During his CreativeMornings/NewYork Benefit talk, Jason Santa Maria gave the audience permission to say “No.” He also walked the crowd through of the most common pitfalls he sees when approaching a project with a client. These “red flags” are Jason’s indicators he should probably just say NO.

First impressions
If someone come off weird or a little goofy, trust your gut. Follow that fight or flight instinct.

Crazy long emails from crazy people
I’m sure you get these, too, – emails that are just book-length, rambling messes and they’re telling you their life story, their problems, what they need on their website, and they’re just filling up your inbox and dumping it on you.

Equally as bad are shorter emails
Emails where they don’t really say anything. Don’t text-speak email me. Speak like a person.

These tell me: “I don’t respect your time and I’m a bad communicator.”

Hello,
This is amazing. I get an email, it just says hello, and launches right into the crazy. If you can’t find my name by going through my website, this tells me that you probably sent it to 20 other designers and are just spamming their inbox as well. Equally as bad, this tells me that you don’t care about details, and this probably won’t be a good relationship.

Hey do you do..?
Cold fusion? No. If you can’t see on my website what I do before emailing, this probably isn’t a good sign.

Can you start tomorrow?
This eclipses everything because all of a sudden your emergency is my emergency.

What it really comes down to is respect. This is an equal partnership. We should be equals in this.

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Watch the talk.