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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
Friday Jun 11, 2021
Friday Jun 11, 2021
In this week’s take, we receive Paul Stephenson, founder, and CEO of 47 Insights, who tells us a story on going back to working with clients after many years in consultancy, and how to take a harsh come back to the industry. All along his hearing process, we have the chance to take on a lesson or two on following our guts, being able to detect yellow flags (and realizing the moment where they start getting darker), and know how and when we should settle boundaries.
Client Horror Stories’ 10th take (Yay!) is a great opportunity to figure out which type of business we should avoid working with, and when’s the moment to press pause and back down. Paul here teaches us 2 key points for life: First one it’s that sometimes it’s ok to leave a project, opportunities will always come along. And the second one is that everyone is smart and rational until the friend of a friend gets rich by doing something they are not doing.
Paul here narrates the whole story of how a new ambitious start-up managed to drag him into their own internal process (Trello and Slack included) and created a whole mess with his productivity system. So much that not even Paul’s intentions to be always 100% honest and communicative were able to solve it.
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Thursday Jun 03, 2021
Thursday Jun 03, 2021
In our 9th take of Client Horror Stories, we have Josh Silverbauer, CEO of Great Big Digital Agency, opening up with the line “When you are a CEO, saying “yes” can take you very far, but sometimes you just reach a point where you wished you’d said “no ``''. From then on, he tells us a tale protagonist by a (former) celebrity of the holistic environment whose only concern was to remain famous and his partners with very strong opinions about absolutely everything.
Josh’s story has the usual randomness and drama that we love but includes a twist that’s both rare and inspiring to witness: the ability to admit when you’ve also got yourself to blame. Months and months of meetings just to choose a logo, a print artist wallpapering the office with your web designs, social media haters raging against your client, and a $120.000 blog are just a couple of the keywords for today’s episode.
Josh leaves us with a couple of lessons on the whole concept of saying “no”, as well as being able to express to a client what’s necessary for their project to succeed, and the ability to draw a limit on what you will not be willing to take back and forth anymore. Sometimes clients simply won’t get it, and sometimes it’s all a matter of figuring out what “value” means for them, and making sure you are fulfilling it.
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Literacy quotes (from every culture):
"You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." - Batman: The Dark Knight
Friday May 28, 2021
Friday May 28, 2021
Today’s Client Horror Story is the short version of a horrifying scandal with Will Haire, CEO & Founder of BellaVix, as the protagonist along with the kind of person who has a Zoom call while he drives. In our 8th take, we bring you a tale full of drama, randomness, and emails telling people that they are a complete piece of a**, and all of that in just 30 minutes.
Will’s narration takes us on a trip of discovery of the many aspects that build a proper and bright deal, including hiring the right project managers (you know, those that are so good they become your client’s go-to to talk trash about their partners), doing the required background checks, and even making sure that you are talking with the person that is actually making the decisions.
So today's story leaves us with a big lesson on trusting our instincts and listen to them when something seems weird at first (even if it’s just a promissing young man), making sure that our brands are correctly represented in every possible aspect, and Will’s personal advice on how to deal with horror clients: Just recommend them to your competitors.
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Friday May 21, 2021
Friday May 21, 2021
On our seventh take at Client Horror Stories, we receive Stephanie Schwab, CEO, and Founder of Crackerjack, who tells us a story that sounds weird from the beginning, even if she only realized during the interview, when a colleague that you met 3 weeks ago has a project that appears to be a match made in heaven for complementing what both your companies do.
So the first yellow flag comes up when he brings in the fact that he’s not actually partnering up with you, and simplifies it with a short “You bill us, and we’ll bill the client” to make things quick and easy. So how surprising must have been to find out that, in fact, they were also being outsourced by the company the client was actually hiring, right?
So this messed up chain of command that looked much more like a children’s phone game obviously needed to end up blowing, and the blow up involved everything from delayed payments, micromanaging, and even end up talking sh*t about your not-so-partner on the phone with the main company.
This story gives us a lesson on confidence, integrity, upfrontness, and being able to call for an attorney once the situation begins to get weird. And all of it in the times where “Influencer Marketing” was just called “Working with bloggers”.
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Friday May 14, 2021
Friday May 14, 2021
In our sixth take at Client Horror Stories, we have FM Byers, CEO and Founder of SM Digital Partners telling us a tale that involves drama, diversity, round tables, and maybe too much ambition.
Our story begins with a random meeting on a cruise that soon would be followed by a two-year-long back and forth that included everything (from product developments, translators, many flight tickets, and even elementary-school children) except an actual written contract or agreement.
FM’s tale tells us everything we need to know on how to handle cross-cultural clients, take risks, explore our patients, and realizing that sometimes it’s just time to go. This story gives us a lesson or two on how to be genuine and create real value, and just take a moment to come to a conclusion: Maybe people just won’t get it, and maybe our ideas work, but the timing just wasn’t right.
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Literacy quotes:
“This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.” - T. S. Eliot