How To Deal With Clients: Paranoid

You will loose many clients when bidding on projects as a freelance developer. For all the clients requesting “good communication” as a primary concern, they’re often not that good at it themselves. It’s not always your fault though, even when they try and make you think it is. My advice, is to not get discouraged and self doubt yourself. But also, don’t invest the time in giving them a piece of your mind. They probably won’t read it, just move on.

Technophobe clients will put your communication skills to the test. - Jeff Knooren

The lesson you should take away from that experience, is to decide if the next client is worth working for. It’s hard to turn away paying work. But it’s also not worth being treated with a little common courtesy. Something, that is unfortunately all to common on the internet. So, here are some behaviors to look for, and look out for when dealing with your next job.

Paranoid

This person has a background in the legal profession somehow, because they love Non- Disclosure Agreements. You wind up trying to straighten our points of terms and definitions, rather than doing your job.

The Good News:
Nothing will be overlooked. If you’re the kind of person who appreciates the details and covering all the bases, it might not be problematic to work with this person. As long as you don’t breach any part the contract, you should get paid.
They might also represent some government agency, and the pay scale is usually much higher than anything else out there.

The Bad News:
Often within the contracts are a whole list of grounds for the client dismissing you without payment. Grounds might be that you miss a deadline for whatever reason (even if the paranoid client is at fault). Also, a personalized legal agreement is very expensive if you need to retain the services of a lawyer to review their contract.

They are always on the lookout for evidence that they are being ripped off or overcharged. This requires additional administrative duties on your part to document IN WRITING every detail and minute of time being spent.

What to do:
It depends on how big the job really is. They often want specific details about mundane tasks, or want to follow up on irrelevant details. Such as, wanting wedding photos scanned in, and asking for previous experience with scanning, or previous job references. It might not be worth the effort.

Most companies have legal agreements because they want to protect themselves or sensitive projects, but the paranoid client gets paid to be protected, so you should quote more to cover your documentation costs.