Most shop owners keep a mental tally of clients and finances, even if you’re not the one making sales calls and running spreadsheets every day. And the last thing you want is a pissed-off client ripping you a new one for a situation that’s been brewing for a while, especially when the whole thing could have been solved by a simple chat earlier.
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Carl: I'm just, I don't know. Gene, that was not professional, I apologize.
Gene: Yes.
Carl: To no one.
Gene: And you should.
Carl: Gene, you know what we're talking about today?
Gene: No idea. Never do.
Carl: Client management, kind of.
Gene: Oh. [crosstalk 00:00:53] I still don't know.
Carl: Are you taking notes? Let me explain it this way. A lot of people are talking about how they can't find enough people to do the work they're getting, because they have so many clients. They have so much work. Wow [inaudible 00:01:10].
Gene: It's good to be you.
Carl: [inaudible 00:01:13] try jet ski, I mean [inaudible 00:01:15] I will have one. But everybody's trying to find more people to do the work. I think maybe we look at it from a different angle. What if you had fewer clients?
Gene: I'm on that trajectory.
Carl: But you charge them more.
Gene: Oh yeah. That's brilliant. Right?
Carl: My bedroom voice. What if you had fewer clients, but you charged them more?
Gene: Man, you sound like my therapist.
Carl: Yeah. Well, secret's revealed Gene.
Gene: [crosstalk 00:01:47] you are.
Carl: I am your therapist.
Gene: That is a fascinating way to look at business.
Carl: Well, a lot of people say, "Carl, you're not really that good at business. Are you?" And I say, "No, but people come to me for advice all the time."
Gene: Yes.
Carl: So I'm not the worst at it. The people who come to me for advice are. That's what I'm trying to say. When you went about getting a new client at Period Three.
Gene: When I went about-
Carl: When you went about ... When you were a young lad and you went about getting your business, and your leprechauns brought you your business, diddle dee dee.
Gene: That's pretty good.
Carl: Thank you. I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to stop.
Gene: Now you'll just bust out into that every once in a while.
Carl: How did you onboard a new client?
Gene: Well, I don't do that part of the business, but-
Carl: Explains a lot.
Gene: But we have, I mean, a lot of our onboarding takes place as we are in the contract phase, right? So we do two parts. I think we stole a lot of this from some of the stuff you put up through the bureau, but-
Carl: You did.
Gene: Yeah. Basic MSA underpinning to everything and then we have specific things, so we go through a lot of that stuff then in terms of not going line by line through the contract, but more about expectations on both sides and for the most part, that's it. I mean, we build websites and it ain't that complicated, but-
Carl: Oh, but it is my friend. It's not just a website-
Gene: Not the kind I build.
Carl: ... website be, will it be on the beach or will it be downtown? Remember when we used to use those analogies? Well, it's a lot like buying a house, I can't [inaudible 00:03:39] how much it'll cost, is it three stories or is it a little shack? Because I'm still on shack budget here.
Gene: I always do the, you're going to redo your kitchen, I can do it for three grand or I can do it for a hundred grand. What kind of kitchen do you want?
Carl: And once we start building it, we have problems with the plumbing. Yeah. What are we doing? Okay. When you bring a new client in, this is kind of critical, because you're setting the expectations for what it's going to be to work with you. And I'm going to get to the part where you fire them in just a minute. It's not like ... Well, this was kind of the process, we meet them, we like them, we start to work with them, we take their money.
Gene: We hate them.
Carl: Fire them.
Gene: Yeah.
Carl: Just wake up in the morning going, "I don't want to do barbecue websites anymore. No, I'm done." There's only so much tequila I can drink in a trade out.
Gene: Well, I have some interesting stories.
Carl: Probably wasn't true at the time.
Gene: Yeah.
Carl: But so you go about with a client coming on and you're kind going through the expectations. Are you talking through any kind of concerns about working with each other, or possible challenges you could face down the road?
Gene: Yes. We'll go over that stuff. Because a lot of times-
Carl: [crosstalk 00:04:57] it now it would be good because people are listening.
Gene: A lot of times they'll have demands that they think that they want to impose and then that's a good time to sort of work through some of that stuff. I mean, a lot of times, like we just had a client we brought online and they're like, "I want to do this, but I want to work with these guys to do this part." We're like, "So why, not that you can't work with them, but why, what do they bring to the table? Why did you choose them?" And then we kind of break it apart a little bit and it turns out that they're not really the best fit. And they see that. And then it's like well here's ... It's just an opportunity because you haven't started anything. Right. Everything's equal, it's [crosstalk 00:05:42]-
Carl: I think it's the most important part of the relationship. Right?
Gene: Well, it's like negotiating, right? If you're in a position where you can't walk away, you should probably not be, you're not negotiating, you know?
Carl: Right. Yeah. Dependent.
Gene: Yeah. So, you want to get that [crosstalk 00:05:57]-
Carl: [crosstalk 00:05:57] how to walk away.
Gene: You got to get through that stuff early on. And before you start working, I think it sets the tone to be able to, or to feel free enough to ask questions.
Carl: I think so. I think [crosstalk 00:06:09]-
Gene: I don't think there's a lot that's off limits in terms of what the client wants to accomplish and the reasoning behind what they're doing.
Carl: Well, this is it right, when you start that conversation and forget the whole ... Well, I mean, I guess you still have to think through the whole what is onboarding? When you're talking with people about the project and the cost and all those types of things, even though they haven't signed an agreement or given you a deposit or done anything, all of this is onboarding. From really the first point of contact you're setting an expectation of who you are, who your company is, what it's going to be like to work together, just in the tone of the messages.
Gene: That's right.
Carl: Right. And you know this, when you work with people, I don't care if it's a mechanic or a doctor or a web shop, their tone gives away what it's going to be like to work with them.
Gene: Yep.
Carl: You could end up getting a doctor who really knows their stuff, but she's super curt and isn't there to make friends. She is there to fix the problem or help you with whatever health challenges you might have. And then you may also have a doctor who is not necessarily as good, but she's really nice.
Gene: Right.
Carl: Right. And she's like, "So tell me a little bit about what you do." Maybe she actually gets to know you a little better, and even though one is much more skilled, the other's the one that you kind of want to work with. Right?
Gene: I like that.
Carl: I think it works for shops too.
Gene: Well, I was going to say, you were talking about onboarding and stuff. And I just, I read so many process documents and people talk about their process and how they work. And it's like you can make it way too complicated, and the client can be like ... I've been there. I mean, we used to want to have this whole intricate process and stuff, and we did a lot of work through agencies. They always wanted to, the agencies wanted to sell the process. Right? And it always felt [crosstalk 00:08:21], it always felt so complicated. It's like you're fatiguing this person just talking about all the shit that they have to do, we haven't done anything yet. And I think it's the same way. You can't underestimate the value of being, I don't want to say fun, but kind of fun and nice and easy to work with.
Carl: Comfortable.
Gene: That's what they want.
Carl: Even if not fun, at least comfortable.
Gene: Yeah.
Carl: Right. You don't get worried or nervous or anxious or those sorts of things. And see, this is where we're getting to that firing a client part. I like that part.
Gene: Well [crosstalk 00:08:57] ... Let me, I want to throw this in there too that I've been in meetings where I'm not the smartest guy in the room 90% of the time, but I can feel the client is intimidated by my knowledge. Not that I know anything, but because they know so little about the web and search engines and all this shit that we kind of play in and they're just scared to ask questions and stuff. And I've been in the room where I've felt like other people were kind of taking a little advantage of that.
Carl: Okay.
Gene: And I think it's important to, if you want to have, I mean, you mentioned keeping the same clients and charging them more. I think in order to get there, you have to be super comfortable with each other and they have to not feel embarrassed to be like, "What is that thing?" And you're like, "That's the building blocks of the internet. Why don't you know that?"
Carl: Oh my God, the face you just made, folks watch the video, Gene is making faces and it's pretty glorious.
Gene: But you've been there.
Carl: Oh yeah. Well, I mean, I did ... For a second I thought you were going to say, "So make sure that all your clients are really dumb about the internet. Because then you can take adva-" That's not what you were saying. No, I've totally been there. And I mean, we actually had somebody call us once who asked us, and this was obviously, it was a while ago, because we were talking about web 2.0 and we're already onto 3.7. So, he called and said, "I need a website built in web 2.0." And I said, "Well, we're building stuff in 2.3 right now. So it would be hard to go back."
Gene: 2.3. Right.
Carl: And he was like, "Oh yeah, whatever the newest is." And I was like, "Sir, somebody's going to take advantage of you." It's kind of a just what tools you're using. It's more of a philosophy than it is an actual type of software that [crosstalk 00:10:51]-
Gene: Yeah. I need me some of that CSS.
Carl: Exactly. Right. And so I went to the CSS Zen Garden.
Gene: Well I had a client, this is not recent, but they were like, "Can you write this in S-A-S-S?" I was like, "What?"
Carl: We've heard it's good if it's a SaaS product. So we want to make sure our product is built in SaaS. And there's a lot of SaaS, let's be honest. I'm saying, that was horrible. So what we're talking about right now with bringing clients in, I think it's really important, because you remember, I guess it was a website Clients From Hell.
Gene: Yes.
Carl: They would do that. I remember I actually ... God, this was a while ago, but I just posted a little rebuttal that was like, "If all your clients are from hell, there's only one person letting them in the door."
Gene: Ouch.
Carl: It's you [crosstalk 00:11:47] learn your triggers, don't let bad clients in. And the thing is, this gets back to Kelly Gotto, actually Punchlist has an onboarding article that I was just reading today that we'll probably hit on a little bit, but this idea that they're good clients and bad clients, I think sure. There's some humans that you're not going to want to work with and you should be able to identify them pretty quick. But then a majority of clients, are kind of neutral coming in. It's their interactions with us that drive them to the good side or the bad side. I mean, that's it, right?
Gene: Pretty much. I'm looking, I'm hitting through some of the article for some of the stuff. I don't know where you wanted to start through it.
Carl: Well, for just a second I want to talk about firing clients.
Gene: Oh.
Carl: Because, and then we can circle back to onboarding. Because I think-
Gene: Let me, you say bad clients or the wrong clients and, or you immediately ... And firing clients, you immediately think of problems.
Carl: Well, it triggers you, right? You project something from another client on this new client, and that's the problem. It's like if somebody, I got bit by a dog when I was a little kid, right? German Shepherd attacked me. And I was always skittish around German Shepherds because of what had happened, now I have no problem with them now-
Gene: Understandably.
Carl: I didn't project that on other dogs. I didn't, but any other German Shepherd. Yeah. So I think you can look at that with clients as well. If you have a client that just absolutely was horrible, took advantage of you, maybe you did something, whatever, but it's just really bad. And the relationship ended really bad. You're going to project certain things on other clean slate clients, people you've never worked with before, and this is why I think when we finally got to this point that we had fired too many clients at Engine, I think we started realizing that we were really quick on the draw. Before something got too bad, we kind of wanted to just be done with it. We had way too much work and so we were looking for who's the biggest pain in the ass, and it sounds horrible, but it was, I mean that time in the early 2000s [crosstalk 00:14:14] much work. So many people thought they wanted to stuff, but they didn't know what they wanted and we didn't know how to onboard a client.
Carl: So we ended up with a lot of situations where some client, if we were working with an agency, they would make a promise that wasn't real. Right?
Gene: Yeah. Oh man. I did a lot of that early on. Fuck.
Carl: A completely searchable Flash site, back in the day, this type stuff. And so those would be the ones where we would just put all the files on a disc, have a meeting and just say, "Hey, we're done." And they would be like, "Why?" It was like, "Because you just told the State of Florida that we were going to build a fully accessible Flash site for the budget of an HTML site. And these are just not things that are real. So you can continue with that. We are not going to." Or somebody would, and we did get a little quick on the trigger, but then sometimes it would be if somebody was disrespectful, if a client was disrespectful in a meeting that was like, you don't cross that line.
Gene: Yeah.
Carl: We would have [crosstalk 00:15:17]-
Gene: What is disrespectful to you? What's a memory you have?
Carl: The biggest one, I would say the biggest one actually I remember the situation, I wasn't on the call, but it was a call with a really well known group. It sells cookies, but not online, Gene. You have to buy these at certain times of the year.
Gene: Mafia. Yes, we know who you're talking about.
Carl: I'm just saying it could be.
Gene: Could be.
Carl: So they basically told, they made one of my favorite people cry. It was one of our account executives and it was basically because she was trying to do the right thing. She was trying to make sure that the work that was being done was being done properly. The client was changing goals and things three months into the project, which was going to just unravel so much stuff. And the client literally said ... I remember this, I wasn't there, but I remember this to be pretty accurate, "I don't give a fuck what I said. I don't give a fuck what anybody else on my team said, this is what we're doing now. If you have a [crosstalk 00:16:34] that, then you better take a look at the agreement." Which was the most hollow threat, I knew that agreement super well, it was not going to go. So yeah, so we ended up walking, but anytime you attack an individual, you can get upset. Clients can get upset. That it's totally fine.
Gene: Right. Depends. Yeah. It's always kind of-
Carl: If you yell, that's not being upset.
Gene: No, that's just toxic shit. Yeah.
Carl: If you tell somebody that they have to do something that, I mean, you know what I mean. Like what just happened. So yeah. I think crossing the line, we know it, it's when you treat another human without respect, that kind of crosses the line.
Gene: Yeah. Yeah.
Carl: Or you're a daily pain, then we're just [crosstalk 00:17:23].
Gene: Well, yeah, if you don't pay the bills. I had a ... It's more than one memory, but one of the things that kind of triggers me is, and I'm sure you've gotten this, you'll be in the meeting with someone and you're getting that kind of D-bag vibe or whatever. And you're just like ... And they go, " You know I could do this if I had the time. Right? You're just here to, like, because I don't have time to do it." You're like, "Okay, good luck with that." To this day, I don't care how much it is, I'll be like, "Okay, bye. Don't have time for this shit."
Carl: Well, yeah. I mean, that's it, when you have-
Gene: That's ridiculous.
Carl: When you have somebody who thinks they've understood it. I mean, I went to take my car to get 50,000 mile service, whatever, and I take it down the street and I'm waiting, and one of the mechanics comes in and starts talking to the manager and I'm standing right there, this guy just does not care. And I'm actually kind of really appreciate that he did, and I thanked him later. I said, "Thank you for saying that." I never knew. So some guy brings in a high end Mercedes or something. And he asked them to run the diagnostics on it. And so the guy goes, "So I'm starting to run the diagnostics and this jackass opens up his laptop and starts Googling the symptoms of his car, and then starts telling me what the most common causes are for different things. And so do I have to run the diagnostics, or can I just fix the really expensive thing he told me it was?"
Gene: Right.
Carl: And I was like, so that guy on the laptop thinks he's saving money, but he just told the mechanic about a really expensive procedure he may not need to happen.
Gene: Well, we're going to do that too.
Carl: The mechanic went to his manager and said, "Can I stick this guy?"
Gene: That's what happened.
Carl: But how often, I mean, those kind of things can happen with us too. I think the main thing when it comes to this part of clients not being good, first of all, I think we take them down the wrong path. I think we don't establish enough trust. We don't do what's necessary in that early phases to make them feel comfortable that they don't have to drive, and then if they do try to drive they obviously don't know how, right.
Carl: And then we get wigged out because they're making us do things that are going to be bad for the project, or team's getting frustrated because they're having to explain things a whole bunch, or whatever. So, but then when you do go through and fire them, I think the thing that can be tricky is when I worked at [inaudible 00:20:05] Jennings, at the advertising agency, we worked with a huge multinational, and they made up probably about a third of the company's revenue, but they made up about 90% of the company's pain. And they also were the number one complained thing, right, in the company, with this company. And one day they called my boss a bitch-
Gene: Oh shit.
Carl: They said, "We don't care what that bitch thinks." And I just said, "You know what?"
Gene: We can't do this.
Carl: "I got to go. I'm going to call you right back." And I hung up and I walked into Melanie's office and I said, "Hey, they just called you a bitch. Can I fire them?" And she was like, "They make up a third of our revenue."
Gene: No.
Carl: I said, "Yeah, that wasn't the question. Can I fire them?" She goes, "Yeah. I'm not their bitch." Okay. So I went back and I remember [crosstalk 00:21:04] picking up the phone, calling them, I said, "Hey, obviously there'll be a lot of conversations that we need to have, but we are no longer your agency of record. We are basically quitting. We just, we're not going to work this way." And they were like, "What? Just because of one thing?" And I was like, "Oh, it's yeah, I appreciate that you're going to want to talk about it now, but it's done." That next agency wide meeting where we've got 30, I think there were 35 or 40 people, all in the same room and I shared that we had had a situation and everybody was like, "Oh God, here we go again." And I said, "So I asked for permission and I fired them."
Gene: Oh, they were like-
Carl: And the room erupted. You could not believe the pure joy in every face, except for the accountant and the CFO. Everybody else was over the moon. And you know what, we started doing better work for the other clients because we were in a better place. So it's like there's so many things, it can be really scary. There's so many times where firing a client, if it's the wrong client, which would be the right client, it creates this amazing wave of appreciation. And that one went really far. There were so many late nights, so many-
Gene: Oh yeah. That's the worst.
Carl: [inaudible 00:22:30] They would always pay. And that was the-
Gene: Yeah, but-
Carl: ... that was the slippery slope.
Gene: Yep. You get too connected too. Yeah. A big client can be bad. Right? You've got to watch that where all the money's coming in from, make sure it's not one that's a third of your business. That's bad.
Carl: But then you try to fix that, Gene, and it's just not fixable.
Gene: Sometimes.
Carl: Unless you can find another big client and then what are you going to do otherwise? Tell the big client you got to slow down. They don't like that.
Gene: No, they're not. Yeah. They don't want to slow down.
Carl: Let's talk onboarding because I think the biggest thing is you shouldn't get to that point. Right? Now, sometimes if you've got what happened to us with that big client, they switched who was in charge. We had that happen when Engine was working at Facebook and we were doing a bunch of Facebook stuff and it was going great. And then they changed to somebody who was an outside consultant to manage it, and suddenly it became evident that they had other plans and we were not part of them, but, and we did, we fired Facebook. That was kind of fun to say, of course they were ... It was definitely a split second win. It was a photo finish of who quit first, before we were fired. But I think there is something about that. You see the big name or you see the money and you're like, "Oh, but I want to be able to say this." News flash, you can still say it.
Carl: It's not that big of a deal, but let's talk about onboarding, because if you bring in the right clients, you should be able to identify clients that aren't a fit pretty quick. And depending on your situation, if you don't have reserves, you may have to take something, but you've got to be clear with the team, this is not our client. It's not who we want to work with, this is who we need to work with so we can keep finding our clients. They're just going to keep allowing us to make payroll.
Gene: Yeah. We're talking best case scenario here.
Carl: Yeah. So when you bring in a new client, there are a few things we always did, and I think one of the most important things is establishing trust. Right?
Gene: Yeah.
Carl: And this is something a lot of people will talk about, but we don't talk about how to establish trust. I think it starts by being an equal. I think you're not going to have trust if you're constantly chasing a client. If you're constantly trying to get them to do something, or to like something or to whatever, because then you're chasing them. You're pushing them. I think the best thing you can do is talk about what the opportunity is, if it would be a fit for you, for your team, why it would be beneficial for the client or maybe why it wouldn't, right? Share the things that you think might not be perfect about you working with the client, because you know what, that's honesty and honesty establishes trust.
Carl: So that was always one of the first things I would do is start asking them, first of all, about past relationships with agencies, right? The X question, who did you used to [crosstalk 00:25:38] with?
Gene: Well, that's a huge red flag before you kind of get dug in there, which is if they approach you with "Well, we were working with these other guys who were total jerks and we need you to help. We need your help." And you're like-
Carl: Budget's gone and we got to use the company [inaudible 00:25:52].
Gene: Yeah.
Carl: No, I don't have to help.
Gene: There's two sides of that story.
Carl: Yeah. There are a lot of people who are willing to help you, they're still in high school a lot of them, but from what I understand from other clients, they're really good.
Gene: They don't like you.
Carl: No, you're right though. Anytime somebody comes in with that is, you know what? That's a parade, man. That's so many red flags, just go ahead and strike up a band because [crosstalk 00:26:19]-
Gene: You got to weight that baggage, man, you got to figure out what to carry in.
Carl: And that's where the X question is so great. Where you say, "Tell me about the last shop you worked with, the last team you worked with." And then they will tell you exactly what happened, why they're not working with them anymore. And if you don't think the reason is reasonable, if you don't think that, well, you know what, they kept asking us to be on time and to pay the invoices, that's not going to happen. Or if they say, "Well, they wanted to charge us more because we were two weeks late on content." Now they won't say it necessarily that directly, but if they say things and you're like, well, that would be an issue. Versus, "Oh, I can't believe they would do that."
Gene: Yeah.
Carl: You don't have to realize front, if you're bringing that ... If they acted that way before they're going to act that way.
Gene: So how much of the onboarding takes place via the biz dev, versus the actual team that will be working on the stuff, in your opinion, in a best case scenario?
Carl: I think the whole process is going to be the onboarding, right? Because from the initial contact, there are commitments being made. Right? And that's onboarding. So, and that commitment could be, "Hey, we'll take a look and get back to you."
Gene: Right.
Carl: Right. And if you start with little wins, if biz dev says, "Hey, we're going to take a look and get you any questions we have by Friday." And then you get them those questions by Friday, you've established a tiny little drop of trust. You said you were going to do something. You did it. And if you do a good job at it, right, if those questions were really insightful or probing or whatever, then they're like, "Oh wow. These people are different than the other people we talked to."
Gene: Yeah. Yeah.
Carl: The other people are going to send a number, right?
Gene: Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah.
Carl: And that's the other thing in establishing trust, I think is, just saying we're not at a point where we can give you a cost. If what you need is a cost right away, you're going to want to work with somebody else, but also we would ask that you be very careful.
Gene: That's really interesting. I was [crosstalk 00:28:20]-
Carl: [crosstalk 00:28:20] without knowing what they're doing.
Gene: I was just in a position where we got a new client on board. We're going to handle the design and conceptual part, and we're going to then manage through them their teams that they wanted to set up to build the thing out. And I was on the other side of interviewing and talking to some development shops, and it was very ... Because they didn't know who I was I'm just another client right, reaching out to them, representing this client. So they think I'm just part of the client. They don't know that technically I'm running my own shop for 20 years and I know what the hell I'm talking about. But the difference in how they approached responding to me was very insightful for my own how we talk to clients, because you're right.
Gene: One group was just like, "20 grand." I was like, "20 grand for what? I just told you a concept over a quick phone call. How the hell are you giving me a price?" And I'm like, "I know this is going to be way more than 20 grand." And another group was asking great questions. And I was like, "I these guys. They're trying to find out what the hell we're building." And then one shop was obviously like, "Well, we're just going to offshore the whole thing anyway. So whatever you want, we're 12 bucks an hour." I was like, "That's not going to work." But it was insightful. You could tell the little more maturity, maybe that's something to think about. Just like you're talking about building little wins, try to engineer those pieces, parts into your process, your biz dev process. I think it's genius.
Carl: I think that works really well, because, again, you want to be the expert, but you want to be honest. You don't want to be the expert at all costs. You want to be somebody who's experienced. Right? The word expert, I know experience, expert. It's all that same, but expert feels gross to me. Right? But being the person who has a lot of experience is great, and I've shared before how when we were in an initial kickoff meeting, we would go around the room and everybody from the engine side would say how many projects they'd worked on before? Because that was level setting the table. So it'd be like, "My name's Carl. I will be in charge of high level strategy for the project. And I have worked on 172 web projects. This would be the 173rd." Right.
Gene: Wow.
Carl: And then a client hears that and they're like, "Whoa."
Gene: Yeah.
Carl: And then when it comes around to them, they're like, "And this will be my third web project." And they realize that even though they felt really like they knew how to build this. This is their third one. Then they hear 174, right? Or they hear Lori say 63, or they hear whatever, it's going around the table. And we're not all obviously the same level of experience, but that was a level setting thing that I think is really important. One of the things Punchlist put in the article they have is this idea of an email series, an email sequence to welcome clients. I think this is great. It reminds me of something that came up in an operations camp years ago, where somebody was talking about employee handbooks and how important they were in employee onboarding. And I don't remember where it happened at the table, but somebody just said, "We need a client handbook."
Carl: Why is it we don't have a handbook for clients? Way back in the day, Engine had one, but this was a different idea. Ours was all about frequent mistakes that get made during a project, how to recover if we end up going over budget, these types of things that would just explain kind of what we had seen that had gone wrong before. What they were talking about was absolutely a, who do you get in touch with for this? And what normally happens in these situations? But it was much more of a handbook that was a welcome handbook. Ours was more of a ways to avoid pitfalls and traps. Right? Which both have value, I think, but this idea of the welcome email series and I'm going to go through this just real quick.
Carl: You welcome them, first of all, right. I think it depends too most of us are doing remote work now, but this idea and having the whole team on it, and maybe, they didn't say this, but maybe even have the team each have a little something in the email, "Super excited, have always loved working in this type of environment. Love the work that y'all do. Jean." Right? A little love letter. Why not have that welcome? Maybe not over the top, but just something that gets them feeling good, and then also reaffirm their decision. Right? There's a good chance they've made a 100, 200 and a half million dollar decision with you. So you got to make them feel good that.
Carl: Meeting the team, doing little team call outs in these emails, but things that it's just not all at once, let it be just something that's kind of coming through, but the things they're talking through here, I think also it could be emails, it can also be part of what you do in those kickoffs, like communication preferences, how often do you want to us to be in touch. What level of things would you rather have be a phone call versus an email, but make sure you're working through all of that. And yeah-
Gene: It's a good list.
Carl: Just this idea of a welcome email series. I mean, we kind of do that with members at the bureau. We're still refining it, but I think that's a great idea.
Gene: We 100% do this at the gym. There's an entire, it's five emails that they get from the moment they hit purchase. Once we put their in the system and they go sign the little waiver and they go, blah, they start getting emails every other day, the just it's welcome, here's your coaches, here's the person at this time. Here's what we expect you to do. Don't trash the bathroom, all that kind of stuff.
Carl: That's in our client emails too.
Gene: Yeah. It should be, it depends on your client.
Carl: Oh my God. [crosstalk 00:34:36] I don't know what's going on.
Gene: Because there's they're generally speaking a little nervous about coming into a gym, and I would think that there's a good analog there to your clients working with you. They're probably a little nervous, especially if they're there representing their boss to make sure this thing gets done and their boss is spending half a million dollars, $200,000. They're going to be a little like, "I'm going to get in trouble if this shit doesn't work." You know?
Carl: And that's one of those things you need to understand before you hire that client, or before you hire that client, before you accept them hiring you. Because if, what you know, when we used to call those must win versus checklist projects, right? And if somebody's doing this, because their boss told them, that's a checklist project, they have to check this off their list and they are not going to worry as much about the effectiveness of the work as they are being able to check off that it was done on time and on budget. So, that's going to be a tough client to work with. Now you may have to, this may be where you are in the pecking order as you're getting started. Or maybe just the niche that you have, but if you aren't working with the person whose livelihood is at stake, in the sense of if the company does well, or if the project does well or not, if it's not a must win for them ... When you're first talking to them, one of the questions we'd always say is, "What happens if this project's a failure?"
Gene: You're right.
Carl: What happens? And if they say, "Well, then we've got to rethink our whole line of business. We've got to." And you can feel it.
Gene: I literally explode.
Carl: Then let's make sure it's not.
Gene: Yeah.
Carl: Right. But still you need to understand what is at stake on their side, because otherwise you'll never be able to have the empathy to understand what are they going through.
Gene: Or just simply match their communication level. Right? Simply match their tone, match their mental state. Yeah. We've had clients that it's obvious they're risking it all on this thing we're building, and you're like you got to match their intensity. Maybe that's a good word? Because if they're risking everything and you're just like, "Meh, I'll give that to you whenever I want." That's [crosstalk 00:36:52]-
Carl: Exactly right. [crosstalk 00:36:54] erode trust right away. Because you don't understand the importance.
Gene: Yeah. They're going to be carrying anxiety and you're just like, meh.
Carl: And that's the thing, we used to say that if somebody was coming in and you could tell this project wasn't important, and also in the context of us having plenty of work in reserves, then I would quickly say, "Maybe you should find a hungrier shop, or a younger shop that can help you out with this, because it feels you just need to get it done. And that's not how we're set up."
Gene: Right.
Carl: "But if you get a project that's super important, please come back to us. Because those are the projects we love to work on." And you would occasionally hear somebody say, "Well, this project was really important. So we wanted to come back." I think that's critical. I know we're like, we're coming up, we're rocking through this episode, man.
Gene: It's good shit.
Carl: We're going to have to keep going. Well, I know we have to wrap this up and I just I think there's something to having fewer clients.
Gene: I think so too.
Carl: And if you have fewer clients, you have a smaller team, and I know that it's always grow or die, but maybe there are ways we can grow margins without growing head count. And head count sounds disgusting. Why did I say that without [crosstalk 00:38:20]-
Gene: The question is do you have the bandwidth grow that head count?
Carl: If I pivot in my synergistic ways.
Gene: Yeah. Careful.
Carl: Geez. That was horrible. I almost had it. I'm going to come back to that one. No, I would just, I would say think about who are the clients that you've had around forever that you really like, but are just not a fit. It may be time to work through some legacy clients and find them somebody who can work with them better and not replace them with something else. Again, theater major, but I think maybe you don't always need that next client if it feels like they're kind of rough, or if the old clients who don't know what you do anymore, but [crosstalk 00:39:05]-
Gene: It's also a business alignment thing I think. Right? I spent the first 10, 12 years of running my shop always focused on finding the next project.
Carl: Oh yeah.
Gene: Right. We were just, got that one done, what's the next project? Got that one done, what's the next project? And I always looked at these agencies who were trying to lock down a client for the next 10 years, I'm like that's agency bullshit.
Carl: Yeah. That's the whole mainstream, putting handcuffs on them.
Gene: It is. But I've sort of, we've adopted this mindset of let's get some quality clients that we don't mind working with for the next 10 years. And we've been actively working on that for the past five, seven years. And it's really made all the difference in terms of our stress level, our turnover, projects level. It just feels good. But again, I think it's not as easy to just be like, "Hey, go down a list, check which clients you want to keep, which ones you don't, pitch them. There you go."
Carl: You know, honestly-
Gene: It's an entire business alignment thing. I think.
Carl: I think you're right. But I also think that you know within five seconds of looking at a name.
Gene: Oh yeah.
Carl: I mean, you've been going through this for a while. So everybody listening, look through your client list-
Gene: Or just look through [crosstalk 00:40:27]
Carl: [crosstalk 00:40:27] flinch. One of them makes you flinch, you know what-
Gene: Just look through your emails one week and be like, "I'm not answering that one." That's the first [crosstalk 00:40:32]-
Carl: Exactly, or the missed call or the whatever. You know it in your gut if it's a bad relationship. You know what, and let that be something you use as you're looking at the new ones that come in too, it's just life, Gene.
Gene: It's always just life, Carl.
Carl: It's just life.
Gene: It is, man.
Carl: We'll keep talking about this on the next episode maybe?
Gene: Maybe, if you're lucky.
Carl: And I am.
Gene: Or maybe we'll let you go. We'll see.
Carl: Dang. You were [crosstalk 00:40:59], you were S-A-S-S-Y.
Gene: I am. Ooh, I like it. All right. Any hot takes, or was that it?
Carl: Ah, hot takes.
Gene: Hot takes.
Carl: You know what? Don't work with clients you don't like, you're going to have to work with them. That didn't work.
Gene: Yeah. I get what you're trying to say though.
Carl: Don't take on projects with ... You know what, the no asshole rule applies to clients too. Boom. Mic Drop, I'm out.
Gene: Done. Next time folks.
Carl: See you, everybody.
