All Entrepreneurs must have faced situations where everyone around tried bullshitting us – be it the suppliers, employees, government, taxmen, janitors and who not.
- Sir, your systems have left from my office and will be reaching in 30 mins (they had to be collected 2 days later yourself)
- Sir, I am not feeling well (and the person is attending interview somewhere)
- Sir, the rules have changed, kindly fill up this form also for compliance
- Sir, you have defaulted on the stupidity tax for starting a business. Pay ASAP
- Sir, I have been cleaning the office regularly without fail. No one works as hard as me here
Sometimes we do let go, but more often than not we are confident enough to call this Bullshit – BULLSHIT. But how often do we say that to our CLIENTS?
- You have to deliver it today itself OR I am calling off the project
- These are the new requirements, I want it to be completed within the same deadlines
- You understood incorrectly, that is not what I had said earlier
“Client is God”, “Client and Boss are always Right” and as Vinit B says here “don’t get angry in front of the customer, irrespective of whose fault it is” (his is a different story though) are some of the most used phrases in Corporate world. But then, where do you (if ever) draw a Lakshman Rekha with clients.
Well, I am confident there would be 8000 different Lakshman Rekha’s for the 8000 Rodinhooders here.
We faced a similar situation recently and had to draw a line when the client commented on our Integrity.
Backstory: One of our long term client (lets call her Ms A) referred us to her associate (lets call her Ms. B) for web development services. We were confident that (due to the referral route) Ms B would have better impression of us. However, things were not sounding as smooth while interacting with Ms B.
She probed our work (as is every client’s right), questioned on every tiny aspect of work (as again, is every client’s right) and decided to act as bossy (yet again, as client is expected to do). We were coping up with Ms B, but in anticipation of this engagement breaking up somewhere. Well, we didn’t have to wait long. Soon, Ms B crossed the line and claimed we had billed her despite instructions to hold off the work.
We decided to call this Bullshit – BULLSHIT.
We gathered data of Skype logs and work diary entries and shot off the below mail.
Failing to gather any contrary data, the client agreed to our point and apologized. We politely conveyed our will to continue working with her, but have not heard back since.
Am sure there would be similar interesting stories of conflicts with Client. Would be glad to hear them.
Suhas
Good to see a hard hitting reply to your client backed by facts. Its always important to have adequate paper work , mail trails in any business transactions. The concept of “Client is right & God” may hold true for a vast majority of clients; however there are several rogue clients who go back on commitment or default on payments. For such clients; you need to be real blunt.
Regarding the bullshitting that one gets to hear in daily life; its a real sad state of affairs and a commentary on the ethics and value system.The worst thing is that the guy bullshitting is aware that the opposite person knows he is bullshiting; but still blatantly proceeds to bullshit !!
Being in recruitment industry; we get to hear this quite often !! Coincidently on the day of interview the candidate is a) either down with fever or has a parent / kid who has been urgently hospitalised b) some relative is critical / hospitalised or died c) candidate or some close friend / relative has met with an accident d) has forgotten the interview schedule [ this after repeated reminders !] and the list goes on !! While few may be genuine cases; but after hearing such BS; even the genuine cases are taken with pinch of salt !
Karan Ahuja
counter bullshit with mega bullshit 🙂
scare them , wow them ,confuse them
stop their minds – no matter what.
Do whatever it takes to ensure you get the results that you can 🙂
TC,
Karan
Nilesh Jain
I am going through a same situation. Client doesn’t pickup calls nor answers email or FB private messages. Money Stuck since last 10 months and i know its not coming. BS.
Karan Ahuja
Guys – we should all charge on prepaid basis and offer full money back guarantee.
what do you think ?
TC
Karan
Nilesh Jain
I usually ask the client for advance quarterly payments and then you know 🙂
It does not always work the way we expect it to and then as @Kunal says,,BS happens 😛
Kunal Bhusare
Unfortunately no one can do that Karan. It won’t work in the long term.
Being Entrepreneurs we have to give the respect our Clients deserve, but also ensure to draw that line somewhere.
Mayank Chandan
Kunal,
I liked your counter approach. I can completely relate these to myself as I have been into same stream at times.
I feel it’s always to important to keep customer’s expectation under control. Some time being too nice with them costs on the business.
If you do free consulting to them for being nice and humble, some times they get addicted to it and they don’t pay you unless you write a code for them. They tend to forget that they are consulting to us which is the usage of our expertise.