Here are a few more rules that help in life and work:
1. The client has the right to want/demand/ask for anything, including the impossible and a day before the project deadline. This is their right as a client. Your right is to say no and/or include it in the project, but ask for money and/or do it for free. If it “works” and you do it “for free” or “because they nagged you!” for even one out of ten requests, then this unpleasant strategy will further reinforce itself in their mind. If you do nothing, then they probably won’t come back to you. Understanding this helps to work with “difficult” and “irrational” clients. They are actually good people, they just chose such a tactic to achieve their goals 🙂
2. The client has the right to be obtuse and deliberately fail to understand/accept obvious things. Sometimes this is explained by the mental abilities of specific individuals, but sometimes it is a deliberate tactic that gives an advantage in negotiations. For example, “empathizing with your situation” and “understanding how difficult this is” significantly impedes bargaining. Exhaustion in contract negotiations, for instance, forces one to make quick and ill-considered decisions. Therefore, you should always understand whose favor time plays – yours or the client’s, and whether there is any reason for the client to drag it out.
3. Even the dumbest and most irrational decisions sometimes have hidden reasons that are not visible to you, but evident to those making these decisions.
4. Personal goals often outweigh work-related goals. Often, a client chooses a product/service not because it is genuinely useful to the business, but because this particular manager or specialist, after a year of working with them, will be worth twice as much in the job market. Generally, the market values people with such experience for a reason – meaning, the product is good, too, but very, very many decisions are based precisely on this logic. Therefore, it’s always useful to think ahead for them and even estimate which achievements they could add to their CV. This is partly why quick wins are so beloved 🙂