Business Owners: Evaluate if a Troublesome Client Is Worth Your Time and Effort

My journey from a 15-year-old out on her own with only a ninth-grade education to a successful business owner that puts millions of dollars a year into our economy each year is a story of street smarts and how to access information, support, and a survivor’s spirit.

An unplanned pregnancy led me to marry in high school. I was a bird pushed out of the nest who was about to either learn to fly or to crash. I did both.

I married at 15, had a baby at 19, and was on my own throughout most of those years. I had to learn how to survive on my own and then survive as a teenage single mother. My life literally went from trying to calculate how to get enough food for the week, to having successes I could never have dreamed of. Driven to find my way out of survival mode, I was hungry for more knowledge. To get there, I knew I needed a formal education.

I fast-tracked my undergraduate degree in cultural studies with a secondary in interpreting and started a career as a freelance interpreter. Eventually, my love for linguistics grew into owning my own business, Empire Interpreting Service, which is now an award-winning language service provider.

Evolving into my role as a successful businesswoman has meant learning how to stand up for myself, and more importantly my business — even if it means that I won’t make everyone around me happy all the time. I didn’t need to be a business owner long to find out I would navigate tricky situations with ill-matched or ill-mannered clients.

For example, there were times when I actually dreaded seeing a customer’s number pop up on my phone. As business owners, we should always be happy to see calls coming in and orders being placed. However, I learned that those moments of dread meant the customer was either high maintenance, demanding, or outright unreasonable.

As a business owner, there will be times when you need to re-evaluate your clients or customers, especially if you find that you don’t want to talk to them. Clients that are cringe-worthy are worth taking a hard look at.

First, ask yourself what are some of the mistakes you may be making as a vendor of services for that client that would make you recoil from contact with them?

1. Are you providing a service or product outside of your expertise?
   This often happens when a business is young. You want so much to produce revenue and increase sales that you go outside your area of expertise and try to make something work. You’ll end up frustrating your customer and expending too much time and energy that you never intended to provide in the first place.
   Solution: Be honest. Let your customers know you don’t provide the service or product and move on. Trying to provide something you know little about or have few resources for can ruin your reputation.
2. Is the customer extremely high maintenance? 
   This is when you need to know your numbers. Are you netting $50 on a project that took you six phone calls and 18 emails to provide?
   Solution: Every business owner should know what each hour of their time costs. Monetize  your time, and then decide if this customer is really a good fit for you.
3. Are they not paying, or they pay extremely slowly?
   Is your bookkeeper spending time each month trying to collect from a client? Are you going into your line of credit to pay for supplies or employees while you repeatedly wait for this customer to pay you? Time to rethink the client or have them pay upfront.
   Solution: Again, monetize the time of your staff.
4. Does the client make phishing calls. 
   Is the customer engaging in a series of calls to you and your competitors to see who will come in with the lowest price? These take time and money. While this may eventually result in a worthwhile contract, it could be a complete financial black hole for a one-hit wonder.
   Solution: If you’re constantly being asked for quotes and cost reductions, you may want to rethink this customer. The truth may be that you’re just not a good fit.

From my unconventional rise to success, I’ve learned that incompatibility with a client can reduce profits, make employees miserable, and suck my time. Knowing who you want to do business with, who you can create a good partnership with, and who you can provide an excellent service or product to will energize you — and will ultimately be good for business.

Written by Theresa Slater.

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