September 12, 2023 • 24 mins
Have you ever had a business contract abruptly terminated by a client without any warning? I've been there, and it's a gut-wrenching experience that leaves you pissed off, inconvenienced, and questioning yourself.
So, I decided to reach out to others in the business world to hear their tales of "Clients Behaving Badly." The response was astounding, with stories that opened up a Pandora's box of similar instances, which led to much-needed conversations about accountability and the human element in business transactions.
This episode looks at some of the murky, uncomfortable, but very real client behaviours that leave a shitty taste in your mouth, and are lessons learned about red flags to watch for in future client relationships.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the Business Blast for Me podcast,
where we question the sacredtruths of the online business
space and the reverence withwhich they're held.
I'm your host, sarah Kahn,speaker, strategic consultant
and BS busting badass.
Join me each week as wechallenge the norms, trends and
overall bullshit status quo ofentrepreneurship to uncover what
it really takes to build thebusiness that you want to build
(00:23):
in a way that honors you, yourlife and your vision for what's
possible, and maybe piss off afew gurus along the way.
So if you're ready to commitBusiness Blast for Me, let's do
it.
Hello, hello, blast femurs.
Oh, my gosh.
Okay, I have recorded thispodcast episode six times, not
(00:45):
even lying to you Six times.
The first four times, I justlet me give you some context.
I had a hard time keeping outenough details so that people
couldn't be identified.
This will make sense in asecond.
The fifth time, I did threequarters of the episode and
realized I wasn't recording.
So here we go, attempt numbersix.
(01:08):
I am recording, I made sure,and we're just going to have to
see how this goes, because, holymother of pearl, this one has
oh, this one's been a fun one,all right.
So a couple of weeks ago I had asituation.
There was a client of mine whoI have been with for nearly a
(01:29):
year right and, for all intentsand purposes, thought I was
doing a really, really good job.
They were happy, they werealways thanking me for how I was
streamlining their business andeverything was great.
We met on a weekly basis, wewere in constant communication
and everything seemed great.
In fact, we got the business tothe point where we were able to
(01:51):
shut down for 10 full days andgo on an honest to goodness
break because we had juststreamlined everything so much
and gotten everything done andready and the founder was super
happy about that.
So, with no warning whatsoever,on that last Friday, 30 minutes
before the end of the day, andagain the day before we're
(02:12):
shutting the business down for10 days, I received an email and
it was such a formal email andI hope this email finds you well
Email.
In that email I was informed bymy client that I thought I had
a pretty good relationship withthat.
She was terminating ourcontract and giving me my notice
.
I was like huh, not going to lie, totally blindsided me and left
(02:37):
me with a really shitty tastein my mouth.
I was really upset.
It ruined my 10 days offbecause for the first four days,
all I could think about waslike every single thing I'd done
in the business for the lastalmost a year.
Where did I go wrong?
What was I missing?
What did I see?
How could I not see this coming?
I'm that person over things,things and so I shared it with a
(02:59):
few people and you know aswonderful friends they
commiserated and they also werelike you know what?
We've experienced similarthings and I was like, really
Seriously, why have so manypeople experienced the same
thing?
Then I started talking to otherpeople and they were like, yeah
, we've had similar thingshappen to us.
In fact, let me tell you astory about another shitty thing
(03:19):
I experienced from a client.
I was like wait a minute.
Then I thought you know what?
It'd be really interesting toput a little episode together on
clients behaving badly, littletongue-in-cheek kind of thing,
and just share some of theseexperiences with the wider
business space.
I put the call out on socialmedia a few weeks ago and, oh my
(03:40):
goodness when I tell you I havebeen inundated.
I am not exaggerating.
I've had over 50 people contactme and tell me multiple stories
, not just one story apiece,multiple stories of shitty
things clients have done inworking relationships.
Now I'm not talking big thingslike embezzlement or corporate
(04:04):
fraud or sexual harassment, likethe things.
Truth be told, I haveexperienced all of those things
in the corporate space.
I'm not talking about thosethings.
I'm talking about everydayhappenings that you're like that
was shitty and you wouldn'treally give it a second thought,
but it just didn't feel verygood.
There were a lot of peoplewho've experienced similar.
I'm waiting through thesestories and some of them were
(04:28):
very detailed.
First of all, if you shared astory with me, thank you very
much.
I wish I could thank you byname, but obviously I'm not
going to do that because I wantto respect everybody's
confidentiality.
There were a lot of storiesthat I will not share because
there were just too many detailsthat I wasn't able to take out
and make generic.
But I started to see themescoming up.
I started to see things come upthat were very, very similar,
(04:52):
patterns almost.
I guess it was great because Icould condense it down and share
.
Here are the top five thingsthat kept coming up.
But it also broke my heart alittle bit because I started to
think to myself why are there somany people running businesses
that think it's okay to behavethis way and to treat people
(05:14):
this way?
Why aren't we collectivelydoing better?
Why are we not holding peopleaccountable to their shitty
behavior?
Then I started to think it'sprobably because they just don't
know better.
I'm not trying to make excusesfor shitty behavior.
In a lot of cases, that is whatis underlying all of it they
just didn't know any better, orthis is how they think business
(05:36):
is done.
Because, let's be honest, welive in a really fucked up
capitalist society where thebottom line is always the dollar
, but we forget, especiallybecause we are mostly in remote
environments, that there arepeople and lives and feelings on
the end of all of theserelationships and transactions
and communications.
(05:57):
I don't know.
It's had me in a funk for thelast two weeks.
So this is my purge.
This is me getting it all outso that I can move on from this.
Because, as an empath, I'll tellyou this I felt for every
single one of these people andsome of these stories made me
physically sick.
I'm not gonna, let's just getinto it.
(06:18):
So the story that I experienced, that I just told you about how
could the client have donebetter, honestly scheduled a 10
minute face to face, on Zoom, oreven like a huddle in Slack or
fuck you know what.
Just tell me the Monday that wemet and had our weekly check in
(06:38):
and honestly tell me sooner inthe week why wait until the last
minute?
Cause it obviously was not alast minute decision and the
thing is no, you know what.
These types of conversations arenot easy to have, but the
reality is, as a founder, as abusiness owner, as a CEO
whatever the fuck you wanna callyourself you have to have the
(07:00):
stomach for hard conversations.
You have to be able and readyand willing to have these
conversations.
It's part and parcel of the gig.
So I am going to share a few ofthese stories with you now,
ones that didn't have too manyidentifying details, but I want
you to understand that everystory I'm about to share with
(07:20):
you, it was not just one personwho's experienced this, like
multiple dozens of people sharedsimilar stories.
Okay, the first one, I guess thesecond one cause mine was the
first, but the first one, frompeople who shared their stories,
was all about the client whoinitiates the charge back
Clients who charge back fees forservices that they have paid
(07:42):
and received.
Let me tell you, there are alot of people who experienced
this and it's mind-boggling tome.
On the one hand, I canunderstand if you're a service
provider like, how do you provethat you provided a service to
someone?
But a lot of people whoreceived charge backs were
operations people or webdesigners.
(08:02):
Holy shit, what do you all haveagainst web designers, jesus?
I remember when the internetfirst started yes, I'm old.
I had learned how to do verybasic HTML coding, like I did
websites not fancy websites byany stretch of the imagination,
but I did websites.
I know how hard it is to createa website.
I've seen people createwebsites.
(08:23):
I've worked with websitedevelopers.
It's not an easy job, and forsomeone to receive a fully
fleshed out website and then tolike charge back for that, it's
absolute bullshit.
There was one particularinstance.
This one was the one that mademe physically ill.
There was a service providerwho had done months of work
(08:44):
putting together entire systems,really training team members,
doing a lot of operations workover the span of several months
and at the end of it, after theyfinally left the business
because there were some otherproblems that were going on.
So they dissolved theircontract with the client and
they moved on, suddenly wake upto a charge back notice to the
(09:06):
tune of $30,000.
I want you to let that sink in.
A charge back of a couple ofhundreds, sometimes even a
couple of thousands, like thatcan absolutely cripple a
business owner, because when youinitiate a charge back, that
money is almost immediatelytaken out of your account and
given to the person who paid.
(09:27):
And then it is yourresponsibility, in most cases as
a service provider, to file adispute and to you know the
burden.
Proof is on you to prove thatyou provided this particular
service or product.
But that can then take weeks,sometimes months, to be
rectified, if at all.
Like I don't know what the statis, but I don't know that I've
actually ever heard of a serviceprovider who has successfully
(09:49):
disputed a charge back.
I don't know of anybody who has, and so now this particular
service provider is in aposition of quite possibly
having to file for bankruptcy.
Like a charge back cripplespeople and I think that
sometimes we forget that thereare actual human beings on the
(10:11):
end of these services, of thesebusinesses.
It blows my mind.
It absolutely does.
Now there are a lot of reasons aclient can be unhappy, right,
unrealistic expectations.
Maybe there were lapses incommunication, maybe the work
wasn't delivered as promised,but every single story I heard,
like I said, was, the clientsaid nothing about being unhappy
(10:32):
and just I got a notification.
I got a notification of acharge back after the work was
completed.
Most service providers arewilling to fix things if you're
unhappy with them.
I mean obviously within reason,right?
That's why scopes of work existand that's why you need to
understand as a client, you'regoing to pay more if you want
changes that weren't in theoriginal agreement but that may
be outside of having resultedfrom a mistake that the service
(10:55):
provider made.
But why is it so hard to havethese grown up conversations?
Why is it so hard for you tosay look, I wasn't happy with
the result, can we talk about it?
But to just initiate a chargeback, that's bullshit.
There were a couple of otherstories from web designers, like
I said, where you know oneparticular web designer.
They created a website for aclient, they completed it, it
(11:15):
was delivered on time,successfully, and the very next
day their website was apparentlyhacked I have that in air
quotes hacked, and they wereadamant that all of the work had
been lost and, as a result,didn't want to pay the service
provider.
They didn't want to pay the webdesigner because you know it
was their fault that somethingallowed these hackers to get in.
(11:37):
Long story short, I don't wantto give too many details, but it
turns out the website was nothacked, the client just didn't
want to pay the designer thefull amount.
I don't even know what to sayto that.
There was another web designerwho did a web design and a
hosting service for a friend,not even a random client.
A friend gave them the friendsand family discount and, after a
(11:58):
year of working together, senta renewal email.
Didn't hear from them.
Sent a reminder.
Didn't hear from them.
Sent another reminder, stillcompletely ghosted.
Finally, they sent an emailsaying look, per contract, I'm
going to pull the plug in 21days.
21 days came and passed.
They pulled the plug.
(12:18):
Lo and behold, two days later,a team member reaches out and
asks for website access throughFacebook, of all places.
Service provider says please goand see your bosses, not going
to happen.
One week later, a new developeremails for a bunch of website
details.
Service provider says verykindly, please fuck off.
It just boggles my mind andthat person also did not get
(12:42):
paid for their time, for theirmoney, for their investment
Ridiculous.
Then there were a whole bunch ofstories of like little red
flags that aren't red flagsuntil you see them all kind of
lined up and then you're likeholy shit, that client's a giant
walking red flag.
There were a whole bunch ofinstances where people were
booking calls with serviceproviders and then not showing
(13:03):
up for those calls and thenrebooking and not showing up for
them and then rebooking again,and it was just ridiculous, like
if you're going to book a calland not make it cancel, I'll
tell you, this is why someservice providers actually have
the caveat that if you book acall and you miss, you're going
to have to pay for the next call, right?
Unless there's a really goodreason for doing it.
In one particular instancewhere a service provider
(13:24):
actually went out of their wayto book a discovery call outside
of business hours because therewas a time zone mismatch,
because the client was on travelat the time.
Now, when the call time came,they were not there.
So they booked it again andthey booked it again and the
third time was a charm, they didshow up, but they were late for
the call.
Anyway, that was a red flag.
(13:46):
But also the client had a lotof excuses and reasons why it
happened and this person has avery big heart.
They were like, okay, cool,let's just, let's just go.
They had a really greatdiscovery call.
The client says, yep, let'ssign, and the service provider
sent an invoice and a contractand a month goes by with
absolutely no word from theclient.
At this point the serviceprovider's thinking this is
(14:07):
probably not a good fit.
But then the client pops upagain and manipulates them into
taking them on.
Now most of us who've been inthe space for a while probably
would have been like I don'tknow, it doesn't feel good and
it's easy for us to sit here andsay that was a red flag.
The service provider shouldhave just put their foot down.
Can I just take a moment andsay when I was in corporate and
(14:29):
there were people who were likeI'm really unhappy in this job,
the thing that pissed me off themost was other people who would
say then go find another job.
Like it's that fucking simple.
If it was that easy to just goand get another job, we'd all be
working in jobs we loved and Isee it now in the online space.
When a client behaves badly anda service provider is told well
(14:51):
, go find another client, firethat client, go find someone
else Again.
If it was that easy to findclients, we'd all be working
with clients we loved and we'dall be fully booked out.
So please reserve your judgmentand your shame.
The service provider did workwith them when they came on
(15:11):
board.
Here's a red flag behavior theclient lied to them in the
discovery call, said that theywere going to have a whole team
to work with.
There was no team.
There was a VA, that's it.
So the service provider endedup doing a lot of implementation
work they weren't supposed todo.
Then you've got clients who arejust never available during
business hours.
(15:31):
They're off doing I don't knowliving life, which is great.
All of us entrepreneurs want tobe able to have a flexible
lifestyle and whatnot, but ifyou have a team that is tasked
with doing things that requireyour input, you, as a client,
need to be available.
You need to be there.
Then you've got clients whobreak scope consistently.
(15:52):
You have this is what you'vehired me to do.
Well, can we do this?
Can we change that?
Again, it's not always easy tosay no, especially if you need
the money.
In this economy, we all needthe fucking money.
We've seen the price of bananaslately, jesus.
You've got clients who insistteam members put people on
mailing lists without permission.
You've got team members whoconsistently throw you under the
(16:14):
bus for no reason.
You've got clients who don'tpay you on time or at all.
There are so many shittybehaviors that people do on a
regular basis and think thatit's okay, not understanding
that this impacts people's lives.
Yes, a lot of these are lessonslearned, but you know what?
We shouldn't have to learn,these lessons?
(16:35):
That's, I think, really thepoint of what I'm trying to say
here.
Other bad behaviors Clientsquestioning pricing.
Clients are going to havequestions about specific
services and prices, but clientswho tell you that it shouldn't
cost that much.
That's not cool.
A service provider sets theprices.
They set for a lot of reasons,based on hope, hopefully a lot
(16:55):
of data and just theirexperience and what they've done
and what they're able to do,and you don't get to negotiate
that or tell someone they'recharging too much for something.
If something is too expensiveor out of scope for you, go find
it somewhere else.
There are a lot of behaviorsthat just do not feel good.
Those are the vast majority ofthe ones that I shared with you
(17:18):
just now, but there are a lot ofother red flags that have come
up that I want to share with youso that you know and I'm
talking to both the client andthe service provider If you are
a client who hires a lot ofservice providers, please listen
to this.
If you are a service provider,please listen to this.
Again, none of these thingsnecessarily have to be deal
breakers because you can talkabout them.
(17:41):
I think a lot of these, again,could be rectified if people
just were honest with each otherand had open, honest
conversations.
But I also understand thatconversational safety is not
something a lot of people areaware of how to create Right.
So, again, not necessarily dealbreakers, but they should make
your inner mirror cap pop up alittle bit and pay attention.
(18:03):
There were a number of otherstories that came up, things
like clients insisting somethingshouldn't take long, like, look
, if you're delegating a taskthat you know nothing about or
very little about, please don'ttell the service provider, aka
the expert, how long you thinksomething is going to take,
unless you've done it multipletimes in the past.
It signals a lack of respectfor the service provider's
(18:24):
expertise.
And if you've hired them andlet them do their job right,
allow them to provide you withan estimate and then, yeah, go
ahead and ask all the questionsthat you want, but don't tell
people how long something shouldtake.
I once had a client who had meand the web developer and the
marketing person put togetherthis really complicated funnel.
There was a primary product andseveral upsells and a whole
bunch of bump offers and each ofthem had their own nurture
(18:47):
sequence and funnel and blah,blah, blah.
This took about two months toput together and get it to the
client's liking, and about threeor four days before we were due
to launch it, client changestheir mind about a couple of
things.
He wants us to move a couple ofoffers around and change this
to a bump offer versus that one.
And when I said this isprobably going to take an extra
two weeks, they were like, well,that's ridiculous.
(19:08):
All you need to do is move acouple of buttons in the back
end, don't you?
No, you have to rewrite emailsequences.
You have to set up all the techagain.
You have to make sure that theright buttons are connected to
the right offers and the rightsequences and that things are
triggering properly.
It's a very long process and Ithink that that is something
that a lot of service providersexperience, right, who think
(19:30):
something shouldn't take as longor they should only take this
much time, right?
That's like a really big redflag.
So, again, have theconversation with your client,
explain to them why it's takingthat long, because, again, it's
not something that is malicious,it's probably just they don't
really understand and you, as aclient, please defer to your
(19:51):
service provider, defer to theexpert that you hired.
There were a number of storiesof service providers who had
interviewed for a particularposition, were asked for samples
of work or to do like a testproject.
And I'm just going to say thisthis isn't fucking Costco.
All right, you don't get freesamples.
If you want to see people'swork, you pay for their work,
(20:14):
and this is especially importantin interviews for freelance
jobs.
If a client's asking you to doa work-based task as part of the
interview, they shouldethically pay you for your time.
In fact, in some states, it'sillegal not to pay for work done
, even if it's part of theinterview process.
There were a lot of serviceproviders who experienced
(20:34):
clients who were talking shitabout past hires.
Right and again, this oneshould be kind of
self-explanatory, but just incase it's not, there's a fine
line between having something tosay about the work output and
having something to say aboutsomeone period.
It'd be like showing up for acorporate interview and then,
when they ask you why you leftyour last job, saying because my
boss was a dick, like it's nota good thing, it's really shitty
(20:57):
behavior.
You shouldn't do it, becausethe first thing I think is well,
if and when I leave, what areyou going to say about me?
What are you saying behind myback?
It's not a good feeling.
Oh, there were a bunch ofpeople who actually shared this
one, and in fact I've been onthe receiving end of this as
well.
When clients advertise oneparticular rate of pay on a job
ad and then they hire you andsuddenly have a problem paying
(21:19):
that or they change the rate ofpay altogether, if they're going
to lie right at the start, it'snot going to get any better.
That's something that I havelearned.
There are clients who have aproblem with you having other
clients.
They're not paying you as afull-time employee.
You're still getting work donejust fine, but they have a
problem with the fact that youhave other clients.
You're not available 24 hours aday, right, and you shouldn't
(21:41):
be.
And this kind of segues intoclingy clients, people expecting
responses immediately and thensending several messages or
emails in the span of an hourbecause you didn't respond to
them, or the opposite.
Like I said, you can go dayswithout hearing from them.
That's not good.
So there are lots of thingsthat people have experienced,
kind of collectively in theservice provider space that,
(22:02):
again, it's not something thatmakes or breaks a business, but
it can definitely make or breaka relationship.
And so, if you experienced anyof these things, one of the
things that I'm going to reallyask you to maybe try is speak to
the client.
Speak to them, have theconversation, explain to them as
(22:22):
kindly as possible why thisdoesn't feel good.
And again, I know that's reallyhard.
It's easy for me to say sittinghere behind a microphone, but a
lot of business owners don'treally understand.
They don't know how it impactsanything other than their own
business.
We see it in corporate all thetime, with people who have
massive, massive budgets andmassive, massive teams.
(22:43):
It's natural that it wouldhappen in this space as well,
but from a service providerperspective it doesn't feel good
.
So if you are a clientlistening, just take note that
there are better ways to do thisand 90% of the time I'd wager
it can be fixed with an honestconversation.
Because, again, we can sit hereand say when you know better,
you do better.
But we don't always know how todo better and I think more of
(23:06):
us need to be able and willingto have conversations.
Have I said that enough?
I don't know.
Anyway, this is a six-time.
I'm recording this.
Hopefully this came across,because now I don't remember
what I said in version fiveversus version two.
All I can say is you can havesuccess without the BS, because
there's a lot of fucking BS outthere.
You don't have to engage in it.
(23:28):
I will see you next week.
My friends, have a good one andstay safe.
That's it for this week.
Thanks for listening to theBusiness Blast for Me podcast.
We'll be back next week with anew episode, but in the meantime
, help us to stir out bysubscribing and, if you're
feeling extra sassy, rating thispodcast, and don't forget to
share the podcast with othersHead over to
(23:48):
businessblastformepodcastcom toconnect with us and learn more.
Thanks for listening andremember you can have success
without the BS.
Welcome to the Business Blast for Me podcast,
where we question the sacredtruths of the online business
space and the reverence withwhich they're held.
I'm your host, sarah Kahn,speaker, strategic consultant
and BS busting badass.
Join me each week as wechallenge the norms, trends and
overall bullshit status quo ofentrepreneurship to uncover what
it really takes to build thebusiness that you want to build
(00:23):
in a way that honors you, yourlife and your vision for what's
possible, and maybe piss off afew gurus along the way.
So if you're ready to commitBusiness Blast for Me, let's do
it.
Hello, hello, blast femurs.
Oh, my gosh.
Okay, I have recorded thispodcast episode six times, not
(00:45):
even lying to you Six times.
The first four times, I justlet me give you some context.
I had a hard time keeping outenough details so that people
couldn't be identified.
This will make sense in asecond.
The fifth time, I did threequarters of the episode and
realized I wasn't recording.
So here we go, attempt numbersix.
(01:08):
I am recording, I made sure,and we're just going to have to
see how this goes, because, holymother of pearl, this one has
oh, this one's been a fun one,all right.
So a couple of weeks ago I had asituation.
There was a client of mine whoI have been with for nearly a
(01:29):
year right and, for all intentsand purposes, thought I was
doing a really, really good job.
They were happy, they werealways thanking me for how I was
streamlining their business andeverything was great.
We met on a weekly basis, wewere in constant communication
and everything seemed great.
In fact, we got the business tothe point where we were able to
(01:51):
shut down for 10 full days andgo on an honest to goodness
break because we had juststreamlined everything so much
and gotten everything done andready and the founder was super
happy about that.
So, with no warning whatsoever,on that last Friday, 30 minutes
before the end of the day, andagain the day before we're
(02:12):
shutting the business down for10 days, I received an email and
it was such a formal email andI hope this email finds you well
Email.
In that email I was informed bymy client that I thought I had
a pretty good relationship withthat.
She was terminating ourcontract and giving me my notice
.
I was like huh, not going to lie, totally blindsided me and left
(02:37):
me with a really shitty tastein my mouth.
I was really upset.
It ruined my 10 days offbecause for the first four days,
all I could think about waslike every single thing I'd done
in the business for the lastalmost a year.
Where did I go wrong?
What was I missing?
What did I see?
How could I not see this coming?
I'm that person over things,things and so I shared it with a
(02:59):
few people and you know aswonderful friends they
commiserated and they also werelike you know what?
We've experienced similarthings and I was like, really
Seriously, why have so manypeople experienced the same
thing?
Then I started talking to otherpeople and they were like, yeah
, we've had similar thingshappen to us.
In fact, let me tell you astory about another shitty thing
(03:19):
I experienced from a client.
I was like wait a minute.
Then I thought you know what?
It'd be really interesting toput a little episode together on
clients behaving badly, littletongue-in-cheek kind of thing,
and just share some of theseexperiences with the wider
business space.
I put the call out on socialmedia a few weeks ago and, oh my
(03:40):
goodness when I tell you I havebeen inundated.
I am not exaggerating.
I've had over 50 people contactme and tell me multiple stories
, not just one story apiece,multiple stories of shitty
things clients have done inworking relationships.
Now I'm not talking big thingslike embezzlement or corporate
(04:04):
fraud or sexual harassment, likethe things.
Truth be told, I haveexperienced all of those things
in the corporate space.
I'm not talking about thosethings.
I'm talking about everydayhappenings that you're like that
was shitty and you wouldn'treally give it a second thought,
but it just didn't feel verygood.
There were a lot of peoplewho've experienced similar.
I'm waiting through thesestories and some of them were
(04:28):
very detailed.
First of all, if you shared astory with me, thank you very
much.
I wish I could thank you byname, but obviously I'm not
going to do that because I wantto respect everybody's
confidentiality.
There were a lot of storiesthat I will not share because
there were just too many detailsthat I wasn't able to take out
and make generic.
But I started to see themescoming up.
I started to see things come upthat were very, very similar,
(04:52):
patterns almost.
I guess it was great because Icould condense it down and share
.
Here are the top five thingsthat kept coming up.
But it also broke my heart alittle bit because I started to
think to myself why are there somany people running businesses
that think it's okay to behavethis way and to treat people
(05:14):
this way?
Why aren't we collectivelydoing better?
Why are we not holding peopleaccountable to their shitty
behavior?
Then I started to think it'sprobably because they just don't
know better.
I'm not trying to make excusesfor shitty behavior.
In a lot of cases, that is whatis underlying all of it they
just didn't know any better, orthis is how they think business
(05:36):
is done.
Because, let's be honest, welive in a really fucked up
capitalist society where thebottom line is always the dollar
, but we forget, especiallybecause we are mostly in remote
environments, that there arepeople and lives and feelings on
the end of all of theserelationships and transactions
and communications.
(05:57):
I don't know.
It's had me in a funk for thelast two weeks.
So this is my purge.
This is me getting it all outso that I can move on from this.
Because, as an empath, I'll tellyou this I felt for every
single one of these people andsome of these stories made me
physically sick.
I'm not gonna, let's just getinto it.
(06:18):
So the story that I experienced, that I just told you about how
could the client have donebetter, honestly scheduled a 10
minute face to face, on Zoom, oreven like a huddle in Slack or
fuck you know what.
Just tell me the Monday that wemet and had our weekly check in
(06:38):
and honestly tell me sooner inthe week why wait until the last
minute?
Cause it obviously was not alast minute decision and the
thing is no, you know what.
These types of conversations arenot easy to have, but the
reality is, as a founder, as abusiness owner, as a CEO
whatever the fuck you wanna callyourself you have to have the
(07:00):
stomach for hard conversations.
You have to be able and readyand willing to have these
conversations.
It's part and parcel of the gig.
So I am going to share a few ofthese stories with you now,
ones that didn't have too manyidentifying details, but I want
you to understand that everystory I'm about to share with
(07:20):
you, it was not just one personwho's experienced this, like
multiple dozens of people sharedsimilar stories.
Okay, the first one, I guess thesecond one cause mine was the
first, but the first one, frompeople who shared their stories,
was all about the client whoinitiates the charge back
Clients who charge back fees forservices that they have paid
(07:42):
and received.
Let me tell you, there are alot of people who experienced
this and it's mind-boggling tome.
On the one hand, I canunderstand if you're a service
provider like, how do you provethat you provided a service to
someone?
But a lot of people whoreceived charge backs were
operations people or webdesigners.
(08:02):
Holy shit, what do you all haveagainst web designers, jesus?
I remember when the internetfirst started yes, I'm old.
I had learned how to do verybasic HTML coding, like I did
websites not fancy websites byany stretch of the imagination,
but I did websites.
I know how hard it is to createa website.
I've seen people createwebsites.
(08:23):
I've worked with websitedevelopers.
It's not an easy job, and forsomeone to receive a fully
fleshed out website and then tolike charge back for that, it's
absolute bullshit.
There was one particularinstance.
This one was the one that mademe physically ill.
There was a service providerwho had done months of work
(08:44):
putting together entire systems,really training team members,
doing a lot of operations workover the span of several months
and at the end of it, after theyfinally left the business
because there were some otherproblems that were going on.
So they dissolved theircontract with the client and
they moved on, suddenly wake upto a charge back notice to the
(09:06):
tune of $30,000.
I want you to let that sink in.
A charge back of a couple ofhundreds, sometimes even a
couple of thousands, like thatcan absolutely cripple a
business owner, because when youinitiate a charge back, that
money is almost immediatelytaken out of your account and
given to the person who paid.
(09:27):
And then it is yourresponsibility, in most cases as
a service provider, to file adispute and to you know the
burden.
Proof is on you to prove thatyou provided this particular
service or product.
But that can then take weeks,sometimes months, to be
rectified, if at all.
Like I don't know what the statis, but I don't know that I've
actually ever heard of a serviceprovider who has successfully
(09:49):
disputed a charge back.
I don't know of anybody who has, and so now this particular
service provider is in aposition of quite possibly
having to file for bankruptcy.
Like a charge back cripplespeople and I think that
sometimes we forget that thereare actual human beings on the
(10:11):
end of these services, of thesebusinesses.
It blows my mind.
It absolutely does.
Now there are a lot of reasons aclient can be unhappy, right,
unrealistic expectations.
Maybe there were lapses incommunication, maybe the work
wasn't delivered as promised,but every single story I heard,
like I said, was, the clientsaid nothing about being unhappy
(10:32):
and just I got a notification.
I got a notification of acharge back after the work was
completed.
Most service providers arewilling to fix things if you're
unhappy with them.
I mean obviously within reason,right?
That's why scopes of work existand that's why you need to
understand as a client, you'regoing to pay more if you want
changes that weren't in theoriginal agreement but that may
be outside of having resultedfrom a mistake that the service
(10:55):
provider made.
But why is it so hard to havethese grown up conversations?
Why is it so hard for you tosay look, I wasn't happy with
the result, can we talk about it?
But to just initiate a chargeback, that's bullshit.
There were a couple of otherstories from web designers, like
I said, where you know oneparticular web designer.
They created a website for aclient, they completed it, it
(11:15):
was delivered on time,successfully, and the very next
day their website was apparentlyhacked I have that in air
quotes hacked, and they wereadamant that all of the work had
been lost and, as a result,didn't want to pay the service
provider.
They didn't want to pay the webdesigner because you know it
was their fault that somethingallowed these hackers to get in.
(11:37):
Long story short, I don't wantto give too many details, but it
turns out the website was nothacked, the client just didn't
want to pay the designer thefull amount.
I don't even know what to sayto that.
There was another web designerwho did a web design and a
hosting service for a friend,not even a random client.
A friend gave them the friendsand family discount and, after a
(11:58):
year of working together, senta renewal email.
Didn't hear from them.
Sent a reminder.
Didn't hear from them.
Sent another reminder, stillcompletely ghosted.
Finally, they sent an emailsaying look, per contract, I'm
going to pull the plug in 21days.
21 days came and passed.
They pulled the plug.
(12:18):
Lo and behold, two days later,a team member reaches out and
asks for website access throughFacebook, of all places.
Service provider says please goand see your bosses, not going
to happen.
One week later, a new developeremails for a bunch of website
details.
Service provider says verykindly, please fuck off.
It just boggles my mind andthat person also did not get
(12:42):
paid for their time, for theirmoney, for their investment
Ridiculous.
Then there were a whole bunch ofstories of like little red
flags that aren't red flagsuntil you see them all kind of
lined up and then you're likeholy shit, that client's a giant
walking red flag.
There were a whole bunch ofinstances where people were
booking calls with serviceproviders and then not showing
(13:03):
up for those calls and thenrebooking and not showing up for
them and then rebooking again,and it was just ridiculous, like
if you're going to book a calland not make it cancel, I'll
tell you, this is why someservice providers actually have
the caveat that if you book acall and you miss, you're going
to have to pay for the next call, right?
Unless there's a really goodreason for doing it.
In one particular instancewhere a service provider
(13:24):
actually went out of their wayto book a discovery call outside
of business hours because therewas a time zone mismatch,
because the client was on travelat the time.
Now, when the call time came,they were not there.
So they booked it again andthey booked it again and the
third time was a charm, they didshow up, but they were late for
the call.
Anyway, that was a red flag.
(13:46):
But also the client had a lotof excuses and reasons why it
happened and this person has avery big heart.
They were like, okay, cool,let's just, let's just go.
They had a really greatdiscovery call.
The client says, yep, let'ssign, and the service provider
sent an invoice and a contractand a month goes by with
absolutely no word from theclient.
At this point the serviceprovider's thinking this is
(14:07):
probably not a good fit.
But then the client pops upagain and manipulates them into
taking them on.
Now most of us who've been inthe space for a while probably
would have been like I don'tknow, it doesn't feel good and
it's easy for us to sit here andsay that was a red flag.
The service provider shouldhave just put their foot down.
Can I just take a moment andsay when I was in corporate and
(14:29):
there were people who were likeI'm really unhappy in this job,
the thing that pissed me off themost was other people who would
say then go find another job.
Like it's that fucking simple.
If it was that easy to just goand get another job, we'd all be
working in jobs we loved and Isee it now in the online space.
When a client behaves badly anda service provider is told well
(14:51):
, go find another client, firethat client, go find someone
else Again.
If it was that easy to findclients, we'd all be working
with clients we loved and we'dall be fully booked out.
So please reserve your judgmentand your shame.
The service provider did workwith them when they came on
(15:11):
board.
Here's a red flag behavior theclient lied to them in the
discovery call, said that theywere going to have a whole team
to work with.
There was no team.
There was a VA, that's it.
So the service provider endedup doing a lot of implementation
work they weren't supposed todo.
Then you've got clients who arejust never available during
business hours.
(15:31):
They're off doing I don't knowliving life, which is great.
All of us entrepreneurs want tobe able to have a flexible
lifestyle and whatnot, but ifyou have a team that is tasked
with doing things that requireyour input, you, as a client,
need to be available.
You need to be there.
Then you've got clients whobreak scope consistently.
(15:52):
You have this is what you'vehired me to do.
Well, can we do this?
Can we change that?
Again, it's not always easy tosay no, especially if you need
the money.
In this economy, we all needthe fucking money.
We've seen the price of bananaslately, jesus.
You've got clients who insistteam members put people on
mailing lists without permission.
You've got team members whoconsistently throw you under the
(16:14):
bus for no reason.
You've got clients who don'tpay you on time or at all.
There are so many shittybehaviors that people do on a
regular basis and think thatit's okay, not understanding
that this impacts people's lives.
Yes, a lot of these are lessonslearned, but you know what?
We shouldn't have to learn,these lessons?
(16:35):
That's, I think, really thepoint of what I'm trying to say
here.
Other bad behaviors Clientsquestioning pricing.
Clients are going to havequestions about specific
services and prices, but clientswho tell you that it shouldn't
cost that much.
That's not cool.
A service provider sets theprices.
They set for a lot of reasons,based on hope, hopefully a lot
(16:55):
of data and just theirexperience and what they've done
and what they're able to do,and you don't get to negotiate
that or tell someone they'recharging too much for something.
If something is too expensiveor out of scope for you, go find
it somewhere else.
There are a lot of behaviorsthat just do not feel good.
Those are the vast majority ofthe ones that I shared with you
(17:18):
just now, but there are a lot ofother red flags that have come
up that I want to share with youso that you know and I'm
talking to both the client andthe service provider If you are
a client who hires a lot ofservice providers, please listen
to this.
If you are a service provider,please listen to this.
Again, none of these thingsnecessarily have to be deal
breakers because you can talkabout them.
(17:41):
I think a lot of these, again,could be rectified if people
just were honest with each otherand had open, honest
conversations.
But I also understand thatconversational safety is not
something a lot of people areaware of how to create Right.
So, again, not necessarily dealbreakers, but they should make
your inner mirror cap pop up alittle bit and pay attention.
(18:03):
There were a number of otherstories that came up, things
like clients insisting somethingshouldn't take long, like, look
, if you're delegating a taskthat you know nothing about or
very little about, please don'ttell the service provider, aka
the expert, how long you thinksomething is going to take,
unless you've done it multipletimes in the past.
It signals a lack of respectfor the service provider's
(18:24):
expertise.
And if you've hired them andlet them do their job right,
allow them to provide you withan estimate and then, yeah, go
ahead and ask all the questionsthat you want, but don't tell
people how long something shouldtake.
I once had a client who had meand the web developer and the
marketing person put togetherthis really complicated funnel.
There was a primary product andseveral upsells and a whole
bunch of bump offers and each ofthem had their own nurture
(18:47):
sequence and funnel and blah,blah, blah.
This took about two months toput together and get it to the
client's liking, and about threeor four days before we were due
to launch it, client changestheir mind about a couple of
things.
He wants us to move a couple ofoffers around and change this
to a bump offer versus that one.
And when I said this isprobably going to take an extra
two weeks, they were like, well,that's ridiculous.
(19:08):
All you need to do is move acouple of buttons in the back
end, don't you?
No, you have to rewrite emailsequences.
You have to set up all the techagain.
You have to make sure that theright buttons are connected to
the right offers and the rightsequences and that things are
triggering properly.
It's a very long process and Ithink that that is something
that a lot of service providersexperience, right, who think
(19:30):
something shouldn't take as longor they should only take this
much time, right?
That's like a really big redflag.
So, again, have theconversation with your client,
explain to them why it's takingthat long, because, again, it's
not something that is malicious,it's probably just they don't
really understand and you, as aclient, please defer to your
(19:51):
service provider, defer to theexpert that you hired.
There were a number of storiesof service providers who had
interviewed for a particularposition, were asked for samples
of work or to do like a testproject.
And I'm just going to say thisthis isn't fucking Costco.
All right, you don't get freesamples.
If you want to see people'swork, you pay for their work,
(20:14):
and this is especially importantin interviews for freelance
jobs.
If a client's asking you to doa work-based task as part of the
interview, they shouldethically pay you for your time.
In fact, in some states, it'sillegal not to pay for work done
, even if it's part of theinterview process.
There were a lot of serviceproviders who experienced
(20:34):
clients who were talking shitabout past hires.
Right and again, this oneshould be kind of
self-explanatory, but just incase it's not, there's a fine
line between having something tosay about the work output and
having something to say aboutsomeone period.
It'd be like showing up for acorporate interview and then,
when they ask you why you leftyour last job, saying because my
boss was a dick, like it's nota good thing, it's really shitty
(20:57):
behavior.
You shouldn't do it, becausethe first thing I think is well,
if and when I leave, what areyou going to say about me?
What are you saying behind myback?
It's not a good feeling.
Oh, there were a bunch ofpeople who actually shared this
one, and in fact I've been onthe receiving end of this as
well.
When clients advertise oneparticular rate of pay on a job
ad and then they hire you andsuddenly have a problem paying
(21:19):
that or they change the rate ofpay altogether, if they're going
to lie right at the start, it'snot going to get any better.
That's something that I havelearned.
There are clients who have aproblem with you having other
clients.
They're not paying you as afull-time employee.
You're still getting work donejust fine, but they have a
problem with the fact that youhave other clients.
You're not available 24 hours aday, right, and you shouldn't
(21:41):
be.
And this kind of segues intoclingy clients, people expecting
responses immediately and thensending several messages or
emails in the span of an hourbecause you didn't respond to
them, or the opposite.
Like I said, you can go dayswithout hearing from them.
That's not good.
So there are lots of thingsthat people have experienced,
kind of collectively in theservice provider space that,
(22:02):
again, it's not something thatmakes or breaks a business, but
it can definitely make or breaka relationship.
And so, if you experienced anyof these things, one of the
things that I'm going to reallyask you to maybe try is speak to
the client.
Speak to them, have theconversation, explain to them as
(22:22):
kindly as possible why thisdoesn't feel good.
And again, I know that's reallyhard.
It's easy for me to say sittinghere behind a microphone, but a
lot of business owners don'treally understand.
They don't know how it impactsanything other than their own
business.
We see it in corporate all thetime, with people who have
massive, massive budgets andmassive, massive teams.
(22:43):
It's natural that it wouldhappen in this space as well,
but from a service providerperspective it doesn't feel good
.
So if you are a clientlistening, just take note that
there are better ways to do thisand 90% of the time I'd wager
it can be fixed with an honestconversation.
Because, again, we can sit hereand say when you know better,
you do better.
But we don't always know how todo better and I think more of
(23:06):
us need to be able and willingto have conversations.
Have I said that enough?
I don't know.
Anyway, this is a six-time.
I'm recording this.
Hopefully this came across,because now I don't remember
what I said in version fiveversus version two.
All I can say is you can havesuccess without the BS, because
there's a lot of fucking BS outthere.
You don't have to engage in it.
(23:28):
I will see you next week.
My friends, have a good one andstay safe.
That's it for this week.
Thanks for listening to theBusiness Blast for Me podcast.
We'll be back next week with anew episode, but in the meantime
, help us to stir out bysubscribing and, if you're
feeling extra sassy, rating thispodcast, and don't forget to
share the podcast with othersHead over to
(23:48):
businessblastformepodcastcom toconnect with us and learn more.
Thanks for listening andremember you can have success
without the BS.
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