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Spaghetti Blog
Tuesday 3rd December 2024
Wanted (or Not) – The Spaghetti Agency Guide To Dodging The Wrong Type of Clients
Wanted (or Not) – The Spaghetti Agency Guide To Dodging The Wrong Type of Clients
In the beginning, like most businesses, Spaghetti Agency took on most clients who came our way. We were so blinded by the excitement and opportunity for a new client that all judgement would go out of the window. But in the last 10 years we’ve learnt that not everyone will be a good fit for us, and vice versa, so we’ve become a little more choosy about who we work with.
There are tons of amazing clients who are responsive, pay on time, and treat us as they would treat any other professional. In other words, they’re a joy to work with and we love them.
However, there are also some not-so-great clients out there, too. These are the ones we carefully filter because, frankly, life is too short to deal with dickheads.
So, what are the signs that we won’t be choosing to work with someone?
Here’s our starting point.
Refusal to follow the process
The first red flag is when prospects don’t want to follow your process or let you ask some questions. At Spaghetti Agency I (Jo) book initial calls to make sure we’re the right company to speak to, so we’re not wasting each other’s time. If they refuse to abide by it, that’s a red flag. We’re happy to be flexible to a point, but we can’t totally throw our systems out of the window or things won’t run smoothly.
I spoke to a chap fairly recently who not only refused to do it but got irritated by my suggestion. This particular person said he refused to take phone calls for longer than 5 minutes.
Well, then we’re not a good fit, because: 1) you’re not respecting my process and 2) you’re acting like a dick. I explained that was our process and outlined reasons for doing things that way. I let him know that the reason we need to ask a few questions is to find out whether we’re potentially a good fit, and whether or not we can help. He was pretty rude and so it was a ‘no’ from me.
Frankly, I was glad to have found that out then rather than later down the line. Phone calls are fairly common in business so I hope he found someone else who he could speak to via carrier pigeon.
Rudeness/Arrogance
We’re partners in business, but we’re not anyone’s dogsbody. We’ll happily do the hard work for you, but we’d like to be seen as your trusted advisors not someone you can disrespect. We like to see ourselves as an extension of our clients’ teams, and we don’t demand wordy ultra polite emails, but we do believe we’re of equal business stature.
Bad communication
If you ignore us when we’ve asked for content approval, you may find yourself in our bad books. We’re agile enough to move quickly when needed, but poor time management on your part does not constitute an emergency on our part!
Lying
Our core value is honesty and this is how we live our working lives. If we mess something up, we’ll admit it and fix it. We ask our team members and our clients to be open and honest with us, too. It makes everything a lot more simple.
Haggling over rates
If a potential client doesn’t see the value in what we do, we haven’t explained it properly and that’s our fault. But if they’re asking for a £20 discount because they just want to haggle, it’s often more related to a power struggle. No thanks. Our rates are non-negotiable rates that we’ve calculated based on the value we provide, and our experience. If they can’t agree on this, the chances are there are going to be some other issues down the line as well. Again, we’re willing to listen to people and work out payment solutions that fit, but we won’t haggle for the sake of haggling.
Working for ‘exposure’
Related to rates, is the ‘unique offer’ for us to work for free, or for exposure (which you can’t spend in Sainsbury’s last time I checked) or for a share in the profit of the work. Why would we do free work now and risk getting nothing in the future, when we could get paid for our work now and are more likely to get future work simply because they’re happy with the work?!
Ignoring our calendar boundaries
Saying things like “this shouldn’t take long or “can’t you just write something really quickly? means that they quantify our work in terms of time instead of value.
They’re in a hurry
I took a call from a chap recently who couldn’t wait two weeks for his current Facebook Ads company to set him up. I explained that our onboarding process is pretty thorough and by the time we get the information we need, it’ll be that long if not longer, anyway. Thankfully he appreciated my honesty and we’re staying in touch in case we can help in the future.
The project is something we’re morally opposed to
Without getting into politics, we do have feelings about some issues, and we stand by our ethics. There are certain projects/industries we don’t support, so we won’t work with companies profiting from them.
We know it can be easy to get caught up in the excitement of a new client, but thoroughly assessing whether that client is right for you is really important.
Remember that compatibility is a two-way street and that you shouldn’t feel pressured to say yes to everyone.
Have you got any more types of clients you’d suggest people avoid? We’d love to hear your stories.
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1 comment on this article
Emma at 18:59pm on July 11th 2023
I loved this article as I have a lovely dickhead pdf a customer at the moment and a complete “none fit.
I love that you are not afraid to say no and that you value your business and what you offer.
I aim to say “no” more now -so thanks for the read