Stay Away From These Clients At All Cost
Early in my copywriting career I was doing what every beginner does. Cold outreaching. Getting ignored. Following up. Getting ignored again. Then one day, a reply. Not just a reply. An instant reply. He was interested. Wanted a meeting. I'd barely finished my pitch and he was already saying yes. My first ever paying client. We jumped on a call. I looked him up before, Instagram full of Porsches, 5-star hotels, luxury everything. The guy looked like he was printing money. We agreed on a 10% commission deal. I thought that was smart. Skin in the game. Real partnership energy. Then on that first call he said something that made my stomach flip in the best way possible. "Stick with me. We're going to be millionaires. I'll fly you out to come run businesses with me." I was 100% in. No hesitation. I started working. And I worked hard. Harder than I'd ever worked for a free client. Because this one was real. This one was going somewhere. Except. it wasn't. Slowly things started feeling off. Every week there was a new brand name. A new business idea. A new direction. Nothing ever stuck. Nothing ever got finished. The guy was basically running a circus and calling it a company. I started digging a little deeper and found out he wasn't even making $10k a month. Not even close to what his Instagram suggested. But I kept going. Because I'd already invested so much. Because I told myself it would turn around. Because I genuinely believed in the potential. I did work I had never done before in my life, figured it out on the fly, stayed up late, learned new tools, new skills, new processes. Things I never thought I'd ever touch. The total value of work I delivered? Somewhere between $2000 and $3000. What he paid me? $400. And then it just... faded. No proper ending. No real conversation. Just silence. I sat with that for a while. Here's what I should have seen coming, the red flags that were right in front of my face the whole time: → He agreed too fast. Good clients push back a little. They ask questions. They have standards. When someone jumps at your offer instantly it usually means they've burned through everyone else already.