Measuring Success With Clients

There are two ways to measure success with clients:
1. How successful they become due to the work you've done.
2. How happy they are with the work you've done.

If you are editing documents, creating new ones, or doing anything creative for somebody else, how do you judge your success? I ask this question because of "clients from hell". These are the people who hire you for your skills and know-how, and then bully and berate you into making a product which they think is great. Clients from hell are those people who not only have terrible taste and ideas, but also think their terrible ideas are brilliant. (And for that matter, the website of the same name is a repository of these stories from the graphic design industry.)

Consider this situation for a moment. You are a writer, and you get hired to create a document, let's say a number of brochures for advertising a company. Any sane person would think that their job is to increase numbers, whether it be foot traffic, selling goods and services, or any other metric. As such, your goal is to create the most attractive and compelling brochures possible. But before you even turn in your first draft, some executive gets in contact with you and starts telling you everything they want in and on the brochure. Suddenly, it becomes a muddy, disorganized piece of trash that looks like it was made by a high school freshman.

So, what do you do here? Do you put your foot down and tell your client that their ideas are terrible and if they want them done, they can do it themselves? Or do you tell them nothing and do what they are paying you to do? Well, to answer the question, you first have to figure out what you are really trying to do here.

If you are embarrassed by the quality of the work they want you to make, then it is because you care more about your craft than your clients. If you simply do what you are told, then it is because you want your clients to be happy.

Both are potentially valid. I tend to lean more toward the first measurement, since I hate feeling embarrassed by having my name attached to work I am not proud of. But by the same token, I could very much enjoy having my clients be professional references that give me glowing recommendations for being a treat to work with.

On one hand, I could think my clients are idiots with awful taste (and considering I'm the experienced professional, I'm probably right), but on the other hand, they could simply have a different taste or a vision that I just can't see, and I could be the idiot for not seeing it. (Of course, read some of the stories from Clients From Hell and you probably would find this idea less than likely.)

Still, if you are working for somebody else, be able to say which measure it is that you use, and understand how it will affect your interactions in the business wold.