2.6K
Downloads
82
Episodes
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 Jun 29, 2021
Tuesday Jun 29, 2021
In our 12th take at Client Horror Stories, Rachel Smith, PPC Manager at Platform 81, gets us involved in a tale where the actual horror ended up not actually coming from your client, but from your manager instead. Her story (which is told in an enchanting british accent, and accompanied by all sorts of fun british slang) has everything that a good story needs: Drama, hidden information, secret meetings, a really tall guy, and incredibly useful lessons.
Rachel’s narrative teaches us all we need to know when we are the new people in a legacy project, in a much valued client, and how crazy it can get when communication becomes a children’s telephone game. She also gives us some lessons on the type of managers who think that just because they know how to run a business they’ll know how to do everyone’s job better than them, on how to find your way around them, and how to force you into meetings you weren’t invited to.
Today’s story leaves us with a bittersweet taste in our mouths when we realize that, every now and then, we are just going to run into people who really need to be educated on the service that you are selling to them, and not just presenting a report once a month and hope that they understand all of it. In tales like this one, the key is to realize that not everyone can handle the same management style, and that there are moments where you really just have to stand up for yourself and do what has to be done.
Links:
Tuesday Jun 22, 2021
Tuesday Jun 22, 2021
In our eleventh take at Client Horror Stories, we have Jess McCarter sharing with us a story that started with a way longer meeting than necessary. One of those meetings where they discussed the solution to all the world's problems. And that was the start of many, many meetings like that.
Jess' tale takes us back 15 years when he was still a young start-up founder trying to climb his way in the custom software industry. He landed a massive client on the East Coast with a very ambitious idea that was way ahead of its time idea. Jess' team was blinded by the lights of this huge contract with an ambitious client. Previously they had worked only on small contracts with a fixed scope. But, of course, the team wanted a client with a vast open-ended project. It was an incredibly bright future, or so it seemed. Unfortunately, because due diligence ended up a very low priority, disaster lurked just around the corner.
With today's story, we learn a couple of lessons on managing clients, especially when we don't have so much experience yet, and when we actually believe in our client's project. And with that comes along one of our highlighted quotes of the day: "The only thing worse than no contract is a bad contract." And with that line, Jess pretty much summarizes everything there is to know about encountering the client version of the saying "Jack of all trades, master of none."
Reaching the very end of this tale, we learn that not every lousy client is a bad person and that working hard and being honest really pays off. Even if it's a couple of years later.
Links:
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.
Links:
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.
Links:
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.
Links: