [USD49.95]

Animoto

Animoto is a simple yet impressive web app that allows you to create a movie slideshow from your photos and video collection using preset templates. When completed, you have options to share the movie directly to Youtube, embed it on websites or download it in low, high and HD quality, or simply order for DVD delivery. Animoto also available as a mobile app. [Pricing]

muvee Reveal X

Muvee Reveal X is a stand-alone video editing software for the computer. With all transition effects and other features ready, you can complete a movie slideshow locally without an Internet connection and burn it directly into a DVD. [USD59.95]

Bolide® Slideshow Creator

Bolide Slideshow Creator is also a software for the PC. With this, you have the option to save your video in MKV, AVI or WMV format. [Free]

DVD slideshow GUI

DVD Slideshow GUI is a software for your Windows PC and it allows you to include videos and Power Point in your slideshow project. You can also save the output in many types of video format. [Free]

Visual JavaScript SlideShow

This is a simple and easy-to-use app for your Mac and PC, with a drag-and-drop feature. The output is presented in flash-like presentation using Javascript, HTML and CSS. [Free]

Foto2Avi

Foto2Avi is a freeware that converts your photo and video collections to AVI and other video formats. This easy-to-use freeware is available for your Windows PC. [Free]

Photo SlideShow Maker

Photo SlideShow Maker is another alternative to create your own slideshow and it allows you to save a slideshow in a stand-alone executable format (.exe). This is a simple application that runs on your Windows PC. [Free]

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Ebooks allow us to organize our collections of reading materials, and making it easier than ever to distribute to friends and readers with similar interests. There are some of us who like to curate contents from several sites down to one source that we can access even without an Internet connection. However, there are limited options for converting reading materials to an ebook format, especially from websites and blogs.

The standard way is by spending time to copy and paste content to MS Word, or Pages on Mac, where you can save the file as PDF, or in the standard ePub format. This is quite a hassle considering the time needed to complete the process, and that is why we’d suggest you try the alternative: a web application called Readlist.

Recommended Reading: E-Book Readers & Managers – Best Of

Creating Ebook with Readlist

Now to start converting web articles into ebook format, go to the Readlist official site and click on the button Make a Readlist at the top right corner of the page.

You will be redirected to the content curation page. What you need to do here is to copy the link to the article and paste it in the curation page. Click Add. Readlist will crawl over the contents like the author, title and the website and the content.

After completing your curation process, look at the left sidebar and add a name to your list, a description and then select the option to send it directly to your Kindle, iPhone/iPad or Readmill. You can also email the list or directly download the ebook in ePub format. There is no registration required.

If you select to send the ebook to your iPhone or iPad, click on the Send to iPhone/iPad option, fill up your email address and click the Send button. Then open your email from your iOS devices to download the ebook, it’s that easy!

In my case, I prefer to download the ebook directly to my Mac, and open it with my Nook for Mac ebook application.This is what I get.

And this is what the contents of the ebook looks like.

Conclusion

It’s so easy to produce an ebook now even if you aren’t a publisher. When your ebook is completed, you can download it for personal safekeeping, or share it with your friends and folks who share the same interests with you. If they like to read what you curate, you may even get subscribers to your curation list. By the way, check out this link to find out how you can read an ePub ebook directly from your browser. So start curating!

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