The time a client asked me to stop 'making things look pretty' and just get the job done

I was doing a landscaping job for this guy outside Austin, and I spent like an hour carefully edging his walkway with a half-moon edger instead of just using the string trimmer. He came out and said 'look, I pay you for function, not art' and it honestly stung at first. But I realized he was right for his situation, his yard was just about keeping weeds down and drainage working, not looking like a magazine. Made me rethink how I approach every job now, asking what people actually want vs what I assume looks good. Has anyone else had a client change how you work with just one blunt comment?

3 comments

3 Comments

hayden_butler2728d ago

Man that stings in the moment but honestly its kind of a gift when someone just tells you straight up like that. Ive had a few clients give me that kind of blunt honesty and it really does make you step back and rethink things.

felix82428d ago

Yeah, totally. I've had someone straight up tell me my work was "not their style" once. No sugarcoating. Stung for a bit but honestly it helped me realize I was trying too hard to please everyone. Better to know where you stand early on than waste time guessing.

patb1212d ago

Oh man, I had a friend who was doing freelance logo work and a client straight up told him "this looks like clip art from 2004." Brutal, right? But he realized they had a point about him relying on the same old shapes and fonts. He ended up redoing the whole thing from scratch and it turned out way better, and that client actually came back for more work later. Sometimes you just need someone to call it like it is.