I had to fire a client the other day. Man, I hate it when that happens—and I could have prevented it from the start.

Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever worked with someone who made your heart sink every time you saw her name on your caller ID? Who you knew from the get-go was going to be a problem child? A client who gave you that gut feeling of “NO” but you said to yourself, “well, I really need the business, so…”

One of the things I really advocate with my self-employed clients is one of the Best Practices of being self-employed: Work with the kind of clients you love working with. Let someone else take care of the others. And if you currently have some of those others, the ones you don’t love working with? Set them free to find other people to do business with.

I mean, really. There are a lot of risks involved with being self-employed: for example, there is no guaranteed salary. No company-paid health insurance. No unemployment benefits. Paid vacation? Puh-leeeze.

But there are very good reasons why a lot of people become self-employed, and one of the biggest is this:

YOU GET TO WORK WITH THE KIND OF PEOPLE YOU REALLY, REALLY LIKE…as long as you set yourself up that way.

That’s right: you don’t have to work with everyone. In fact, you probably shouldn’t. Michael Port likes to call it the “red velvet rope” policy: your business, and the clientele you work with, should be like an exclusive club, and only the “right” people get to come in. And guess what? As the business owner, as the provider of goods and services, YOU are the bouncer who gets to decide who’s in and who’s out.

See, when you work with people you love, it creates an upward spiral: you do your best work because you love working with them, they get amazing work from you and are so happy they tell their friends (who, typically, are more of the right people—like attracts like, right?) and everyone stays happy, satisfied, and loving what you do. Including you.

You have the opportunity and maybe even the obligation when you’re self-employed to create your work to be exactly how you want it. That means if you only want to work Monday through Friday, then turn down offers of weekend jobs. If you hate cold calling, then find different, more you-friendly strategies for making sales. And if you really love working with a particular kind of person, or really dislike working with other kinds, then get that velvet rope in place and use it from the start.

I know it’s hard to turn down potential business, especially when it involves short-term gain (read: income, baby). So I’ll say it again in a slightly different way: one of the perks of working for yourself is that YOU GET TO CHOOSE WHO YOU WILL DO BUSINESS WITH. And I say you owe it to yourself and your business to do just that.

What about you—what’s your red velvet rope policy?