Just Say No
Sorry, this has nothing to do with Nancy Reagan or the war on drugs.
I’m talking about saying no to a potential trouble client, and stopping client headaches before they begin.
I learned this lesson the other day after talking to some colleagues about a client that came in for a consultation. We’ll call that client “Pat.” Pat was willing to pay top dollar for our services (sweet!), but something just didn’t feel right to us (hmm…).
Pat was 20 minutes late for the meeting, and even after seeing our portfolio, s/he wanted to see more examples. We obliged, and a seemingly unimpressed Pat asked us to send a quote. Then s/he left.
We could tell Pat wasn’t too excited about our portfolio or our services (which is fine, you can’t please everyone). And by being late, s/he clearly didn’t value our time. To us, that meant working with Pat would be akin to partaking in a series of unpleasant root canals.
So instead of sending a quote, to which Pat could potentially say “yes” and both parties would unhappily sludge through the project, we decided to Just Say No. Sure, the money would have been nice, but what about the headaches?
By politely telling the client that it’s not a good fit, you can end any future problems from the start. You can even refer the client to someone who would be a better match. Chances are the client will see the mismatch too and appreciate the honesty and the referral. Furthermore, the person Pat decides to go with will appreciate the business. You can please three people just by saying no!
Nancy was right about something.
Jace Krause is a independent copywriter and in-house word guy at Design Kompany. When he’s not writing words, he writes music and plays guitar for local pop outfit, Friday Mile. He lives in Seattle, Wash.
April 25th, 2007 at 9:53 am
Nice one, Jace. Glad you guys are being aware of who you love working with versus who you don’t. The ones you don’t love are total time wasters and energy vampires.
April 25th, 2007 at 10:37 am
This is also why you do not want to ask troublesome clients for referrals — you end up getting the same type of unhappy and/or hard to satisfy type of person as a referral.
Referrals from happy clients, on the other hand, are golden.
April 30th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Amen Jace! I’ve run into this in my business as well. There have been a couple of times where I just didn’t feel right about a situation, but denied my gut to get the business. Turns out, I have better instincts than I originally thought!
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Ohhh, but this takes some serious backbone (at least initially, when the clients aren’t as plentiful)! However, for the sake of your collective sanity and work satisfaction, there is not much better advice. I think there is something to be said for following your instincts - they will not often lead you astray, as Stephanie points out. Granted, there is no iron-clad insurance policy that an initially pleasant customer won’t turn into a freak later on, but first impressions can be enough to act on… decisively.
Jerry
http://www.leads4insurance.com
May 21st, 2007 at 2:27 am
One thing I’ve been doing since early in my consulting days is to run a Dunn & Bradstreet credit check on all potential customers before signing a contract. I can count on one hand, with spare change, the # of customers I did not do this for. Those two or three customers were the only customers I ever had any payment problems with. The cost of a DnB account is rather low, and it also allows you to see how your business looks in the eyes of potential creditors!