Episode 475 Agency Chat With Ryan Waterbury Fire Your Worst Client Every Year

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Show Summary

Rob Cairns talks to Ryan Ryan Waaterbury about bad clients.

Show Highlights:

1. Why you need to fire your worst client every year?

2. Why some clients are not a good match.

3. How to manage your clients.

Show Notes

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Hey everybody, Rob Cairns here from the center of the universe and I’m here with my good friend Mr. Ryan Waterbury for our monthly segment . How are you, Ryan?

 

I’m doing pretty good aside from sleet, snow and rain.

Yeah. Well, it’s been raining in Toronto. It’s 21 Celsius today, which is like late spring like weather and we are at Halloween at the time of this recording October 31st. And and then it’s gonna rain again this weekend. So what else is new in Ontario? And would you like some? Would you like some?

Oh yeah. I, but we’ve got enough. We’re going to have more this weekend too.

Anyway, today I thought you and I were talking, and yours truly has gone through some more plain issues. And if you’re called out in this podcast, that’s your problem because you need to pay bills on time. But that’s that. Boy, I might as well start right. There and we thought we talked about a little bit. About dealing with difficult clients and. I always start by what is the contract saying? What are the terms of service or terms and conditions say. And what is all the legal stuff say? And I’m sorry it’s not just for the client, but it’s for the agency as well and. I know you and I have many offline conversations and you’ll say to me, oh, because of something that you did or I did or somebody else did. I’ve just updated my contract on my terms and conditions. So let’s start there where you. That’s it.

I over and in. I can’t believe it’s almost been 10 years since I incorporated, but the things that I’ve added to my contract that I didn’t think I would need, I’m constantly adding little things because of your experiences. Are are there gang of bandits experiences and their trials and tribulations when clients don’t pay or? They ruin your e-mail server and and cause reputation damage for your other clients and the little things you don’t think of until they happen, and it doesn’t matter how many how many things that you think you need in your your contract. Something will come up where it needs update. And I have a line right at the top of my terms of service for my webcare and that’s what these terms of service will be updated occasionally at our discretion as technology advances and our policies change, just to let people know that when they sign on, they are agreeing to those terms and conditions. But they may change in the future to maintain that service. Now that’s just my webcare terms and conditions. And what that entitles is security hosting. If they want to host with me. And what brought about some of the recent changes? I run my own SMTP mail servers as a you know value added service for my clients and I’ve been able to offer e-mail marketing through fluent CRM and in the WordPress dashboard and have automations that. Are much the same like male or liant, MailChimp and some of the constant contacts. Some of the bigger names for a fraction of the cost, and it’s great. Clients enjoy it and it’s been it’s been good. I also use it on every site because as you know now that we have to have. Domain signing keys, sender policy framework in order to stay out of spam. Every site uses it to send other transactional emails like notifications from.

It’s it’s even. It’s even hit the point where if you’re not doing e-mail marketing, you need it on your own domain account. I went through this with my mom. If you recall about a year ago, even before Google and forced the policy where all the emails she was sending to Gmail accounts was going to spam from her domain for work, and I had to put DK IM and SPF records in even for that domain. So that’s like very common in today’s day and age and it comes down to e-mail security.

Dean.

And let’s be fair. Email’s been abused, hasn’t it? Right.

Ohh absolutely and the. TNT that I had to recently enforce. Yeah, 222 reasons. One, I found a client and this is a legacy site that was due for rebuild and we’ll get into some problems that there, but this this particular client had installed. Insecure plugins on their site, including a form plugin without anti spam, honeypot or recaptcha.

Yes. Ohh God.

And then I found I couldn’t send any transactional mail from my. Own web server.

Yes.

They had their form, had gotten spammed unbeknownst to me, and the queue on my mail server was about. 3/4 of a million messages. And it blocked everything else. So.

Of course.

Of course, I I reached out to the client and said. Me. You violated terms of service pretty severely and I was already having issues with this client due to an earlier billing issue and they were not happy about it. I said I don’t feel that you’re a good fit. You violated our terms of service. I’m canceling your web care you have. For the end of the month to move your site, do you think they moved it?

They did not.

Of course.

And and.

But.

You got it.

The the crux of this is I hadn’t really thought about that part of the TNT where I need to put limits on how people are sending. So now I’ve throttled every account that’s not on an e-mail marketing plan, and even those are throttled but with very generous amounts. And. That has updated.

No.

And and so it’s the little things that come out of client issues that bring us to adding more pieces in the contract. And I think the the crux of what what you are getting at is it’s a protection for you and for the client that you’re going to provide the services that you’re explaining and that they’re signing up for. And that they’re gonna abide and use them in a reasonable manner as specified in the the contract or terms of. Conditions.

Of course. So one of the things I just went through and I shared the other side, the other. Client who outright refused to pay a bill outlet. And my terms of current conditions explicitly say if you refuse to pay a bill or the bills not paid in five days, and I’m listing your website on my server, your website will be brought down, no questions asked. And I know that sounds harsh. And you know, I’ve taken a bit of a backlash in some WordPress loops because I put up a message thing and say. This down but be the non payment of my terms of conditions. That’s the state for the 1st 24 hours. A message will be put up today. Your website was brought down for non payment. There’s no question so. You know, first problem is people read stuff out of context and they don’t understand what’s going behind the scene. And frankly, that’s their breaking problem. It’s not mine and it’s my podcast. So I can say what I want to say, but also as you have. The the the client was quite aware and then when it got pulled down the backlash they took was because the coin and e-commerce orders he couldn’t get out of his e-commerce service. Well, I hate to say it too bad no side if you break your terms and conditions and you don’t pay your bills. I don’t. Care who you are. I’m under no obligation to help you. Until you, once you pay the bill. The other thing I do, and I think you do as well is I have restart fees and all my terms and conditions. No, and it’s not cheap. If if I bring your website down, you’re looking at at least 2 Grand Canadian, they get it back up. Yes, it’s not me. Hard job, they get a site makeup. That’s not my issue. My issue is it is a.

3.

Pain in the **** when you go through all the emails, all the stress, all the back and forth, there’s gotta be a cost of occupying my time some. Now and that’s the way it is and think of if you don’t like it, don’t sign it and find another develop. I’m at that point like I wanna work with clients who are nice and come to me and say, you know, Rob, we can’t do a daytime meeting and we know you’re scheduled doesn’t. Well, in the evening meetings could be booked. Can we book something with you? Anyway, those types of clients I have all day for all time. Everywhere because they want to work with. And I understand how to approach it. Some clients you can bend over backwards for and that’s what I did with this guy. Even the first time I build him, I cut the hours off. The second time I build them, I cut it off at 40 and that still wasn’t good enough. And. The ironic thing with this one was he spent a week trying to justify. That I was doing double the work and just charging them to get out of paying the bill that he said he wasn’t paying in the 1st place and those type of clients, honestly you or I don’t need because it’s not for headspace.

I honestly a bad client that doesn’t pay their bills and is argumentative combative. It it it is bad for your mental health and it starts affecting your other clients. Now my example physically, technologically affected my other clients and then I have angered clients who weren’t receiving messages for a day that called me and caused me issues. We don’t, we don’t want clients that are going to cause problems and you’re going to have them no matter what. But I think we did a podcast a few years ago. And I talked about hearing another podcast and and talking with another agency owner that she said fire your worst client every year. And you know, if you’re all good.

I agree.

Clients. It’s it’s hard to do and then you don’t, but honestly. As I’ve grown as my agency is starting to come back to include staff. And and other people. I lost the VA because I had my my Peter client, his employee last out at a VA she quit after two weeks because he was so rude, swore at her and she was great. And it was unfortunate that I had, you know, lost her working with me. Because of a bad client. Now the client I don’t work with at all and that. I hadn’t added a morality clause until you had reminded me to do that, and I I can handle that. But you know, a 20 something, you know, gal fresh out of school didn’t take lightly to that and quit immediately because she thought that’s how the environment was.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Would be and it cost me a good employee and. You know, I was happy to lose that client because they caused problems for me and you know, no money in the world is worth having. Your mental health challenged and and being graded.

I I agree with you I. I told the story on this podcast and I’ll tell it again. I declined a year ago who went into my schedule and because I insist on clients booking into my schedule, they get time with me. There’s a few exceptions. The ones that don’t abuse it, but generally. See, here’s the link where we set up a predefined an example that was that came out for call Monday night at 7:00 and they said the client we need to trickle back next Monday night at 7. We do that? Yeah. I’ll just send you an invite that that I’m OK with, but this point went in my schedule. And book 31 appointments and 31 days. In a row and my terms of service clearly state you’re allowed to book one appointment a week. And I said, what’s this? And they said we want to make sure we can get a hold of you if we need you. And I said you’re not paying me enough for that. For an immediate access. You want immediate access. You’re not paying me much. And they’re like, no, this is what we want. And I said, you know, you violated the terms of service. And by the way, you now owe me. X dollars at the time it was $200 for every abuse booked appointment. So it times that by 30. And when you pay that Bill, I’ll help you. And then when screaming at me and I’m like, wait, you signed this? It’s in the terms of service. So one of the things. Think we gotta meet court appliance and more and more I do. This is when you’re signing up for a client and onboarding them before they even sign a contract. You have to outlay your expectations as an agency owner or owner. In my case, fancy. This is how I work. This is how I communicate. This is how. I book time. This is how you get a hold of me in an emergency. This is how you go. I have a couple clients in the political space and you know you’ve been in that space. You know how hot the thought that is. And we’re sitting on the verge of a potential federal election being followed any day now. And this government is different. It’s when the house falls or the OR the government calls it, we go to the pool. And there’s a lot going on with nominations, and I had a discussion with one of my political clients just and said, you know, you’re one of the few people who’s allowed to pick up the phone. And on my cell phone even. On my day. Off on Friday because it’s hot urgency. But you know what? They don’t abuse it. We know I’m good to them. They know when I, when I was sick, this good client actually reached out to me and their association sent me a card and a gift, which was much appreciated, saying we hope you feel. But. Those are the clients that want to work with the ones that respect your. Time and your processes.

Exactly. I I constantly have to remind people I don’t work via text message. Don’t send me a Facebook message. I’m not on that platform. I have a ticketing system for a reason and it’s it works via e-mail and some of the clients that and ironically enough one of my. Vegas. Nonprofit paying of the Buck client they got on it right away. And that’s the only way that they sent stuff in because when they send a ticket they found it was getting done right away because I get it. My VA’s get it. Other people see it and I have to remind people if you need something done and there’s a problem, don’t e-mail me directly. E-mail support and it’s. This is where we get into two things. And this is kind of a gripe, you know, against people in our industry, myself included. I’ve been bad about it in the past, but I’ve learned some things. One, you talked about onboarding lay out your expectations and I don’t think a lot of people do a good enough job out in our industry because we’re small solopreneurs and we got into doing this because we like helping people. And we’re we’re good at building webs, websites or market. Thing and you know some of the admin stuff gets learned way too late. So have a good onboarding process and directly specify your expectations. That’s one thing, but then the other part where I see a lot of people fall down.

Yeah. Are you going?

Is execute your terms and service penalties as needed. There are too many people that are too nice. You’re running a business and if you can’t pay yourself because the clients being a jerk, then you should go work for somebody else. I’m plain and simple and I have a couple of clients and then letting go that.

Yep.

Really shouldn’t be running their own businesses. They should be working for someone else and. And that’s part of the reason that I’m not working with them anymore because they can’t, can’t be professional and, you know, maintain good, good business relationships. But I see a lot of people, you know, folding on bills or letting letting things slide. And you know, I.

Hmm.

I give people the benefit benefit of the doubt and I have a really good client that is also a colleague that I’ve worked along. Side she said. Hey, I’m changing my bank to a credit union, and I haven’t gotten my card yet. Can you pause my subscription and send me an invoice? No problem, you know, came up again and she reached out. She said. Hey, I still haven’t got my car. There’s some issue.

Yeah.

That how can I pay you? You’re absolutely right. Customers like that. I will help all day long and I will make an exception when they ask ahead of time and don’t cause problems. I will bend my rule and say hey, you know, look, I said, did you get it? I I’m assuming you got checks and she said yeah that works great and it saves me the banking. So I actually came out ahead. She’s happy. I’m happy I didn’t have to exercise any late penalties. And everybody is good. But on the other side, you know, you talk about those clients that don’t respect your time, don’t abuse them. We have to fire those clients and let them go and and.

No.

You know, so. We can focus our time on the good. Clients.

I was and and it’s hard. And when you do that, why people always say to you, well, why you not renewing my contract and it’s like my standard answer, you’re not the right fit. It’s very. A lot of small entrepreneurs don’t like the one you’re businesses like businesses. They all want to make money, but they treat their support staff like crap. And that’s the problem and. I mean, I’m the worst one, as you know, if something’s wrong with the company, I get on the phone and I deal with it. I was on with my insurance company earlier this week trying to get approval for OZEMPIC. You can call and complain. Be respectful when you complain. Speak professionally. Show them empathy. Understand you’re allowed to complain. I don’t have a problem with that. It’s how you go about. Doing. It and when this starts to become personal with clients and they stand there and it starts in the personal attacks. I have to tell you when done then it hits.

Absolutely.

That firing pool like. This business, the fact that you owe me 5 grand this business, the fact you didn’t pay your bill. This business, the fact you claim you don’t have the money, you should put it up for. Yes. For the work. Clean up. That’s.

You know one thing you you made a good point there. When you reach out to a larger company. Do they make exceptions or do they follow their terms and conditions?

Yep, they have filed their terms and conditions. They the.

If. If I called up Comcast and I hadn’t paid my.

I was going to go there. You beat me to it.

Bill, do you? You know, do you think they’d, you know, continue my service to host my website? Absolutely not. That sucker would be down immediately and you’d be done in the water. So, you know, why are we different? It’s because we’re small business owners. And we don’t have a team of lawyers behind us. Now, thankfully, that was something I wanted.

I do. I do.

To. Segue into. I know you have a lawyer and retainer. I have a very good friend of mine who does my commercial insurance and they have lawyers and he said if you have any any.

Yeah. I do.

Problems don’t hesitate to pick up the phone, and if it comes down to it, we will take care of it for you and that’s the important thing is one, protect yourself, have good, good business insurance, have a good lawyer if you can afford them on. Tanner. Yeah, make sure that your contract is solid and reasonable, and that’s the other thing. Anytime I make TNT changes. I have to have my commercial insurance agent approve it because if I make something that they can’t cover or I make a change that they can’t cover, then I’m in hot water. So I know that my TNT is legally viable. My, you know, project contract. Anytime that I’ve made changes, I have to send it in for. To you, and I’ve done my due diligence to make sure that I’m protected and also my clients are protected. I have exit clauses in my standard retainer services, TNC for clients that they’re allowed to cancel their service, and I specify when and how they can do. It. In my project. Contracts the same thing. I mean, I know we’re talking about bad clients, but sometimes it’s just not a good fit and we’re not the right fit for a client.

I.

I wholeheartedly agree. I mean. Yeah, I I have a go ahead.

So.

On the other side, I just wanted to say that we need to provide them with an exit and you know, rights that that they can exercise to end the agreement on their end.

I also have a rule in my business that says anything over $10,000. My attorney has to look. At. I will not sign a contract over 10 gram without him looking at and as you know, I deal with some big Fortune 500. So the those contracts all go to. And and it it’s interesting because the big companies are the ones that have the pencils with. They’re great. They paid their bills on. Time they booked. Meetings on time, they won’t waste my time. They don’t like their time wasted. They’re they’re actually the dream clients. Believe it or not. And I’ve got 1-2 in the hospitality and the three one in the hotel in the tree and one in the beverage industry. We’ll call it that. And they’re wonderful. And dealing with them is like dealing with Saints in comparison to some of these other problems. So.

Yeah.

Ohh absolutely. And you know I also wanted to talk about, you know, as as my business has grown back.

Sure.

Like crawling back out of the hole that was 2020 and the financial violence and damage that our our small businesses were put through, you know, getting back, building my team back. You know, I’m also looking at some of the H&R things, you know, not just. Bad clients, but I’m looking at the clients that I want to bring on because I want good clients. When I bring a team on. Yeah. So that that my employees. Are working with good people and.

Yes.

I’ve looked around and my clients now are medium to large sized businesses enterprise level and you’re absolutely right, they are such a joy to work with that. They they pay their bills on time, they look over your contract. They reach out if there’s a question. Normally it’s not, it’s just a clarification on something and not a complaint. And you know it takes time to get to that level. It doesn’t happen overnight and you know, a lot of people listening those podcasts, if you’re just starting out, you’re probably going to take some jobs that you shouldn’t. And you’re going to learn these lessons that we have over the years. And eventually, yeah, you’ll learn the hard way and.

How hard?

And and it’s unavoidable. And it’s gonna happen. But do your best to exit the situation if it’s not a good fit, that’s the best advice I can give anyone.

Anyway, as I was, thanks for the chat. Go on over to one dog solutions. Check out Ryan and all the great work he’s doing. You can follow him on. X If you decide to go there, just avoid the drama. It’s not not really good right now, and we’ll talk to you again next month. Thank you, Sir.

Thanks Rob.