She said ‘You mean you charge people to answer questions? That’s a terrible way to do business!’

Good grief.

One of my past mentors (we’ll call him “R”) was in a meeting with an investor who was seeking to push R’s pace. The investor asked something like, “Are we going to get something done here, or what?” R picked up a Magic 8 Ball - you know, the toy that you shake and look in the little window to get a myriad of answers; he picked this up and shook it and said, “I dunno. Let’s see what the 8 Ball has to say about it. Oh, hmm… says Not Likely.”

The meeting was over.

I’ve never been real great at being an employee, mainly because of the personalities involved who seek to use fear in place of self-confidence. One of the reasons I enjoy being an entrepreneur is because I can choose whom I work with.

In any transaction, as long as we have two or more people moving toward similar ends, business is easy. When one or more seeks to impose their will upon another, tyranny and oppression enters in. Free trade gives us great freedoms; competition allows us to attract both the best strategic alliances as well as the best customers.

So goes the saying, “Mean people suck.”

I will add, “Nice people Rock!”

Thanks, Leesa.

I recently “fired” a customer. The conversation was delightful:
Me: “Mr. Customer, I want to thank you for your past business with us, but I’ve recently analyzed the amount of expense that we have incurred to serve your needs at the terms that you required, and we have discovered that we are not making a fair profit for the value we have delivered. Therefore, effective with the end of this contract, we are choosing not to pursue any additional business with your firm. If you’d like some references for other organizations that might be able to serve your needs, I’ll be happy to give you some suggestions.”
Fired Client: “Huh? What? What do you mean?”
Me: “I’m sorry, but we can’t afford to continue to serve you.”
Fired Client: “Well, it’s your fault for agreeing to these terms!”
Me: “Yes, you’re right, that was our mistake.”
Fired Client: “So, you will keep working with us?”
Me: “No. At the end of this contract, we will respectfully withdraw.”
Fired Client: “What happened to ‘the customer is always right’?”
Me: “Mr. Customer, this is about doing the right thing for our business. It won’t help you if we go out of business, and we can’t help you if we continue to operate as we have been. I’m afraid we have to let you go.”
Fired Client: “I can’t believe you are leaving me.”

He begged me to stay on, and even offered to pay higher prices. But I explained that the only way we’d stay is if we charged him for every hour of after-hours phone support, out-of-pocket costs for unusual demands, and incremental services, which we had been delivering for free. I also explained that his abusive behavior made it impossible to give him good service — my existing staff didn’t feel that they were able to satisfy him. So, I’d have to hire new personnel, train them, and we’d have to charge him for that, too. That was the end of that. It was a pleasure to dump this loser.