2.7K
Downloads
89
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
Thursday Jul 15, 2021
Thursday Jul 15, 2021
In our 14th take at Client Horror Stories, we have Will Rico, CEO of CommonMind, along with a parade of mentors, telling us probably the weirdest yet most gripping and surprising story so far. Today’s tale is the compilation of horror, random, and sometimes positively surprising situations that went along in Will’s 9-year long relationship with his then mentor.
Will takes us back to 2001, when he was just a 27-year-old starting a company and renting an office from his high-school boss, who couldn’t help but try to get involved in the young startup’s business. Little did we know that he would not actually end up being the trouble-maker, but actually the guy that he introduced Will to in order to create (what he thought would be) a fantastic deal.
The narrative that Will walks us through has everything from drama, sweet-angel wives, sketchy guys with a lot of stories to tell, and even unexpected (and later on canceled) inheritances, to end up with very wise advice: Choose your mentors wisely, don’t take advice from just anyone, and learn how to say “no”.
Links:
Tuesday Jul 06, 2021
Tuesday Jul 06, 2021
Take 13th at Client Horror Stories is starred by Anthony Highman, along with an exclusive selection of what he considered his top-notch horror stories of many years in the industry. In a quick and easy short story method, Anthony walks us through the perks and quirks of what it takes to engage in a committed and beneficial for both parts working relationship.
Anthony’s tales have everything that a captivative story needs: plot twists, cross-state driving, lawyers, conflictive exes (even the marketing world has them!), and the perfect amount of fishing metaphors. All the drama and random turns that today’s episode has are nothing compared to everything we can learn from them.
Reaching the end, Morgan and Anthony agree that working with clients has three big and essential keys: Being able to explain your strategies and the decisions you make, understanding what your client’s real objectives are (even if they include firing the person who hired you), and building a trust-based relationship from the very beginning.
Literacy quotes:
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” - Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
Links:
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: