I'm a freelance marketing professional, and I met with the sales manager of a truck dealership to discuss his interests in boosting sales & customer interest in their trucks.

Me: How are things going so far at the dealership?

Client: Not well. Sales have been down, and we’re financially struggling. I don't have time to do any marketing.

Me: That’s not good. I did some online research, and it looks like there are a lot of very negative reviews on Google and Facebook about the dealership. That’s likely hurting sales. Have you seen them?

Client: No, let me check.

I was a bit surprised by how unaware he was, as a large part of dealership sales are influenced by online reputation.

The client checked his iPhone and scrolled through Facebook.

Client: Wow, here’s a horrible review from two years ago. This is the first time I’ve heard of this!

Me: Take a look at them all. It’s helpful to respond to negative and positive reviews in a timely fashion if possible.

Client: Why would I need to do that?

I further discuss the details with him.

Me: Have you tried paid online advertising for your dealership?

Client: No, how does that work?

It seemed odd that they had done so little to market their dealership online.

The client followed up with me a week later and tells me they don't have the funds to put towards marketing.

I learned a year later that the dealership went bankrupt and was bought out by another company. I was not surprised.

I was at a meeting with a client and some of their employees. We were brainstorming ways to effectively manage some communications projects.

I didn’t want to overwhelm some of the less tech-savvy older individuals in the room.

Me: We could use Google sheets to coordinate tasks for now, and maybe use a more sophisticated project management system later.

Client: How do we use Google Sheets?

Me: It’s from Google, similar to Excel, but you can access it from your Gmail account. I can send you some instructions.

Client: I used to have a Gmail account, but my friend used my iPhone a year ago. So now whenever I try to see my e-mail I see hers instead.

One of the Client's employees: I don't know if I have a Gmail account either. I'll have to check. Do I just sign up for one?

This is going to be a slower process than I thought…

Client: I think there’s a virus in our YouTube video. We may have been hacked by our competitors.

Me: That would be weird. I haven’t heard of that one before. Let me see.

The client shows me the YouTube video with an ad.

Me: Oh, you mean the ad?

Client: Yes, how do we get rid of that? Maybe this will work.

The client proceeds to try to drag and drop the ad out of the video onto his Desktop to see if that would “remove” it.

I don’t even know where to start…

I am an experienced social media marketer, and I created a social media campaign for a financial client who needed help with communicating complex ideas in simple ways. I worked hard to make the posts as friendly, approachable, and easy to understand as possible. I wrote out my strategy and explained to them in detail my process.

My work had received compliments from the team, and I saw positive results online. They then told me that I had a new “contact” with the team. I noticed that she had never worked in social media marketing and was very new to the company. 

The new hire proceeded to re-write my posts that were scheduled for upcoming weeks and she criticized nearly every aspect of the posts in lengthy e-mails, from the imagery to the content. I even tried to explain to her why her edits didn't make much sense.

By that point, she was creating the posts (imagery and content), which weren’t in line with the overall strategy I had created, and she was complaining to me about it.

I quit and the clients' social media presence plummeted. 

My client purchased a domain and asked that I set up emails for her and her staff. 

Client: You created the wrong email addresses.

Me: Oh? I am looking at the email you sent. I created the emails with the exact handles you requested.

Client: I need the emails to be [client]@[ShortenedDomain.com], not [client]@[ReallyLongDomainNameThatSheOwns.com]

Me: I'm sorry, but that's not the domain that you purchased.

Client: This has nothing to do with my domain. My domain is correct. The emails are wrong. 

Me: You cannot make any email address you want. It doesn't work like that. You need to own the domain you are using for the email addresses. 

Client: (now enraged) WHY WOULD YOU EVEN AGREE TO CREATE EMAILS WITH SUCH A LONG DOMAIN? This is unacceptable... 

Me: ...

Client:  So you're a "concept artist." What is that exactly?  

Me: I do stuff like character designs. 

Client: What does that mean? 

Me: I design characters and environments. Like backgrounds and characters you see in animations? I design those. 

Client: So like what [friend] does? 

Me: No, he's a graphics designer, he does logos and websites and branding. I don't do that. If you want a logo, go to [friend]. 

Client: So what do you do then. 

Me: I'm a concept artist, I design characters and environments. Basically, if you are working on an animation or video game, I can help you. 

There's a moment of silence.

Client: So explain to me what you do again? 

At this point, I'm pretty sure he's waiting for me to say that I do logo design so he can hire me to do work for him and his dad's business. 

Me: If you don't know what I'm talking about when I say character design, then you're not the kind of client I'm looking for. 

Client: See, people like you are the reason why your industry is small. 

He's a radiologist and had no business knowing anything about the animation industry that I work in. 

Client: You just lost yourself a good client. 

Me: Well, you were never my client to begin with. 

Client: I hate gray. This gray is out of the question. 

Me: (thinking on my feet) ...Okay. How about this "pale black"?

Client: Perfect.

I have been working on an app for a client and it is almost done. So far it has been smooth sailing. The customer wanted some nice pictures of the app so that he can show it off to his employees. I loaded the app on some devices, took a couple of screenshots and sent them to the client. 

Client: Thank you for the images. The app looks nice but I would like to have the actual photos of how it looks on a phone.

Me: The images I send are exactly how the app looks on iOS and Android. 

Client: No they are not. I require SCREENSHOTS, not images. 

Me: These are screenshots. They were made while the app is opened on the phones.

Client: No, they are not screenshots. My iPhone has a home button and a camera on the front. I don't see those in your images. So please make some actual screenshots and send them to me.

So at this point, I realized that the client's definition of 'screenshot' is little different than what it actually means and that he wanted the actual physical shape of the phone around the screenshot. I didn't feel like arguing about it and just proceeded with the "screenshots" with the physical device around it.

Me: Here are your screenshots for Android and iOS. (Taken on iphone 10 and Samsung S8)

Client: I don't need iOS/android. iPhone and Samsung are popular right now and those are the screenshots I want. Can you convert them for me?

 Deep, heavy, long sigh...

I have been working with a client for a month or so now, doing illustrations for his website. I'm new to freelance with businesses, but doing my best. As additional work, the client wanted a standing roller banner for a conference. I designed it to the specs of an eBay listing, uploaded it to a Google Drive folder, and sent them the link.

Me: Here's the link to the finished banner, it's a huge file so just email the printers with the link and they'll be able to download it themselves.

Client: The instructions are that if the file is too big to send it via WeTransfer or something like that. If that is the case can you send us that file?

Me: The Google link is just as easy to send to the printers, the PDF file is too big to attach to an email. They can access the link and download it themselves.

Client: We are having trouble with the upload. Could you to send her the link to a WeTransfer file? Probably best to follow the printer's instructions, otherwise might hold everything up.

Me: I don’t know how else to explain. What is the email address for the printers, and the message you were trying to send? I will do it.

These emails were in quick succession late at night, and I'm still waiting for a response half an hour later.