Should your friends be clients and your clients be friends?

I like to have a lot of fun. And by that I mean joking around with people and laughing. Since I work for myself and therefore I work a lot of hours, I don’t really get out much socially. So once I get to know a client pretty well we usually tend to banter back and forth and have a great friendship. This is really the best of all situations, because once a client has accepted you on some sort of friendship level, then they are usually very loyal and may even be forgiving when mistakes are made.

But how about when it is the other way around?  I have had plenty of friends who have hired me for various things. Sometimes it goes great. But not always. Some are surprised when I tell them I am not doing the work for free. Some are surprised that they don’t get much if any of a discount.

One of the toughest situations is when you begin to do work a friend and they take on a completely different personality once the work begins. This doesn’t always happen but periodically the fact that you are doing work for them turns them into a boss figure and for some reason they feel they need to treat you as and employee versus a friend who is doing some work for them.

How do you handle that?

My answer is, drop the client relationship before it completely ruins your friendship. If this person is a true friend, then no amount of money is worth risking it. So explain to them that you are not sure that working for them is the best scenario and make recommendations for other people to do the work. If they insist on you doing the work, then just be completely honest that you feel it is affecting your friendship. Give them an opportunity to recognize their behavior and possibly make some changes. Put a time frame around a trial working relationship and check in to make sure at that time that things are going the way all parties would like them to go.  If not, then run as fast as you can. There is almost nothing worse than working for a friend who expects special treatment and is not nice to you while you are doing the work. The key to this is that you are working for yourself and you have the right to choose which clients you want to work with. You are not obligated to work with anybody that you are not comfortable working for.

Joanne, joanne@leapyearmarketing.com, 724-603-LEAP

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Lessons Learned about Employees, Interns, and 1099’s

 

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How well your staff produces for you has mostly to do with how they are compensated. In the last few years of business I have toyed with hiring staff for various things but my biggest challenge had been consistent cash flow.

So I had the (not so) bright idea to hire someone on commission, payable on receivables. It isn’t unheard of by any means. That is how I was paid when I sold radio. I said performance depends MOSTLY of how you pay someone. If the person is motivated more than the average person they will likely succeed at some level no matter how you pay them. But we as business owners are usually dealing with the average bear. The commission works only if the person is motivated and can see the big picture. They must understand that pay will be minimal in the beginning but the reward for building a clientele can be significant.

The hourly employee is motivated by security, so to keep a good hourly employee, you must have stable business cash flow. Then, there must be clear accountability built in to the job. That can be anything from working in the same space with you to checking in by phone each day. Human nature (laziness) will set in if people are not held accountable, even the best employees.

Finally there are interns. Again, paid and non-paid work much differently. The best employee I have had to date has been an intern working for the experience, not a paycheck. One of the worst employees I have had to date was an intern who knew he would be paid at the end of the semester.

How you pay someone will show them the commitment you are making to them, but gives you as the business owner even more obvious authority to hold them accountable. It is imperative sales people have a clear schedule, set of expectations, and accountability routine. Without those, even the best sales people will get lazy.