For Fractional Content Leads, Consultants & Senior Freelancers
Should You Take This Client?
They vet you. You should vet them. The other side of the discovery call.
A bad client costs more than a bad hire. When a company hires the wrong content lead, they lose a quarter. When you take the wrong client, you lose your margins, your standards, and sometimes your appetite for the work.
Run your next prospect through this before you sign. Check what you observed in the discovery call, the emails, and the contract draft. The score updates as you go.
Green Flags
Check what you observedSignals of a client who will respect the work, pay for thinking, and let you do the job they hired you for.
Red Flags
Be honest with yourselfOne of these is a conversation. Three is a pattern. You already know how the pattern ends.
The 5-Minute Gut Check
No checkboxes here. Three questions to sit with before you send the proposal.
01Would this client act on my recommendations, or collect them?
Some companies hire senior people as decoration. The work gets praised in the meeting and ignored in the roadmap.
02If I delivered a hard truth in week two, would the relationship survive it?
You will have to say "this isn't working" at some point. If you can't picture saying it to this person, that's your answer.
03Six months from now, would I show this work to a future client?
Work you're embarrassed by compounds. So does work you're proud of. Pick which one fills your portfolio.
Start checking boxes.
Your read on this client will appear here as you go.
Green flags: 0
Red flags: 0