Old client New Headache

I did some work for a guy in Canada a few months back. Nice guy, but man, trouble follows him. The last project was to promote an industry that is firmly planted in the gray area. It’s not sports gambling but is damn close. He came to me with a poorly done site, no real plan, no team, nothing in place. He wanted PPC work done but it was obvious that he could have the hottest paid search campaign on the planet but he didn’t realize what many people don’t, getting people to your site is easy, keeping them there is the hard part.  Now throw the fact that Google and Yahoo do not permit this kind of advertising, and some lousy designers and programmers that kept ripping him off and I had a $75 an hour migraine.

I ended up working for him for free for the last month because I felt bad for him, I do have a soft spot. It was a major source of stress for me. PPC became a small part of my job. Managing a designer, finding programmers, dealing with crooks, and fighting with Google and Yahoo to get ads approved took over. He has a frantic leap then look personality, he wanted everything done in 5 minutes and thought he was going to get rich, immediately. I became a shrink, teacher, manager, partner. It was a nightmare. He sort of faded away..

Well, you guessed it he contacted me again, with a new project. At first glance it looks like its a much more thought out idea, the site is sharp, the idea is relatively fresh. Now I have to decide, do I go back to work for him? Can I handle the stress? I know the money is there, but is it worth it. If nothing else, this could provide tons of material to write about. Decisions, decisions.