Someone once said something that completely reframed how I think about clients:
"When you help someone, you inherit their problems."
Here's the example that stuck with me:
Sell boats to fishermen — their problem becomes "I can't afford this." Every conversation is about price. Every negotiation is about discounts. Their constraint becomes your constraint.
Sell yachts to billionaires — their problem becomes "Show me something no one else has ever seen." Every conversation is about exclusivity, quality, and experience. Their ambition becomes your ambition.
Same effort. Completely different world.
How This Applies to Freelance Development
Early in my freelance career, I took on clients with small budgets and vague scopes.
The conversations were exhausting:
- "Can we do it cheaper?"
- "I saw a developer on Fiverr who charges half your rate"
- "Can you just add this one small thing?" (it was never small)
I spent more energy justifying my existence than actually building things.
When I started being more selective — targeting clients who already understood the value of good software — the dynamic flipped entirely:
- Conversations focused on outcomes, not cost
- Scope was respected because they understood what scope meant
- Payment came on time because they valued the relationship
The code I wrote wasn't dramatically different. But the energy around the work was completely different.
The Trap Most Freelancers Fall Into
When you're starting out, you take any client you can get. That's fine — it's survival mode.
The problem is staying in survival mode too long.
Each low-quality client you take:
- Consumes time you could spend finding better clients
- Trains you to undervalue your work
- Fills your portfolio with projects that don't attract the clients you actually want
It's a compounding problem. The fisherman's boat keeps you from building the yacht.
The Practical Shift
You don't need to go from broke to billionaire clients overnight. But you can start being intentional:
- Look at your best current or past client — what made them good? Industry, budget, communication style, project type? That's your target profile.
- Let your content attract them — post about the problems they have, not the problems your current clients have
- Raise your floor gradually — each new client should be slightly better than the last
- Stop optimizing for quantity — one great client is worth five exhausting ones
The Takeaway
Who you serve isn't just a business decision. It's a decision about what problems you spend your mental energy on every single day.
Fishermen will always need boats. Billionaires will always need yachts. Neither is wrong.
But you only have one career. Spend it solving problems that energize you.
Who's the best client you've ever worked with — and what made them different? Drop it in the comments.
