I do try to offer advice, but it depends on the client. Some are clearly lost and will be grateful if you help them. Others are know-it-all types and I don’t waste my time arguing with them.

In my case it depends. If the client asks me to compromise my reputation, they’re fired. I’ll find a new client.

Exactly! At no point should any writer feel they must put aside their own ethical practices to please a client. No client is worth risking my reputation for.

In my previous job I met with a client one time who wanted me to do some work on her home, but every time I had a meeting with her she had gone on the Internet and Googled the information, so when I’d come into a meeting with the reasons why something needed to be done a certain way she would have 10 websites that offered a different way to do things, and why wasn’t I doing it this way instead? I finally told her that I was unable to work with her because she was not letting me do my job. If you hire me to work for you, I expect at the very least a measure of professional respect. Yes, you have the right to request a revision or two (dependent upon the contract), but you do not retain the right to tell me how to do my job.

For example, you don’t go into your dentist’s office and tell him how to pull your tooth. Why? Because he’s the dentist. He has credentials on the wall. You pay him and put your faith in him because he is qualified. You don’t question him. The same thing applies for writing. I am a qualified professional and I don’t need a client looking over my shoulder the entire time.

Having spent a significant amount of time in Europe over the past 10 years or so, I can say one thing that I have learned which I appreciate more and more is that over here there is no such thing as “the customer is always right”. Americans tend to rely far too much on that old adage, to the point that it has become skewed past its original intention. These days, everyone is so paranoid of being sued or not getting paid that they are overly-paranoid about deferring to the customer. I am not. I prefer the European approach, which is the common sense approach. You are a customer, but just because you are a customer does not mean you are automatically correct just because you are paying money for something. If you were qualified to do the job you would have done so in the first place. You aren’t. You hired a professional. Let them do the job you hired them to do.

I’m a freelance writer and an attorney, so especially when I’m writing about something law related, I need to feel that I am giving legally correct information that would not mislead anyone.

If a client asks me to do something unethical or illegal, they need to find another freelancer

But as a few other people said, I think there is a line to draw. If anything is illegal or immoral or even if it goes against your own beliefs, I wouldn’t do it.

Lisa

I’m with all of you. I usually recommend a particular tone or style, but if the customer overrides that, of course, it’s his nickel.

If the style of a piece (the “voice”) is not yet determined, I’ll often include three “samples” (paragraphs) in various different voices as part of the package. Generally speaking, the client will pick the most conservative option.

The only real exception to the rule is when I’m doing grants or similarly technical projects. The requirements are set by a third party, and the tone is pre-determined to a certain degree… and I will tell clients that their usual “markety” approach won’t fly.

Lisa

In the long term, I consider my results more important than the momentary whim of a client who may not understand how software development works (software and writing are similar to me, both about solving problems).

The famous copywriter Gary Halbert was always very choosy to take work only from clients who defer to his expertise. I want to be earn that kind of reputation!

My kids don’t understand that rule yet, but I understood it growing up.

The customer is the final decision maker…but there are times you will want to educate the customer that they are not right. I’ve done company newsletters with president messages — written by the president himself — that had all kinds of poor grammar. I made changes, but he changed it back to the way it was. I had to persuade him about some changes that needed to be made (didn’t win all of these mini-battles).

I’ve had a couple of other times when I was given an article to investigate and discovered that the publication’s expected outcome was flawed. For example, at a newspaper, an editor asked me to write an article about the utility’s budget plan, basically telling me to point out all the flaws. The flaw was that the editor couldn’t keep track of his bills, got hit with a large one at the end of the plan (he had made significant energy-consuming investments in his property, like a heated pool). The editor changed what I wrote, was called on the carpet by the utility and was fired. I wasn’t called on the carpet because I had the original and the pr guy at the utility, who I had known for a few years, knew I wouldn’t do that type of hatchet job.

That brings up another point to consider. If the customer wants you to do something libelous or illegal, he’s wrong.