“Blake” a new client, had gone silent.
We’re all about getting results for you around here, so if you’re a client and you go silent, we nag you.
Turns out Blake had recently entered a partnership and it wasn’t what he had hoped for.
Read this and then leave a comment with your advice for Blake below.
The best advice (encouraging, wise and humorous) will get a free copy of “How to Systematically and Consistently Attract First-Rate Clients” which sells for $97.
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Hi Dov,
Ugh, sorry I missed the Plenty of Clients mastermind call today. Didn’t get back home in time after a meeting this morning.
Anyway, to answer your question (this is going to be a little long, sorry)…
Ashley comes from a very hard-core sales background, and she’s treating our consulting partnership the same as her former employer, a world-wide office supply company.
It’s all about branding, professionalism, and sales (door to door and networking). That’s great for the billion-dollar business she used to work for, but not so much for a consulting company with no revenue. There are 2 of us here in Calgary, and another woman in Toronto, but she wants us to appear as a professional multi-national business, which is asking a lot of 3 people.
My 16 years of experience as a consultant is completely irrelevant (I’ve only made $120k a year at the most, not done $1M in sales like she has).
She is demanding that I wear a shirt and tie every day, whether I’m working from home or not (sorry, did I misunderstand what the word ‘partnership’ means?), because image is everything (despite the fact that most of my clients are oil and gas guys that DO NOT dress up for ANYTHING). It’s rare than I’m not dressed decently (business casual at the most – there’s no reason for me to go beyond that), but her former employer had strict rules about hair, nails, makeup, clothing, etc., and you conformed exactly or you were fired. Now she’s trying to apply those rules to our partnership as well, but it’s been a very one-sided decision.
To her, marketing is B.S., my prospect list is B.S. (because they didn’t result in immediate business), and anyone we meet has one chance to do business with us ASAP or stop wasting our time. Unfortunately, that’s not quite how consulting works…
She expects me to be doing hard-core sales now as well, and using all her sales tools to keep meticulous track of everything. I am not a detail oriented guy at all, and I can’t keep up with her expected paperwork. Basically, everything is her way, it’s rush rush rush, and it’s not what I want to do. All of my ideas are wrong unless I can subtlely suggest things and have her come up with the idea herself, but how is that a partnership?
She doesn’t value any of my experience whatsoever – I’m an idiot for having business coaches (her idea of coaching is much different than mine but I won’t get into that), I’m not a professional because I don’t wear a tie or look like I have an MBA from Harvard, and I’m holding us back because I don’t do the constant paperwork.
When she doesn’t get what she wants, when she wants it, she gets incredibly rude and condescending.
We needed to do up a presentation for a potential client, so I did the artwork for it. I dabble with graphic design because I like it, but I’m by no means a professional. She knows that, but she kept putting me down for doing amateur work (we decided I would do it because it’s a cheap alternative to us paying a pro to do it). Like in a seriously insulting way. And she thinks she’s being clear about what she wants, but she’s not, so she’s also putting down my listening skills. When I say “you said you wanted xxx” she condescendingly tells me to “Stop it. Don’t put words in my mouth and stop making excuses”. Now that it’s done, she’s fine, and there’s no hard feelings there (on her side, at least), but I’m not going to be treated like a 5-year old.
She is hard-core sales, and that’s all there is to it. Whenever I argue with her, she says the same thing, every time – “[Big Office Supply Company] (her former employer) is in 27 countries, they know sales, this is how business works.”
So this really isn’t a partnership. It’s her telling me all the things I’m doing wrong, putting me down for not immediately adopting her methods, and basically telling me she’s doing me a favour by pulling me along with her.
The problem is, I’m too nice a guy to tell her where I’d like her to stick all her rules and ideas!
Ultimately, I think we can both still benefit from this, but it needs to be more arms-length than what it is now. She made me Director of Software Development for her business, and we’re doing everything through her company. My company is in the background doing the actual software development, because she wants to combine our efforts marketing the one business, which was fine with me – I still end up with the clients and they’ll stick with me once I’m working with them. But I think we may need to change that to just refer business back and forth. Having me here still allows her to sell software development to her clients, and I can send certain types of business her way, but we could just pay each other referral fees. And that way she can do whatever she wants, I can do whatever I want, and we don’t step on each other’s toes.
You know what the funny thing is? I met her on an online dating site. Now she wants to work together but doesn’t have time for a personal relationship!
*sigh* How do I find these people?
Other than that, I’m feeling better today. Physically, at least.
Thanks,
“Blake.”
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This reads like a second-rate comedy flick, no? 🙂
Leave a comment with your advice for Blake here on the blog.
The best advice (encouraging, wise and humorous) will get a free copy of “How to Systematically and Consistently Attract First-Rate Clients” which sells for $97.
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UPDATE: In this post we announced the winner, and “Blake” replies to your advice.
