My mentor told me I was being too nice to clients and it hurt my bottom line

I was giving away free revisions and extra calls to keep people happy, but last quarter I lost $3,200 in billable time doing that. He told me to set firm boundaries and charge for extras upfront, and I saw a 40% boost in revenue within 2 months. Has anyone else had to get tough with their clients and seen it backfire or work out?

3 comments

3 Comments

phoenix_grant341mo ago

Honestly, isn't that the same pattern we see everywhere now? People think being nice means giving away everything for free, and then they get burned. Tbh it's like how some friends only hit you up when they need a favor, and you finally realize you gotta say no or you'll be broke and exhausted. Ngl that $3,200 loss is a tough lesson but it sounds like your mentor did you a solid by calling it out. Setting boundaries upfront just weeds out the people who were never gonna respect your time anyway.

annaw7329d ago

Oh man, that is such a brutal lesson to learn.

tara_patel1mo ago

Friend of mine runs a small graphic design business. She had a client who kept asking for "just one more tiny tweak" on a logo package she already finished. She did it for free because she felt bad saying no. That went on for 4 months, she ended up redoing the same logo 7 times and never got paid extra for any of it. The guy finally ghosted her and used the last version she sent. She lost about $800 in time on that one job alone. Now she puts it in the contract that any changes after the second round cost money, and it cut down the nitpickers by a lot.