Many of us have had clients who were unreasonable, unrealistic, and sometimes reluctant to pay on time (or at all). Are such clients worth our investment of time and energy? If we fail to consider this question, we—experts in common sense and the guiding lights for client profitability—have committed the most basic of sins: not practicing what we preach.

To be fair, clients have had their share of disappointments after working with consultants. One of my clients, for example, once hired a large consulting company to build a corporate-wide cost-reduction program.

Their goal was to reduce expenditures by a certain percentage, and they were intent on meeting their objectives across the board. The good news was that they met their targets and reduced overall costs. The bad news was that they also witnessed a major drop in customer loyalty, because the consulting firm had not assessed the impact that cost reduction would have on customers.

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