IIRC, the whole first chapter of the book "Booked Solid" (a new business development training book for consultants) is about consciously firing difficult clients. The rationale is that to excel, you have to be passionate. To be passionate, you have to be excited about helping your clients succeed, and you can't do that with clients that you dread dealing with.

One note from recent personal experience --- go into new client relationships with an exit strategy in place. Recently during a relatively slow period, we bid on some work not thinking that we'd get it. We did, but the client organization has shown all of the early signs of being a nightmare. We tried several things to turn down the work, but in the end felt obligated to take it because the client insisted and met every condition that we asked for. I really worry that this will end up being a big mistake, and I don't ever want to make it again.

I found an interesting blog post recently where a small biz owner discussed purposefully quitting a certain percentage of clients every year. She justified it by saying when a client because a time and energy suck, it drains the entire firm and stresses out the employees, and without those clients they are better able to spend resources looking for more business and finding other opportunities with higher returns.

Without saying what I do... I have a very simple model that puts a cap on how many hours you can engage me for. If you want to waste your time asking me about something you could ask a spouse or a friend, you can do that, but my guidance is not to. When you frame things with caps, people stop turning into massive time sucks. The way you sell it to clients is that its not about protecting you from crazy, its about letting your client know that they will get the necessary attention from you because they dont need to worry that another 'time suck' client is taking up all your energy and time.

All good ideas. As for when to fire a client, I give it three months and actively look for a replacement during that time. That way, I net even on revenue and feel ok telling the client to go to hell"

You may want to find someone else in your industry and offer to send clients their way. A difficult client for you, may not be for them. Hopefully it could be a reciprocal. Tell your client that this other consult has something (skill/contact) that will work better for them.

I think some of this is the nature of consulting-- regardless of what the nature of the difficulty is, some projects will be more difficult than others. That said, I wonder if there is a way to set up your pricing so that when a client starts crossing that line it is reflected in their billing.

If it's just a matter that they are blaming you for not achieving results then I think it's a combination of setting up expectations early, having a thick skin and being able to politely set boundaries.

Rather than try and guess which customers will be difficult up front, why not just stop accepting future business from the customers who you can never please so you can better focus on the ones you can please and developing new business. So, when a customer has repeatedly been a nightmare to deal with, the next time they look for a quote, let them know while you have appreciated their business in the past, you are unable to do what they need at present time to both your and their satisfaction. It helps if you have someone else you can refer them to that could possibly help them. No need to burn bridges, just present it that you have quite a bit on your plate and that you don't want to compromise your standards (or theirs).

I own a small business that provides consulting services in a very niche field (trying to keep this general and vague). By virtue of the demographics of the population that I am serving, and the fact that I am expensive to hire, I get a lot of difficult clients. Some just need a lot of handholding and I am truly fine with that. I very often stay up late at night answering emails/providing advice, going above and beyond to be extremely thorough. I know that if it were not for these people that need more hand holding than most, I would not have a job. I also know that the work I do is associated with a lot of deep emotions for my clients- high expectations, anxiety, etc.. And I really try to be sensitive to that every day.

Sometimes, though, I have clients who just push it over the top and really take their anxieties out on me because they are looking for someone to blame when things do not work out as they had hoped. They are impossible to please and are looking for someone to work miracles, which no one can do. I am feeling more and more like I just can't take these people on as clients, even if my bottom line suffers and I lose revenue.

I'm trying to figure out how to differentiate from clients who are going to be a problem between the ones who have a normal amount of stress/anxiety. Part of me looks back at past clients and sees that the ones who I thought would be really impossible from the get go were not so bad and vice versa. I don't want to be TOO quick to refuse to work with people that seem overly difficult, because then I'd have no clients. I'm also trying to figure out at what point do I tell a client that things are just not working out between us without hurting my reputation. Obviously, someone who has a volatile personality from the get go is not someone that I want to set off- don't want to get trashed on the Internet, etc.

I guess this turned into a bit of stream of consciousness, but I am interested in any thoughts from others in my position.