How to decide if a client is right for you

Melissa Blum , CEO and founder of M.T. Deco.

A major learning curve in building M.T. Deco has been identifying which clients are the right fit and which ones are not. When you jump from a corporate job to your own company, there is a moment of panic [re: many moments of panic] that all revenue comes directly from you. Suddenly you go from being a cog among many wheels to becoming the head of sales, production, strategy, PR, digital, etc. all at once. It’s both exhilarating and terrifying.

For me, that fear manifested into saying yes to all client opportunities. My career had been entirely in media up until that point, so I wanted to test out my strategy work on other industries. But if I’m being fully honest, another incentive was to try and make more than the salary I had at NBC. It was some stupid challenge I put on myself to prove my self-worth, and it was that misguided goal that landed me in a number of less than ideal contracts.

Read the full piece on Substack here.