1. Be overly explanatory about your design process.

Tell clients every step of the design process, the reasoning behind it, and the schedule of it. Heck, even tell it to potential clients that you haven't signed contracts with yet.

It might even be a good idea have a checklist that documents the various stages of the process, what has been completed and what is to come, that is presented to the client.

2. Be extremely clear about your terms of compensation and copyright.

Your contract can never be too detailed. If at all possible enlist an intellectual property lawyer to assist you with drafting your client agreement. At the very least, mine all your savvy colleagues for their contracts and copy them.

Even then you will still get those naughty clients. But you will have fewer.

3. Be diligent about not starting work until you have received both a signed contract agreement AND a deposit and communicate this clearly to potential clients.

Both of these things are clues as to how serious your client takes the project and your professional expertise. I know from the school of hard knocks that even those wonderfully friendly and enthusiastic acquaintances or even *gasp* friends can be not so great at paying. Sometimes at all.

4. Set very clear boundaries for how you will be able to respond to additional requests/needs from your clients.

Learning from experience: having an “open door policy” is very appealing to clients, but it can begin to stretch you and your studio very thin in the course of a busy week. Be clear about when you can address each client’s particular request or when you can get back in touch with them. They understand what it’s like to be busy and they appreciate honesty more than mysteriously missed delivery dates.

5. On the flip side: respond to messages as quickly as possible.

All my clients can tell you that I am not very good at this. It makes them feel unimportant, ignored, or worse — disliked. This is a sure way to make any client feel like a small and unimportant customer.

As designers we know that the creative process is a tad mysterious and great ideas don’t always appear, even when we are working very hard to make them appear. This leads to a tendency to procrastinate or stretch delivery dates AND that spills over into returning messages.

Be responsive — even if it’s to admit a delay delivery or a mistake on your part. Think of it like ripping off a band aid — quick and painful, but done with.

6. Have trusted friends and colleagues give feedback on your business decisions BEFORE you execute them.

You will be surprised at how much wisdom a different perspective can bring, and you may save yourself from unnecessary embarrassment or blunders. And this advice is even better from older more seasoned practitioners…

7. Constantly seek information from your clients, then report back to them (ideally in a documented form) what they said for their approval or correction.

As I look at all our ongoing relationships with business partners, I keep seeing that constant, continued clarification is never a bad idea.

8. The same as above applies to your collaborators, freelancers, and employees too.

9. Learn how to explain what you do as a designer and why it matters in a clear and concise manner.

It will get you more work. It will get you good work.