What do you do when you have an inkling that a client is setting you up for failure — whether intentionally or unintentionally — and you want to get ahead of it?

Align on a written goal and deliverable doc. Helps stay on the same page and adds accountability later. If you already have a clear doc, have a quick call or loom going over progress to goal

Seems like a good opportunity to speak to your experience in a way that a) makes sure both parties are on the same page and b) makes clear to the client you understand what you are doing and you have relevant experience you can lean on to help ensure better outcomes for them... EG: "In my work with past clients ABC has happened and I want to make sure that doesn't happen in this instance, so I am proposing XYZ." Whether they are intentionally or unintentionally doing something that can lead to failure, this is an assertive way to make clear you have experience with the issue at hand and you have solid suggestions to make sure the project is set up for success.

Get a new client

Ideally you can clarify what a successful partnership would look like, and if it doesn't seem like they can work with that, it's best for everyone to move on.

Can you give more context? In what way do you feel they're setting you up for failure?

Appreciate all your thoughts so far @stale-optician-9353 @strong-lawyer-70623 @worried-agent-96132 @flat-ghost-62800 To give an example @purple-monitor-35762 - one client has been 100% fine with all the content we’ve created for months, then a new point of contact comes in and says she hates everything but also won’t give feedback lol. So we work through the next round of content based on overcommunicating our approach and asking for approvals at every stage. She still won’t give any feedback but we did get approval to move forward based on a very detailed outline and have no new feedback after sending the drafts. She then asks us to work on a very different content format than we’re used to that’s a bit outside our wheelhouse (think: an in-depth profile of a team member) and we’re willing to do it but they supplied the interviews (they didn’t let us do them) and have said they want it to resemble a certain high brow newspaper’s people profiles and it’s like we can probably get you close but you already act like you hate everything we do, won’t give us feedback, and won’t let us conduct the interview, so it’s hard to even determine what the resulting piece should look like without somehow pissing them off haha. We’re at the end of our agreement btw, just have to use up what they’ve already paid for. So I’m not necessarily trying to salvage a relationship with a client that doesn’t want to work as a team — just trying to close things out on the best possible note so that we don’t waste forever in edits and dealing with feedback that ultimately isn’t fair.

Wow what a shame Maddy! Sounds like this new point of contact is just being a total pain to work with...I think you're right that it sounds like they're setting you up to fail. I would just close out the relationship by saying your working styles don't seem compatible or something like that - frame it as a 'we' issue instead of 'you' issue and add hope to work with you again in the future or something like that 🤷‍♀️