Setting better boundaries won’t get you better clients

You don’t need an ironclad contract — you need to bring different energy into the relationship.

View from inside the bottle

Ever since I first started working at age 16, nearly every job I’ve held has been in customer service roles. I worked in an ice cream shop, as a server, a barista, and selling running shoes. People talk about how hard customer service is, but honestly, it’s always come easily to me. I just never saw the customer as a barrier to overcome — I really believe that 99% of people are nice, even on their worst days.

One of my favorite jobs was working at the front desk of a community center. It was easy work — I would greet people as they walked in and sometimes make small talk with members I recognized. Periodically, I would sign someone up for a new membership, but I spent most of my time either reading my book or talking to people.

The community center had a pool where members could swim laps, and the few lanes they had open were always in high demand. One Sunday, a man came upstairs, and he was visibly angry about something that happened while he was swimming laps. His face was all red, he was visibly shaking, and he started going off about how mismanaged the pool was.

I could’ve gotten defensive, and honestly, probably would’ve been justified in doing so. After all, he didn’t have to take his anger out on me, an $8 per hour employee who had absolutely no say in how the pool was run. But for some reason, I stopped and really listened to what he was saying.

He told me that he’d had various issues with the pool for months and recently had gone to talk to the general manager about it. He told her about the problems he’d encountered, and her response was basically, “Well, then go get a membership somewhere else.” But he didn’t want to go somewhere else — he wanted her to solve the problem.

When he was finished, I apologized and told him I would talk to my boss about what he told me. And when he left, he was a different person. He wasn’t angry anymore, thanked me for listening, and apologized for overreacting.

That interaction really changed the way I thought about customer service and how to interact with people. Because I realized his issue wasn’t really about the pool — it was because he could sense that the general manager didn’t want to help him. The energy he felt from her was, “How can I make this person go away?” The moment someone reacted to him differently, everything shifted.

What kind of energy are you bringing into your client relationships?

All those customer service jobs prepared me for freelancing, which is really just a customer service job in disguise. You may not think of it that way, but it is. Yes, you’re writing or delivering some kind of skill, but often, what clients are responding to is how it feels to work with you. And this is where I think some freelancers get it wrong.

I’ve noticed that a lot of freelancers are obsessed with setting boundaries with their clients. They spend a lot of time thinking about contracts, scope creep, or how quickly they should respond to emails. On some level, they’re trying to “train” clients on how to behave.

And to be clear, I’m not telling you not to have a contract or not to take steps to protect yourself. But underneath all of that is this assumption that clients are problems waiting to happen. And when you operate from that belief, it creeps into everything you do.

I see this all the time in how freelancers market themselves on LinkedIn. They post content that subtly (or not so subtly) lectures clients about all the things they don’t understand about working with freelancers. About why freelancers charge the rates they do, why you should never ask for a resume, or why 40 hours a week isn’t freelance.

And the question I always have when I see this kind of content is: Why would a great client be drawn to this? I feel like the clients you want already know this information, so who are those posts really for?

Here’s what I genuinely believe in my own business — great clients exist. Clients who are respectful and easy to work with. Not only do I believe they exist, but I believe you can build a business where that kind of client is the norm. But you find them by changing what you expect and how you show up.

What this looks like in practice

In nearly 10 years of freelancing, I have almost never had to chase clients down for payment. There have only been two instances where I haven’t gotten paid for work I did: the first was because the company filed for bankruptcy, and the second was in 2020 when a middleman didn’t get paid. That’s it.

I also don’t deal with constant scope creep, and I don’t feel like I’m managing difficult people. And it’s not because I have an ironclad contract — I believe it’s because on some level, I expect to work with people who respect me. And I show up in a way that reflects that expectation.

On some level, this is kind of intangible, but it plays out in very real and practical ways:

• How you respond to feedback — Answering negative feedback with defensiveness vs. genuine curiosity about what they actually need.

• How you handle scope creep — Whether it’s collaborative (”here’s how we can make that work”) or punitive (”that’s outside the contract”).

• How you talk about clients publicly: You attract different kinds of clients when your content isn’t defensive or lecturing people.

• How you follow up on mised payments: At a certain point, your attention shifts to finding and doing great work, not chasing down invoices or trying to get paid sooner — and that shift tends to solve more than you’d expect.

Final thoughts

I think it’s important to reiterate that I’m not telling you to forgo contracts or following up on overdue invoices. I’m not saying you should abandon your boundaries, but I don’t think boundaries are a foundation to build your business on. If you build your business around avoiding bad clients, on some level, you’ll keep orienting yourself around them.

But if you build your business around expecting good ones, you start creating an environment where that’s what shows up. So try asking yourself, “What kind of client relationships am I normalizing in my business?” Because that answer will shape your income far more than any contract ever will.

Of course, actually changing this is easier said than done. Because let’s face it — it’s hard to read the label from inside the bottle. When you’re in your own business, the way you do things feels normal — your pricing, your clients, and even how much you earn.

Most freelancers don’t even realize they have a pattern, but from the outside, it’s usually obvious. And once you see the pattern, it’s hard to unsee. And even small shifts in how you see your business can create outsized changes in how it performs.

That’s why I’m offering a limited number of Freelance Income Audits per week. During these one-hour sessions, we’ll look at your business together and identify what’s working, what isn’t, and where you’re leaving money or opportunities on the table. Then we map out small changes you can make moving forward.

Because in most cases, it’s not about making major changes overnight. It’s about making a few better decisions and letting those decisions compound.

If you’ve been feeling stuck, plateaued, or like you’re doing a lot of work without seeing it translate into the income you want, this will show you why. And if you’re not sure whether this is a fit, feel free to email me — I’m happy to talk it through.

👉 Freelancer Income Audit