What Makes a Good Client?

In class yesterday, Professor Owens asked the class what makes a good client. There was some thoughtful discussion about the answer to that question in class, but I thought it was an important enough discussion to introduce on the Blogspot as well.

When I took this course in the spring of 2007, I was surprised to see what a big difference students’ choices about a client made in both the overall experience they had in the course and the final projects they produced. For the most part, the teams who chose good clients had good experiences in the class and produced the best final projects. The teams who chose cheesy clients (and trust me, there were definitely a few of those) struggled to fulfill the course requirements and had pretty cheesy final projects. There were some exceptions, but that was the general trend that I saw.

The structure of this class requires that you spend a lot of time thinking about, talking about, and interacting with your clients. Your time is valuable, but you can’t charge your clients for your services. Therefore, I think it’s important to think about how you stand to benefit from the services you are providing to your client for free. In my opinion, the best clients fall into one of these three categories:

1) They have the potential to have a positive impact on your career.
2) They give you a legitimate excuse to indulge one of your favorite hobbies, passions, or interests.
3) They give you the opportunity to have a positive impact on the Nashville community or another community in which you hope to build strong connections.

Pick a good client. It will make a bigger difference than you might think.