I had a couple of different themes in mind when I decided I was going to write this post, in my head it started as a debate between customer loyalty versus customer satisfaction and then turned to a discussion of the types of clients people in professional services come across and finally wound up as what it will be, a discussion of when it is time to tell a client you can no longer do their work (essentially fire them) and how to bow out of it gracefully. So from here on out I will stick to the topic of just when and how you should fire a client.

Upfront I will say that the phrase “fire your client” has some distinctly negative connotations but it got your attention or you wouldn’t be here so remember it’s just a headline.

When To Fire A Client

If you work in a service related business and specifically one where you charge your clients based on time invested or where you have given a flat fee but have only budget “x” number of hours, then you will know that inevitably you will come across clients who are just so difficult to deal with that either the work you are doing for them or the work you are doing for someone else suffers. I am not talking about the client who is a day or two late with payments (though be wary of those as well), rather I am talking about one of several different types of clients who can actually hamper your overall business if you are not careful. You have probably dealt with these types of clients before but see if any of these ring a bell Continue Reading…

As I have written about previously, I have the good fortune of being educated as a lawyer and being called to the Bar in Ontario which means that I have spent a little bit of time practicing law as well. During that time and due to the fact that my father is one of the most respectable lawyers in his field I have learned a few of the tricks of the trade and have been able to apply those to my business life. One of those lessons that I have often shared with my colleagues or those who I completed my MBA with is this: Be Careful What You Say On Voice mail.

Seems like a simple enough piece of advice and for the most part one that you would suspect intelligent business people are already cognizant of. The fact of the matter is that what you say in your voice mail is quotable, it is your direct words and sometimes even gives binding directions (e.g. you tell your lawyer to settle a case) to the party you are leaving the message for. Yet somehow or for some reason people decide to ramble when leaving voice mail messages. They say things that they have no business saying or that have no real relevance to the message they are leaving and literally the minute they hang up the phone they have no real recollection of exactly what they said. This opens the door to large potential problems or at least a “gotcha” type moment.

Think about it. How many times do you read an email before sending it off to a potential customer, partner or someone you are negotiating with? You have the chance to proof it and those who are truly prudent will often have someone else take a read before sending it off just to ensure the message is clear. Further to that, you have a permanent record of exactly what you wrote, it sits there in your sent messages folder and there is no disputing what was sent, to whom and at what time.

Now let me turn back to voice mail. I do not know why, but people feel the need to say every single thing that is on their mind in a voice mail message. It is a rare case that (prior to the call) someone actually takes the time to methodically think about what they want to say and exactly what the point of their phone call is. When that call gets picked up by voice mail they end up rambling on about multiple topics and (as stated earlier) at the end of the call they probably could not tell you exactly what they said, only that they covered this or that topic (most likely forgetting some).

So why is this important? What is it that I know that you should too? It is actually so simple yet pretty brilliant from the lawyer’s side. Ready…

They take your voice mail and have it transcribed! Yes word for word everything you said is then right there in black and white. Take it one step further and you get the 3rd party (most likely the lawyer’s admin) to swear an affidavit that the words in the transcript are exactly what was left on voice mail and now you have a legally binding sworn statement referencing your voice mail.

With the fact that your entire message will be transcribed, now think about those same rambling messages that you leave where you don’t really realize what you have committed yourself to until it is presented to you right there in black and white. It becomes pretty hard to argue “I didn’t say that” when there is a legally sworn document saying you absolutely did “say that”.

So all this is to say that my advice is simple: Choose your words carefully the next time you hear an answering machine’s beep.