Dear Dakota Series | How To Identify Red Flag Clients (vs. clients you just don’t want to work with)

Jul 1

Updated August 2022

This week we’re launching a new series on the blog and we’re doing it Dear Abby style, responding to reader questions we’ve received from potential clients, newsletter readers, blog readers, Instagram friends, and happy hour attendees. If you ever have a question, please email us so we can answer it (sometimes it will be directly to you, sometimes it will be such a good question we have to bring it to the blog).

Below are a few questions we received from interior designers that circle around the same topic: identifying red flag clients.

Now, I have a few clients who cringe at the term “red flag” because they think it’s overused and mostly due to potential clients being under-educated on the design process. I completely agree with this in some instances: just because you don’t want a project doesn’t mean it’s a red flag client.

However, after doing sales calls for over ten years, and then actually staying on and working with those clients, I can usually spot a red flag a mile away. Because I’m doing the sales call, I recognize red flags in prospects. And then when we or my clients ignore those red flags and bring the prospect on as a client, I’ve seen how those initial red flags were spot on because the client actually ended up being an absolute nightmare to work with.

Before reading my responses below, let me preface this by saying I don’t have much background information on the business owners who submitted these questions so you’ll want to take my response with a grain of salt.

01 | How do you know what clients are a good fit? Is it based on a personality match or demographics? Or both?

Assuming you’ve had your share of clients, you should be able to look back at your projects and see similarities among the clients and projects you loved. Once you do that, you can identify what it was you loved about that project. Was it their design style? Was it their quick decision-making style? Was it how respectful they were of your process and your boundaries? Was it their relaxed nature? Was it their involvement in the project? Was it the project type (new build, renovation, furnishing only, etc.)? Was it their neighborhood? Was it their willingness to take risks and go all in? Was it their flexible budget? I would bet you could find this data right within reach.

In my opinion, each business absolutely has a target market, and knowing who this is will help you to get crystal clear on your marketing and how to best structure your services so they serve your ideal client well.

Yes, there will be some personality traits that will make for a “good fit” client (like trusting, respectful, confident in making decisions, patient, understanding, and flexible) and there are also demographics that will make them a good fit (like are they in your ideal area, do they have the budget to work with you, does their lifestyle align with the type of spaces you design and the furniture you like to source and how you have structured your design process, are they empty nesters or do they have a house jammed with little ones).

So to answer this question, yes, it’s a combination of both, and the true answer comes from continuing to serve clients and reflecting back on those projects to identify what made that project so great, or conversely, what made it so bad you are still cringing because of it.

And to take it one step further, I find that most of our designers describe their ideal clients as someone who trusts the process and the designer’s vision, someone who is prepared for their project and makes decisions quickly, and someone who views the design process as fun. They also describe them as people who want their forever home, who are overwhelmed with the process of doing it on their own, want something like no one else’s, have the appropriate budget and timeline, are working with a qualified team, and have a style that aligns with the designer’s style.

02 | How do I manage potential clients who pick my brain for resources?

Ohhhh this question. You know I love it and will probably make a reel about it. As a business owner, we have all received this email or had this comment on a call. “I just wanted to pick your brain about something…”. Ummm, you can pick my brain after you pick your payment method. Bleh!

I’m assuming this is happening to you on the discovery call and there are a few ways to proactively nip this in the bud.

Send them your investment guide before they can book a call so they have all the information they need to move forward with working together.
In the Discovery Call confirmation and reminder, be sure to let them know it’s a XX-minute call and you’ll review their project details and talk to them about how you can help them.
When you start the Discovery Call, give a brief introduction to how the call is structured. Example (and this is NOT how I would say it verbatim, just giving you an idea): Thank you so much for booking a call to learn more about working together. We’ll start the call off by reviewing the details you shared about your project, then I’ll share about our services and what I think would be the best fit for you. After that, I’ll answer any questions you have about our process. This call should take about 20 minutes so let’s jump right in.

If being clear about the call and how it’s structured isn’t effective at getting the point across that your complimentary discovery call isn’t an actual design meeting–and if this is happening a lot–you could add a line of language to all discovery call related emails/material. “While we won’t be answering any specific design questions, we will be using this time to learn all about your project so we can make our recommendation for next steps.”

On the call, when this happens, (and it’s happened to me actually recently and I was like, wait, is this really happening–more on that in another post–truly a major red flag client and it made my heart race), here are some example responses you might use. I also find that being FUN with them helps to soften the blow so you could add in some fun as well:

“That’s a great question and absolutely something I could help you with if we decide to work together/if you book a consultation/if you want to schedule an in-home appointment.” (however you structure your services)

“We have plenty of [builders/painters/carpenters] we work with and we could absolutely make a recommendation if we decide to work together.”

“That’s a great question and something that is really difficult to answer without having gone through our client process because there are so many variables that impact how we make that decision.”

“That’s exactly what we do with our clients. Does this mean I should send over details for working together?!”

And another tip, if you have a team member who is a non-designer who can take your sales calls: HAVE THEM TAKE THEM. It is rare that a potential client will try to “pick the brain” of an office manager/business manager/design assistant.

03 | I would love if you could talk through various red flags I should notice with clients (certain things they say during inquiry, etc.).

I have a whole series of reels on Instagram about red flag clients (check them out here) and have a ton of signs I can spot from a mile away. When I say red flags, I don’t mean “Their project is outside of our travel area”, or “Their budget is smaller than what we work with”, or “Their style is so different from ours.”

I mean things they say or do that indicate they will have a difficult time following your process and benefiting from your services.

Here are some top red flags:

They dangle the carrot of a bigger project down the road. Or they name-drop. Eww.
They want you to do things outside of your normal process (can’t we just do a meeting now, can’t we come with you to all the showrooms, can’t you present one thing at a time, why do we have to do a consultation, etc.). YOU ARE THE EXPERT AND YOU KNOW WHAT IT TAKES TO GET THEM FROM “LIVE LAUGH LOVE” TO A COHESIVE, SOPHISTICATED, AND GORGEOUS SPACE.
They tell you they’ve worked with a lot of designers and the designers were all wrong/bad/inexperienced/expensive.
They have difficulty communicating using the communication platforms you and your team use. For example, if you use email during the inquiry process, and they keep texting you or sending you DM’s or insisting on 1:1 meetings, that’s an issue.
They use words like “I just need a [insert something huge that they think is small] so it’s not a big project”. Already, they are coming out of the gate undervaluing your services which will absolutely lead to price negotiations and issues with your timeline.
They tell you, “Oh, we don’t have a budget. We really want to get this right.” Okay, so if we source $1,000,000 on your first-floor furniture, that’s okay? GRRRRRRRRR.
Everything is a rush…but then they go radio silent.
They threaten to sue you or CC: their lawyer on the email to you (okay this one is likely NOT going to happen at the inquiry phase, but if it does then absolutely run…this has however happened during the delivery phase and that was a fun experience.)
They send you emails and messages non-stop. Just think about how they’ll behave when they have paid you and think they own you.
They have done ZERO research before getting on the phone with you. Didn’t review your service guide. Didn’t read your website. Wants to pick your brain (see question #2). Is busy unpacking groceries while on the phone with you. Has no idea what your services or pricing are. You get the idea. How you do ANYTHING is how you do EVERYTHING.

That wraps up our first post in the series. If you have any questions you’d like answered, be sure to email us so we can include them in our next “Dear Dakota” post. Be sure to add your name to our email list where I share the nitty-gritty of what we’re seeing in the industry for designers and event planners. It’s been called “the best resource in the industry”. Woo hoo!