Coming to the end of our topic about good client relations I wanted to do a quick summary of some of the positive and negative attributes of both bigger and smaller clients.

Bigger Impact

One of the main positives about working with those smaller clients and my personal favourite thing, is that you can have a much bigger impact on their business. There’s nothing better then being able to add value to a business, it quickly builds relationships and leads to repeat work.

Quicker Decisions

Another plus about smaller businesses is that there are less people and usually that means you get clearer line of communication. Quite often you’ll be dealing with the MD or owner. This enables fast communication…which also means you should get paid quicker, too.

Bigger Decisions

Talking of money, one of the downsides of smaller clients is that money is more precious for them. As such although decision ‘in-project’ might be quicker, actually getting them to commit can be harder. Smaller clients will want value for their money and counter-intuitively will often have higher expectations that your higher paying clients.

More Loyalty

Smaller clients will value that care and attention that they wouldn’t get from say a big agency. That also makes them less likely to shop around as opposed to a big company where you may be one of a number of suppliers.

Fragile

The main downside with any smaller client is that by their very nature they are more fragile and therefore more affected by outside sources. So if a client pays them late, you might get paid late too.

Outgrow

On your journey in business, if you’re doing all the right things you will often start to outgrow smaller clients. It simply won’t be sensible to give them your time when you could be earning more elsewhere, but don’t overlook them completely. I think having a good mix of clients will ensure long term growth. You do have to remember though, you aren’t in business to do favours.