No Working with Broke-Ass Clients

Many years ago in a galaxy far, far, away, there lived an Internet Marketing Virtual Assistant named Donna.  At the time, Donna had a full practice and was loving the work she was doing.

As was wont to happen in those days, she was often approached by other entrepreneurs to provide her marketing magic to them.

One business owner, in particular, was desperate for her services.  When she quoted him her hiring terms, there was dead silence. Then he came back with, “Can’t you please make an exception for me and only charge me $10/hour until I get my business up and running?”

Screeeeeech.  Come to full stop. Yes, I would love to take a gamble on you and provide you with discounted services because you don’t have the proper funding to support your business….said no reputable business owner ever.

My reply to him was quite snarky but effective. I told him that his issue of not having proper funding for his business was not my problem and that I was not able to help him.  Yep, I was just about that blunt, unable to contain my irritation at being asked this ridiculous question.

Cue to several years later and online business manager Donna is working with a fairly well-known guru.  Said guru asks me to contact the rest of her team and figure out the status of their projects and let them know that they are being terminated.  Fun stuff, Maynard.

Of course, I knew that my services were next on the chopping block, and a few days later I got my email termination notice from her.  However, it wasn’t quite what I expected. She offered me the opportunity to continue to work with her, but my payment would be dependent on my production. She was “generously” offering 30% commission (I think — maybe it was 50%) on all sales that resulted from my marketing her products.

As you can imagine, I gleefully jumped at the opportunity and I sold millions of dollars for her and we lived happily ever after……………NOT!  

I thanked her for the opportunity and said that unfortunately, that would not work for me. She, however, did find someone who agreed to those terms, and she paid me to train my replacement.

I noticed a few months after parting ways that the woman I trained as my replacement was looking for another marketing consultant opportunity. When I checked on this former client about a year later, she was on her 4th or 5th marketing consultant.  Big surprise.

Lesson — if you choose to get into bed with broke-ass clients, you are setting yourself up for untold misery.  

If all of your marketing seems to put you in front of said broke-ass clients, there is probably something in your messaging or packaging that isn’t attracting the prospect who can easily afford your services.  If you’d like some help with that, I invite you to check out my coachsultoring services.

A coachsultor is a title I created to describe my unique blending of coaching, consulting, and mentoring.

If you think this might be right for you, apply for a coachsultoring spot at http://bizsmartmedia.com/get-it-done-now-coachsultoring-program/