[slimer]

I've had clients who told me they never really had the money, when I sent them the invoice. I then started taking deposits as a principle with new clients. I used to not ask for a contract, but pinning down the scope is essential. Some clients would try and postpone payment as long as possible based on ambiguous scope. I guess after a while I started getting the hang of who I should and shouldn't be working with to avoid trouble.

[shortoncash]

I'd be interested in knowing what you think are good indicators that someone will be a good client instead of being a bad client.

[trcollinson]

For me there is a feeling of openness that comes from a good client. Bad clients seem to try to over compensate for their lack of openness by spewing what I think of as pretend openness. They might say things like:

We really don't need consultants to work for us but...

We have a TON of capital...

We could hire more people but...

Our product works amazingly well and doesn't need new features except...

The list goes on and on. The point here is that they aren't being truly open, they are just puffing themselves up without offering an honest view of their needs.

On the other hand, a good client will often admit to a short coming ("We don't really understand deployments well and we would like you to help us with both the automation and the understanding of deployments for the future"), honest about product and employee needs ("We need this feature faster than was expected but we don't feel like we want to encumber the business with additional employees right now"), and things like this. Also, most good clients don't just randomly bring up how wealthy they are. There is no need.

Obviously this doesn't cover every case. But I have found that it is relatively easy to sniff out honesty and shy away from clients where "it's too good to be true".