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.