No one wants to fire a client. They pay us money, they have interesting projects, and sometimes they become our friends. But then there's the other kind of client; the one who is such a nightmare to work with that your business starts to lose money and morale.

I fired a client ONCE, and it was when I was a marketing/communications freelancer. While I've worked with lots of challenging people in my career, I quickly realized that this situation was different and there was no chance for a resolution.

Without getting into all the gory details, here's the gist of what happened:

• Communication barrier
• No acknowledgement of my expertise in an area my client had zero experience
• Unconstructive and harsh criticism from the client
• I couldn't understand why she was upset, and she wasn't able to articulate the issue in a way that I could do anything about.
• She had a very hostile attitude that suggested I had taken advantage of her.

Let me say that in my 17-year career in marketing, I have worked with a lot of smart, and incredibly talented people. But I've also had some doozy clients and nutjob colleagues. I sucked up a lot of bad behaviour over the years for various reasons:

1. That's what grown up professionals do.
2. I didn't have the authority to fire a client (or coworker) even if I wished for it on every fallen eyelash.
3. I needed the work.

But here I was, finally my own boss, and I could see that no amount of talking was going to solve the problem. I also knew that this client was likely a one-off. It wasn't going to turn into big,