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Tales from those on the front lines of dealing with clients. Tales of difficult clients, complex situations, relationship management - and how massive client management problems were solved, and what they learned. Largely those running agencies, but all across different professional services.
Episodes
Tuesday Dec 21, 2021
Tuesday Dec 21, 2021
Today’s story might as well fall under the “Managing Horror Stories” category because that’s exactly what it is. Kison Patel, CEO and Founder of M&A Science and DealRoom brings us a tale on the insights of starting a business that you really believe — and trying to save it at all costs.
Kison’s tale takes us back a couple of years, to the time where he decided to chase an idea he was passionate about, along with his partner who also was a very dear friend. And the first thing that he teaches us about is this one: no matter how excited you are about it, take the time to evaluate the product and business model you are pursuing before it’s too late and things start crashing all around you.
In Client Horror Stories #25, Kison brings along a couple of powerful managing secrets, such as the importance of creating an environment where people feel comfortable communicating their thoughts and feelings (even when it’s bad news), acknowledging people’s achievements, and creating a culture where colleagues feel like friends that are happy to work together.
To wrap up Kison’s story, he and Morgan reach the end with a super interesting addendum that only strives to fulfill their #1 conclusion: how essential it is to keep feedback going and to be able to give and receive criticism.
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Tuesday Dec 14, 2021
Tuesday Dec 14, 2021
Andrew Kemendo is the Principal Architect, AI at Unity Technologies, and also the star of Client Horror Stories #24. Today, he brings us a story that has that one killer combo: just enough drama to keep you gripping, and just enough lessons learned to know it was time well invested.
Andrew’s tale brings us back a couple of years ago, to a young startup dedicated to creating augmented reality experiences who accepted what looked like an unbelievable deal from a huge company meant to be their hero case. And even though they were for a little while, Andrew wouldn’t be here if that would’ve remained the situation.
Out of the blue calls to demand a demo from one week to another (even though you weren’t supposed to have it for two more months) & trying to pull their software to massively fail in the way are just a couple of the dramatic highlights this story brings along. Reaching the end, Andrew gives us some powerful lessons on how important it is to never dedicate completely to one project, aligning with your client’s entire company and not just themselves, and overall understanding that it’s not only your client who hires you, but you also hire them.
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Monday Dec 06, 2021
Monday Dec 06, 2021
How often do you see a headline like that? Well, that’s because not often we get stories like this. On today’s episode, we have our first ever guest from the finance world: Liz Farr, Founder & CEO of Farr Communications, telling us an incredibly dramatic story, filled with incredible twists and lessons.
Liz’s story takes us back to 15 years ago, when handwritten tax notes and mail filing your returns were not red flags at all… unless they actually were. Apparently, even when you refuse to pay your taxes for 10 years, you might still want the documentation in order to continue developing your tax-avoiding business.
Being a powerful combo that includes horse riding while balloon shooting, IRS agents, vanishing clients, and massive debt, today’s tale has a lot to teach us on retainer costs, gut-instinct listening, and the risk of being too close to the person you are working for.
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Tuesday Nov 30, 2021
Tuesday Nov 30, 2021
Today’s episode brings us, straight from Hollywood, Rick Schirmer, CEO & Founder of Viral Brand, with a super interesting and incredibly well told story that, regardless of the horror that made it CHS worthy, actually has a happy ending.
Rick’s tale brings us back to 2020 (or, as he calls it, the “pause” year) when he took under his wing a “cut deal” client with very little experience, and a lot of expectations. Along with some very powerful lessons on cheap clients, setting boundaries, and trusting your instinct, Rick shares with us a key learning from the whole experience: the inequality generated when someone gives you something that means everything to them, and very little to you. And yes, no matter how deep that sounds, we are talking about budget.
“Influencer sommelier” and “delusional button” are only a couple of awesome concepts that we’ll definitely steal from Rick, and definitely only a peak at how fun this story turned out to be.
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Monday Sep 27, 2021
Monday Sep 27, 2021
In our 21st take at Client Horror Stories, we have Ben Nuttall, Software Engineer at BBC News Labs, with a story that, from the very beginning, has us wondering what’s with people’s common sense: showing up for an interview all dressed up, only to have the interviewer receive you in shorts and flip flops, and announcing that the person who called you in was no longer working there.
Ben’s tale takes us back to 2011, when the apps market was flourishing, and everyone trusted them to get them instant success. So much that a properties company figured it was a great idea to have a small team developing quick and easy apps to make some extra money. But you see the problem with having an absolutely unrelated industry’s company dive in the app development business is that they actually believe two people and one designer can develop 2 apps everyday, and believe pushing employees to the edge is the right way to accomplish it.
Today’s narrative brings us a bunch of different horror moments, such as bosses that take you to their offices to yell at you until you quit, so they don’t have to fire you, and other bosses that hire someone’s son to be your boss, even though they have 19 years old and zero experience. Along with a wide variety of absolutely bizarre and unbelievable moments, the older and more experienced version of Ben can’t believe he actually went through.
However, as every good story does, Ben’s one leaves us with some very valuable tips and lessons: First of all, if something smells weird, don’t hesitate to ask someone you know and trust in your industry what they think about it. Secondly, find people to learn from, and make sure you have at least some of them in your workplace. And finally, even bad experiences can be worth living, even if it’s just for the hope of it all.
About Ben:
Ben is a software engineer building prototypes for BBC News, and previously spent 6 years at the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Ben likes Python, Linux and all things open source.
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Morgan Friedman