Client Horror Stories: Recent Episodes
Beloved by Clients
Tales from those on the front lines of dealing with clients. Tales of difficult clients, complex situations, relationship management - and how massive client management problems were solved, and what they learned. Largely those running agencies, but all across different professional services.
There’s nothing crazier than Andy Reinhold’s client horror story, and you’re gonna want to listen.
A few years ago, Andy, founder of Studio Spark, was working in the tech division of a major consulting firm, maintaining outdated government software. With each change in administration, the system grew harder to decipher—so much so that they had to track down long-retired employees just to understand the codebase.
Andy and his team manually reviewed over a million lines of legacy code to help determine who qualified for Social Security checks. For three weeks, everything ran smoothly—until it didn’t.
One day, Andy received a call warning him of a serious issue with the SSI system—and, strangely, to avoid watching the news. Naturally, he did the opposite. Headlines revealed a holiday disaster: people were receiving significantly reduced Social Security checks right before Christmas. While the team scrambled and successfully patched the issue within a week, the cause remained a mystery.
It wasn’t until after the holidays that they discovered the culprit: a single missing character buried deep in the code.
Tune in to hear how one tiny oversight led to a nationwide ripple effect—and how this experience reshaped Andy’s understanding of accountability, precision, and career purpose.
Morgan Friedman
Andy's Company Website
In today’s episode, Matthieu Mehuys, Co-Founder of Paulownia Landscape Architects, shares a client horror story that most professionals hope they never have to face.
Matthieu’s love for plants began at just three years old. That passion led him to study landscape architecture, explore the depths of the Amazon rainforest, and master the art of cultivating breathtaking gardens. But it wasn’t until a life-threatening encounter with dengue fever that he had a wake-up call—one that pushed him to start his own business.
In his very first year, a wealthy client from Germany reached out with a lucrative garden renovation project. Sensing a major opportunity, Matthieu took it—and even brought in a trusted contractor from Belgium, who made a 12-hour journey for the job. But chaos struck on day one: another contractor, still working on the home’s façade, threw everything off schedule. Despite completing the garden, the situation spiraled into disaster when the client sued for damages.
What went wrong—and what did Matthieu learn from the ordeal? Tune in to hear how he weathered the storm, the lessons he took away, and how it reshaped his approach to future clients and projects.
Morgan Friedman
Matthieu's Company Website
Matthieu's Award-Winning Book
Matthieu's Podcast
Matthieu's LinkedIn
Matthieu's Instagram
Matthieu's Company Instagram
Matthieu's Facebook
Matthieu's TikTok
Have you ever worked with people who insisted they knew best—even when they clearly didn’t? In early 2017, when blockchain was the buzzword of the moment, Tamara Adlin of Adlin, Inc. was referred by an investor to help a rising startup build smart contracts, enabling smoother collaboration for developers.
At first, things looked promising. Tamara brought strong, strategic ideas to the table. But instead of focusing on foundational planning, the team wanted to do everything all at once—charging ahead without stopping to think things through. As a seasoned expert, Tamara tried to guide them by slowing things down to ultimately speed up progress.
But tensions rose when the founders asked her to "label the elevator buttons" before the building’s foundation was even poured. The misalignment was too great, and eventually, both sides decided to part ways.
Tamara now shares stories like this—and the insights they offer—on her podcast, Corporate Underpants, where she helps strip down what really goes wrong in business.
There’s a lot more to this story—and it just might make you question how much anyone really knows in fast-moving industries. Tune in to this episode to hear Tamara’s lessons on expertise, ego, and building things that actually last.
Morgan Friedman
Tamara's Website
Tamara's LinkedIn
Running a business often means putting out fires—but some fires should never have been lit in the first place. In today’s client horror story, Melinda Spaulding, Author of "Finding Insight", shares a frustrating tale from her early years that highlights just how chaotic procurement can get.
Everything had been going smoothly with one client—contracts were signed, terms agreed upon, and work was underway. But out of nowhere, a representative from the company called Melinda's business line one evening with alarming news: they were canceling the contract because "we shouldn't have agreed on the billing terms in the first place."
With everyone else aligned and the original agreement in place, Melinda was blindsided. Panic set in. What would happen next? Days of uncertainty followed until a new contract arrived—only for her to realize that the purchase order reflected the original billing terms all along.
So what was the point of this wild goose chase? What did it teach her about corporate miscommunication, emotional resilience, and trusting your gut?
Listen to the episode to hear how Melinda turned this chaos into clarity—and what you can learn from the fire that never should've started.
Morgan Friedman
Melinda's Website
Melinda's LinkedIn
In this episode, Sheila Butler, Founder & Chief Marketing Officer of Butler Marketing Group, FL LLC, tells us about the time when she forged a partnership to launch 20,000 hotel rooms. What was once thought to be a huge and successful project turned out to be underwhelming and disappointing for everyone involved.
Due to tech issues, overwriting part of their database did not go as planned. Instead of advertising each room as a luxury stay, they were shown as regular rooms—boring, right? Likewise, it didn’t help that the moment they launched their product, COVID happened and the lockdown started.
While they banked on the fact that things would pick up soon and they could leverage coupons and such, they failed to see that their chosen payment platform didn’t cater to all the countries they were targeting.
Tune in to know more about Sheila's experience!
Morgan Friedman
Sheila's Website
Sheila's LinkedIn
Sheila's Instagram
Imagine being your own bubbly self and getting so much hate from someone who projected their insecurities on you. This is what happened to the author and creator of Confused Girl in the City, Giovanna Silvestre.
At 25, fresh out of college, Giovanna had the opportunity to become the second assistant to a big-time director of a big-time movie at a big-time studio. As someone fresh in the industry, she assumed she worked directly under the director. Anyhow, that was cleared up as the first assistant clearly hated her guts and gave her a lot of random tasks which backfired.
When Giovanna was asked to help the director’s wife in arranging his birthday, she formed a deep relationship with the wife and immediately became everybody’s favorite—she even ended up dating their friend! The first assistant was so pissed and thought to sabotage everything by making up stories about her and eventually firing her.
There’s so much more to learn, so listen in and join the adventure!
Morgan Friedman
Giovanna's Website
Giovanna's LinkedIn
Giovanna's Facebook
Giovanna's Twitter
Giovanna's Instagram
There’s something quite profound about doing honest work for 23 years and losing it to an uncontrollable housing bust. Today, we are pleased to speak with Matthew (Matt) Stafford, CEO of Build Grow Scale, who is tasked to share his client's horror story for our 59th episode.
Straight out of college, Matt established a brick-and-mortar commercial concrete business which exponentially grew over the years. They’ve managed to build many Lowe’s, Costcos, and other buildings for big-name companies all over the country, traveling 200 days per year to complete every order and work on every demand for their capabilities.
Between 2007 and 2010, America was faced with a multinational financial mortgage crisis, which led to a severe economic recession, with millions losing their jobs and many businesses going bankrupt. Sadly, in 2009, what once was a bustling business turned into a blazing horror show for Matt. Large contractors came into big developments, and Matt and his company were never paid for their work. To top it all off, they got sued by their subcontractor who did their curb work.
Things immediately started to pile up, and despite a long 10-year battle of settling all of their accounts, Matt ended up losing half a million dollars as well as his love for the job. Horror upon horror, this story is going to teach you a lot of lessons, so tune in and get ready for an episode full of knowledge and guidance.
Morgan Friedman
Matthew's Company Website
Matthew's LinkedIn
Matthew's Facebook
Are you ready for another client horror story? Today might just be your lucky day! We’re going into an in-depth and hair-raising conversation with Matthew Fornaro, a respected business lawyer.
Over four years ago, Matthew made a decision to take on a real estate litigation with a family consisting of two elders and a daughter who had authoritarian control over her parents. They rented a home in a beautiful gated community in Naples, Florida, and made a deal with the neighbor across the street. What was the deal? Well, they asked him to take over his house, perform the upkeep, and eventually purchase the home for a lower market value upon the end of their lease term on their house across the street. First red flag? There wasn’t any written contract but a term sheet which contained under 20 words scribbled all over the page.
The homeowner’s son visited him and learned about the deal and was obviously unhappy about it. There was a lot of hullabaloo and in the end, the renting family went to a title agent and got all the work done to get ready for the sale and said the homeowner agreed to it. The son then steps in and everyone sues everybody.
Fast forward, everyone is now in court, where a jury trial was demanded by the daughter. They came to an agreement and settled on a good deal, but little did everyone know that the roller coaster was about to happen.
If you’d like to know how the story ended, watch the episode now! Trust me, you won’t regret it!
Morgan Friedman
Matthew's Website
Matthew's LinkedIn
Matthew's Twitter
Matthew's Facebook
In today’s episode with Mickie Kennedy, President of eReleases, we will hear about a harrowing client horror story that happened when he was just 4 meager years into his business.
Mickie has a press release distribution business he has been running for more than 25 years now. At such an early start, he was approached by a client from a music conservatory for a press release. After negotiations and a lot of discussion, the project was initiated. Eventually, he received a check from FedEx for the client’s payment. He cashed it in and was then informed by the bank that the checks were—surprise, surprise—fakes!
He then went to file a report to the police, who only told him they weren’t going to do much to help since the amount was only less than a thousand dollars. Mickie was advised to take the matter to small claims court. His client was also informed and got a bit scared and asked him if he could pay via credit card. He trusted his client and 2 months later, he received a charge-back on his account.
What a roller coaster! The PR world is full of these stories, so dive right into the episode to learn more about it.
Morgan Friedman
Mickie's Website
Mickie's LinkedIn
Mickie's Instagram
Mickie's Twitter
Mickie's Facebook
In the latest episode of Client Horror Stories, David Bates, an Executive Coach at Paravelle, LLC, shares a harrowing experience from his days as a consultant. David recalls being assigned to check on a major pharmaceutical project in town, a task given to him simply because he was the only team member residing in the area. What seemed like a routine check quickly spiraled into a nightmare.
Upon arriving at the training session, David faced an unexpected crisis. The project sponsor abruptly canceled the training during the first break, declaring the content unnecessary. Determined to salvage the situation, David tried to work things out with a particular team member. However, the situation deteriorated further when the big pharma stakeholders invited him to lunch. What started as a seemingly cordial meeting turned into a coordinated attack, with the stakeholders confronting him about the project's shortcomings and ultimate failure.
David's story is a gripping reminder of the unpredictable challenges consultants can face, even in seemingly straightforward situations.
If you'd like to hear more about how David navigated this complex situation and the lessons he learned, be sure to check out the full episode of Client Horror Stories.
Morgan Friedman
David's Website
David's LinkedIn
In this episode, we are joined by John C. Morley, Serial Entrepreneur Engineer, Marketing Specialist, Talk Show Host, and First Responder, for our exciting new episode of Client Horror Stories. John doesn’t only talk about a single client horror story, but three! However, we’re here to give you a quick look into the conversation.
We’re going to start with John’s two-decade-long client who decided to let him go after telling him that John was just squeezing him out for money. After so much back and forth, their relationship ended and the lawyer hired a different person. What sucked is that the new hire pretended to be John while calling a firewall manufacturer just to get through.
If you think that’s a nut case, wait until you hear the rest of what John has to say. Today’s episode is not just a recall; it’s an episode filled with new learnings and realizations to give you a new perspective on how things should be handled.
Morgan Friedman
John's Website
John's LinkedIn
John's Facebook
John's Instagram
In today’s episode of Client Horror Stories, we welcome Mark Michael, CEO and co-Founder of DevHub. While Michael has had a lot of ups and downs in the customer side of things, one experience always stands out.
We all know the NFL, and luckily enough, Mark was given an opportunity to work with a high-profile player. The idea was to create a custom CRM built for all NFL players to make their daily lives manageable. All went well until the client refused to provide a card on file to pay for subscriptions and hostings, and it all stretched out until he wouldn’t even pay for anything else despite 50% of the work being finished.
Just like everyone else, Mark reached his tipping point and put the client in his right place. If you want to know what happens next, check out this episode!
Morgan Friedman
Mark's Website
Mark's Company
Mark's Twitter
Mark's Instragram
Have you ever been yelled at by a client before or threatened to be sued? Today, we are joined by the Founder & CEO of Blue Goat Cyber, Christian Espinosa, to share more about his client horror story with a healthcare facility in Louisiana.
Christian is an expert in ethical hacking and wishes only to expose company vulnerabilities in order to find avenues for improvement, but when they infected most of the hospital with the secret file they planted, the CEO went nuts. It even went as far as a security guard pulling a gun on one of Christian’s employees!
Dive into this episode to learn more about the story and open your mind to new business tactics and strategies.
Morgan Friedman
Christian's Website
Christian's LinkedIn
Christian's Facebook
Christian's Twitter
Christian's Instagram
Have you ever committed a white lie to save yourself? Well, Jason Roberts’ client horror story revolves around that, but they took lying to a whole new different level.
In today’s episode, we are joined by Jason Roberts, Peak Performance Coach and 9-Figure Entrepreneur, who will be sharing his worst nightmare to date. During his early entrepreneur years, he owned a mortgage company and one day came face to face with a paraplegic client looking to apply for a construction loan. He was a nice guy, and Jason felt there was nothing to worry about, so he went ahead and helped the client to make a difference.
A month after the client moved into his new home, he unfortunately passes and the outstanding loan is left to rot, with no one willing to take responsibility for it. Jason had no idea about this. He thought all was well and good and paid no mind when a family member called to ask if there were options to cancel the loan. To his surprise, a week later the County Sheriff showed up to his office and he got served with a lawsuit for alleged fraud, stating that the borrower was taken advantage of during the whole process as he was mentally incapacitated.
Lies upon lies were put on top of the other just so the family could get millions out of him, but Jason refused to lose. Six months in, he had an epiphany that turned the tables around.
Wanna know what happened? Oh, I’m not at liberty to break the excitement. Watch the whole episode to know how Jason outmaneuvered the real fraudsters and learn a key point or two to avoid these problems in the future!
Morgan Friedman
Jason's Website
Jason's Facebook
Jason's Instagram
Setbacks are pretty normal, but have you ever experienced losing so much money just because someone didn’t want their work checked? Oops! I didn’t mean to give too much away, but we’re here with another episode of Client Horror Story with our host, Morgan Friedman.
Today, we’re graced by Gee Ranasinha of KEXINO. KEXINO is a small marketing agency based in Europe, serving startups and small businesses mostly in the USA. A few years ago, they closed a deal with a well-funded organization in the crypto space—this was the time when crypto boomed and everyone wanted to get in on the latest trend.
Anyhow, deal’s closed and the project has been undertaken with Gee insisting on a proper QA before anything was launched. Guess what? Client said no and everything went poof! It turns out, there was a typo in the bitcoin address and they ended up losing a five-digits figure worth of earnings.
Get ready for this rollercoaster of a story as you tune in to our latest episode!
Morgan Friedman
KEXINO's Website
Gee's Linkedin
Setbacks are pretty normal, but have you ever experienced losing so much money just because someone didn’t want their work checked? Oops! I didn’t mean to give too much away, but we’re here with another episode of Client Horror Story with our host, Morgan Friedman.
Today, we’re graced by Gee Ranasinha of KEXINO. KEXINO is a small marketing agency based in Europe, serving startups and small businesses mostly in the USA. A few years ago, they closed a deal with a well-funded organization in the crypto space—this was the time when crypto boomed and everyone wanted to get in on the latest trend.
Anyhow, deal’s closed and the project has been undertaken with Gee insisting on a proper QA before anything was launched. Guess what? Client said no and everything went poof! It turns out, there was a typo in the bitcoin address and they ended up losing a five-digits figure worth of earnings.
Get ready for this rollercoaster of a story as you tune in to our latest episode!
Morgan Friedman
KEXINO's Website
Gee's Linkedin
Have you ever tried waiting for a prospective client to make up their minds? If you're currently doing that and your patience is wearing thin, listen to this unique episode right now.
Welcome to another Client Horror Story with Brandon Kirkpatrick, CEO of Catalyst Consultant Group. This autonomous drone startup has just had a welcome to the world and had a chance encounter with a potential client during a motorcycle ride. Bizarre, right? Well, they got to talking and realized the potential client needed the exact services they offer.
Hands were shaken and prototypes had already been built, but it was only until 2 years in and $5 million later that they got blindsided in the deal. It turns out there were things they didn’t know about. Of course, we’re not going to spill the whole story here, but one thing’s for sure – the story is about to take a turn for the worst.
Tune in to learn more about Brandon’s client horror story!
Morgan Friedman
Brandon's Website
Brandon's Linkedin
Imagine going to Los Angeles to follow your dreams of becoming an actress – all these setbacks and challenges seemingly going on forever, and just when you thought you’re about to have a big break, it all comes crashing down. In this episode, we’re speaking with Suzy Hardy, a certified stress management and anxiety coach, and discuss her client horror story from a decade ago.
We’d want to say that since events of the past occurred years back, it would give us a wider berth or bigger perspective to think things through, but no – in this case, it was just an absolute shock to the system. When Suzy transferred to Los Angeles and graduated from massage school, while pursuing her acting career, she was introduced to a Russian agency backer who, after learning of her massage services, scheduled an appointment with her. During the course of the treatment, her Russian customer started giving some signals. If you thought a man putting his hands behind his head was sexy in books, in real life it’s definitely a red flag, especially during these professional services.
There’s more to the story, but you’ll have to tune in first. Watch the episode to learn more about how Suzy got out of this unbelievably scary situation and what she learned thereafter!
psychopath on the street? In today’s episode, Robert Indries, owner of a group of 8 companies generating 7-figures yearly, shares his biggest mistake of hiring a high-functioning psychopath in his portfolio.
High growth comes with high responsibility, and eventually, Robert decided to take the networking reins to further expand his ever-growing company. To make sure he can concentrate on this task, he hired several executives who could, in theory, take over what he usually does. As a result of Robert’s additional networking efforts, his portfolio has managed to take in more clients and earn more money, but Robert noticed various issues on the service delivery side. Why?
He dug deeper and talked to multiple individuals and was eventually led to a single personality – one of those “leaders” he hired to allow him to focus on networking. This guy derailed the company in every possible way, whilst making Robert think twice about his own leadership… How?
He was being ingeniously spoken to with the goal of further confusing him. What’s worse is that not only were his clients being wronged by this person – they were also stealing Robert’s prospects and current employees!
Crazy? More like psycho! Press the play button and listen to the rest of the story. Uncover more of Robert’s challenges, and learn how he retook control and turned his portfolio back around.
Morgan Friedman
Suzy's Website
Do you ever wonder whether you’ve accidentally crossed paths with a psychopath on the street? In today’s episode, Robert Indries, owner of a group of 8 companies generating 7-figures yearly, shares his biggest mistake of hiring a high-functioning psychopath in his portfolio.
High growth comes with high responsibility, and eventually, Robert decided to take the networking reins to further expand his ever-growing company. To make sure he can concentrate on this task, he hired several executives who could, in theory, take over what he usually does. As a result of Robert’s additional networking efforts, his portfolio has managed to take in more clients and earn more money, but Robert noticed various issues on the service delivery side. Why?
He dug deeper and talked to multiple individuals and was eventually led to a single personality – one of those “leaders” he hired to allow him to focus on networking. This guy derailed the company in every possible way, whilst making Robert think twice about his own leadership… How?
He was being ingeniously spoken to with the goal of further confusing him. What’s worse is that not only were his clients being wronged by this person – they were also stealing Robert’s prospects and current employees!
Crazy? More like psycho! Press the play button and listen to the rest of the story. Uncover more of Robert’s challenges, and learn how he retook control and turned his portfolio back around.
Morgan Friedman
Robert's Website
Robert's Linkedin
Robert's Facebook
Robert's Twitter
Robert's Instagram
Dive into the engaging and insightful world of Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell, Esq., now an Intuitive Business Coach at Leading Through Living Community LLC. Lynita, once a champion of publishing, navigated the exciting realm of helping authors share their stories with the world.
Here's a fun twist: a close friend of Lynita's needed help publishing a book. With a generous spirit and a knack for problem-solving, Lynita eagerly stepped up to the challenge. She shares a humorous and all-too-real insight in the podcast: "Lawyers make the worst clients." It turns out, she humorously overlooked switching from friend mode to client mode, skipping the formalities of a contract.
The story takes a quirky turn when Lynita, expecting a manuscript, receives a PowerPoint presentation instead—her friend had composed the entire story on a phone! Unperturbed, Lynita adapts like a pro, transferring the content to a laptop for better accessibility. But there's a catch: the text is a labyrinth of incomplete sentences.
Pushed to her limits but still maintaining her poise, Lynita's tale unfolds with a blend of laughter and learning. The full story, rich with more twists and sage advice about maintaining professional boundaries with friends and family, awaits. Get ready for an enjoyable and enlightening experience that blends professionalism with a touch of fun—this is a client horror story you wouldn’t want to miss!
Morgan Friedman
Lynita's Website
Lynita's Linkedin
Lynita's Facebook
Lynita's Twitter
Lynita's Instagram
Listen in as we speak with Being Space's Founder, Catherine Llewellyn, and discuss her greatest client horror story. In this episode, Catherine discusses disappointing traits and tactics of business executives that may prompt even loyal employees to resign.
During the 1980s, Catherine traveled the countryside as a trainer with her team. They were distinct from the sales team. The sales team would acquire clients, close deals, and contracts, and then brief Catherine's training team to execute the training.
They were assigned to conduct a two-day telephone sales training for a travel agency. Upon arrival, they were met with a derelict training room with walls full of plaster and a dusty, filthy floor – which they spent hours cleaning! Worse, upon the arrival of the participants, their faces were slack and utterly unhappy because (surprise!) they don’t perform telephone sales in their line of work.
It gets even worse as when they tried contacting the primary client, he was on holiday. It turns out that this client just didn’t want to be there for his employees’ reaction to letting them take telephone sales training. There just wasn’t any hope of breaking it to them gently. They were going to be handling telephone sales upon return, but Catherine’s team had to be the ones to give the news.
You are in for a treat with this episode full of surprising twists and valuable lessons. Get ready to explore what it takes to thrive in the business world and learn from both successes and challenges.
Morgan Friedman
Being Space
Catherine's Linkedin
Catherine's Facebook
In this episode, we have the privilege of hearing from Colin Duff, the CEO of Mosaic Innovation. He shares with us an unprecedented client horror story that sheds light on the challenges of managing a diverse team of individuals. It's evident that this is no easy task.
Colin worked with a big hardware company that suddenly decided to become a digital company, something they knew totally nothing about. This project ran for 9 months, and a lot of individuals and experts were hired left and right to complete the project successfully.
Naturally, we all want to work as a team, but one project manager didn’t want to accept any help and went on his merry way only to have outputs that just weren’t done right. To make things worse, during meetings, they couldn’t decide on anything that would give them something to continue because of so many cultural differences. Some say, “In Germany, this is the least priority,” “In India, this is how we do it,” and the list goes on.
Frustrating, isn’t it? Well, there's more to the story. In this episode, Colin takes control of the situation, and you won't want to miss how he did it. The lessons he learned are valuable and definitely worth your time. Tune in to discover more.
Morgan Friedman
Colin's Company Website
Colin's Linkedin
Colin's Facebook
Join us in this episode as we hear from Sam Drauschak, the Chief Process Scientist at Truvle, as he shares a shocking story. He sheds light on an undetected billing error that ultimately led to the discovery of the role of politics in every business, big or small. It's a fascinating tale that you won't want to miss!
One day, Sam was sent out on a routine investigation to check on a possible billing error in the finance system. Lo and behold, he found that, indeed, an error existed and that it was close to $40 million!
As part of protocol, Sam escalated this issue to his manager who then went up to the partner of the office to check and validate it. Subsequently, the matter was brought to the attention of the CFO and the Chairman, causing a ripple effect that was difficult to take hold of. Eventually, they presented the relevant data to the Chairman, who, after the presentations, just gave them a nod of thanks and asked them to leave the room.
They were blocked from taking further action to help the organization as the CFO was given charge to take over the issue once again. Despite this, the company ended up losing the money and replacing the CFO 18 months later.
As the episode ends, Sam and Morgan engage in a thought-provoking discussion regarding what they’ve gleaned from the story. They delve into the contrasting perspectives of big and small companies when it comes to handling finances, the intricate political factors at play, and how it feels to discover something big. Watch the episode to gain a deeper understanding of these topics!
Morgan Friedman
Sam's Linkedin
Join us in this episode as we hear from Sam Drauschak, the Chief Process Scientist at Truvle, as he shares a shocking story. He sheds light on an undetected billing error that ultimately led to the discovery of the role of politics in every business, big or small. It's a fascinating tale that you won't want to miss!
One day, Sam was sent out on a routine investigation to check on a possible billing error in the finance system. Lo and behold, he found that, indeed, an error existed and that it was close to $40 million!
As part of protocol, Sam escalated this issue to his manager who then went up to the partner of the office to check and validate it. Subsequently, the matter was brought to the attention of the CFO and the Chairman, causing a ripple effect that was difficult to take hold of. Eventually, they presented the relevant data to the Chairman, who, after the presentations, just gave them a nod of thanks and asked them to leave the room.
They were blocked from taking further action to help the organization as the CFO was given charge to take over the issue once again. Despite this, the company ended up losing the money and replacing the CFO 18 months later.
As the episode ends, Sam and Morgan engage in a thought-provoking discussion regarding what they’ve gleaned from the story. They delve into the contrasting perspectives of big and small companies when it comes to handling finances, the intricate political factors at play, and how it feels to discover something big. Watch the episode to gain a deeper understanding of these topics!
Morgan Friedman
Sam's Linkedin
In this episode, Ameet Khabra, owner and founder of Hop Skip Media, is going to take Our Beloved Host, Morgan Friedman, and us on a roller coaster ride of her story from seven years ago. You’re in for a treat as we delve deep into a mix of lawsuits, health issues, heartbreak, and reconciliation all in one go.
In 2015, while Ameet was working for an agency in Edmonton, she had an epiphany and realized that the 8–5 job was not for her – she hated being asked to come in at fixed hours and just wanted to be in control of her life. She decided to quit her job and find her place in the universe.
Eventually, a friend introduced her to an accountant that was interested in running ads and improving his business. Without a second thought, she took his offer and just went for it, saying that she was capable of doing everything he needed, and the client happily paid for the whole thing then and there.
While signing the contract, the client proudly told her that he wasn’t happy with an old agency he hired, and he complained so much that he ended up getting three months of services for free after threatening the company with a negative review online. It seemed funny at the moment, but according to Ameet, “I saw the red flags but just ignored them.”
A few days later, after a lot of work has been finished, the client sent her a message at 7PM saying, “There’s an issue with the website.” She asked what it was and was terribly met with these exact words: “If you can’t figure out what the issue is, maybe you’re not that good at your job.” Really?
It gets worse! As Amit couldn’t identify anything wrong with the website, the client said four hard words she could never forget – see you in court.
The next day, stressed and panicked, she asked her lawyer for advice, and they immediately served her client with a civil claims lawsuit. Within 21 days, Ameet’s client decided to countersuit for the maximum amount of the civil claims, which was $50,000 in lost revenue. In Ameet’s head, she thought, “As an accountant, I’m pretty sure you know that it’s incredibly illegal to cook your books. So, how exactly are you planning to prove the $50,000 lost in a span of 45 days?”
It took quite some time before anything resulted out of their lawsuits, but while she was waiting, Ameet went through so many things. She felt sharp pains in her chest and shoulders, was diagnosed with diabetes, and when she was given treatment, the pain still didn’t go away! Eventually, she was referred to a psychiatrist and got diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety. She had to take a break to heal and find light again.
Finally, Ameet and her client went into mediation, and her civil claims agent brought a thick bunch of papers containing all the emails her client sent her in 45 days. The client said nothing the entire time. They either had to settle or go to court.
A week later, the client sent an email to give her x amount so they can call it a day, but she needed to give him his website. That was fine – this wasn’t worth fighting too much for, so she countered and eventually got an amount that made her moderately happy.
While that may sound like a full story, you’ll be surprised of the amount of feelings unpacked in this episode. Hit that play button to know more!
Morgan Friedman
Ameet's Linkedin
Ameet's Facebook
Ameet's Twitter
Ameet's Instagram
In this episode, Irina Poddubnaia, founder of TrackMage, is going to share her craziest experience in the retail industry with us. From numerous counts of deceit, misspelled brand names, and defective items, to missing orders, you’ll be shocked by her revelation.
There was a time in Irina’s life when she decided to start a new life and move to China to start her business. The experience was immensely eye-opening as she finally had the chance to travel and discover the beautiful – and not-so-beautiful side – of cultures that were way different than what she grew up with. During this big decision, Irina was faced with multiple challenges in dealing with various suppliers for her business.
One time, they decided to sell knock-offs of designer shoes and requested an order from the supplier. Lo and behold, they got the Valentinos but the name was misspelled! Pfft, no problem – it’s manageable. Irina continued to find other products to sell and had her eyes set on electric hookahs. It started perfectly as everything worked when they tested it out. Unfortunately, their new batch was extremely defective – one even blew up when a customer used it!
Irina then decided to switch to selling clothing where, upon receiving the batch from their supplier, she found out some colors were missing! Unfortunately, her business ended up not having any loyal customers because of poor service. No one wanted to trust them.
After living in China for a while, she learned that they have certain beliefs about inner circles and how when you weren’t part of it, there were just some perks you’ll never be able to receive. This meant that receiving a whopping 50% discount on their service resulted in you receiving half of your orders defective and useless.
If you’re eager to learn more about Chinese culture, you better tune in!
Morgan Friedman
Irina's Linkedin
Irina's Twitter
Irina's Instagram
Irina's Facebook
In this episode, Sherrilynne Starkie, Social Media Expert and Host of the 50 Women Over 50 podcast, is going to tell us a horror story no business owner would ever like to go through. It’s an experience like no other, which involves talks about money, paperwork, and legalities.
Sherrilynne has been in marketing and communications approaching 30 years of experience, and during this time, she established her own public relations agency at the dead center of the Irish Sea.
She got a call from a tech guy looking to launch his own business. This figure had been introduced to Sherrilynne by a long-term and loyal client, and he was looking to launch a new telecommunications service. Sherrilynne was intrigued and took on the challenge, working with the new client on a monthly retainer for around 5–6 months.
At first, things were going great. Sherrilynne was crushing it, and the client seemed to be thrilled with her work. But then, disaster struck. The old client who had referred Sherrilynne to the new client reached out, wondering if they had been paid since they hadn't been receiving payment for their own services. She decided to give her client the benefit of the doubt, but alarm bells were going off in her head and instinct pushed her to do some more digging.
Sherrilynne soon found out that the new client had been consistently late with payments, always with some excuse or another. Eventually, the client stopped taking her calls and responding to her altogether. What a nightmare! But this didn’t faze Sherrilynne.
She decided to take matters into her own hands and took the new client to court, hoping to get the payment she was owed. However, it seems like it was never meant to be. The client filed for bankruptcy, and Sherrilynne was left with nothing to show for all her hard work and trouble in court. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but she knew that she had given it her all.
The story doesn’t end there though. Listen to the full episode to know all the important details!
Morgan Friedman
Sherrilynne's Linkedin
Sherrilynne's Facebook
Sherrilynne's Twitter
Sherrilynne's Instagram
In this episode, Sherrilynne Starkie, Social Media Expert and Host of the 50 Women Over 50 podcast, is going to tell us a horror story no business owner would ever like to go through. It’s an experience like no other, which involves talks about money, paperwork, and legalities.
Sherrilynne has been in marketing and communications approaching 30 years of experience, and during this time, she established her own public relations agency at the dead center of the Irish Sea.
She got a call from a tech guy looking to launch his own business. This figure had been introduced to Sherrilynne by a long-term and loyal client, and he was looking to launch a new telecommunications service. Sherrilynne was intrigued and took on the challenge, working with the new client on a monthly retainer for around 5–6 months.
At first, things were going great. Sherrilynne was crushing it, and the client seemed to be thrilled with her work. But then, disaster struck. The old client who had referred Sherrilynne to the new client reached out, wondering if they had been paid since they hadn't been receiving payment for their own services. She decided to give her client the benefit of the doubt, but alarm bells were going off in her head and instinct pushed her to do some more digging.
Sherrilynne soon found out that the new client had been consistently late with payments, always with some excuse or another. Eventually, the client stopped taking her calls and responding to her altogether. What a nightmare! But this didn’t faze Sherrilynne.
She decided to take matters into her own hands and took the new client to court, hoping to get the payment she was owed. However, it seems like it was never meant to be. The client filed for bankruptcy, and Sherrilynne was left with nothing to show for all her hard work and trouble in court. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but she knew that she had given it her all.
The story doesn’t end there though. Listen to the full episode to know all the important details!
Morgan Friedman
Sherrilynne's Linkedin
Sherrilynne's Facebook
Sherrilynne's Twitter
Sherrilynne's Instagram
In this episode, Kelsey Knutson, business coach, and podcast coach shared a tea-worthy story about her experience and survival of a “bridezilla.” While even talking about the experience grew a pit in her stomach, it helped her become the successful entrepreneur she is today. But we’ll get to that in a bit!
Let us rewind to when Kelsey had just started her hair & makeup artist business and was working on building connections to expand her clientele. A friend of a friend referred her to a certain client who was about to get married, and Kelsey was set to prepare the bride’s bridal hair as well as her bridesmaids’.
On the day of the wedding, everyone was hungover and late, and Kelsey had eleven looks to do – that’s 45 minutes each! Fast forward, she’d already started working on the bride’s look and was proud of herself for achieving the exact look they’d practiced during their trial run. She was just about to take a photo when the bride looked in the mirror and said, “I f*ing hate it”.
Imagine Kelsey’s surprise! She then asked the bride to figure out what kind of look she wanted and worked on the rest of the bridesmaids’ hair. The bride eventually decided she would prefer a messier look. Like the superstar that she is, she was able to fix the look and somehow got everyone done in time. At this point, Kelsey had already started feeling defeated but overheard the bride talking to her grandma and cursing her on the phone.
This is when Kelsey realizes that there’s probably something wrong with the bride. Red flags had started popping up left and right but she continued to pull through. But you know what the worst part is? Despite her best efforts, Kelsey ended up not getting paid for her services.
As the episode ends, Kelsey shares the importance of asking questions before committing to something, taking time to assess what you could do differently in certain situations, and establishing proper communication.
This episode is an eye-opener to businessmen and entrepreneurs, but you’ll need to watch the whole episode to understand more!
Morgan Friedman
Kelsey's Linkedin
Kelsey's Facebook
Kelsey's Instagram
In this episode, Kelsey Knutson, business coach, and podcast coach shared a tea-worthy story about her experience and survival of a “bridezilla.” While even talking about the experience grew a pit in her stomach, it helped her become the successful entrepreneur she is today. But we’ll get to that in a bit!
Let us rewind to when Kelsey had just started her hair & makeup artist business and was working on building connections to expand her clientele. A friend of a friend referred her to a certain client who was about to get married, and Kelsey was set to prepare the bride’s bridal hair as well as her bridesmaids’.
On the day of the wedding, everyone was hungover and late, and Kelsey had eleven looks to do – that’s 45 minutes each! Fast forward, she’d already started working on the bride’s look and was proud of herself for achieving the exact look they’d practiced during their trial run. She was just about to take a photo when the bride looked in the mirror and said, “I f*ing hate it”.
Imagine Kelsey’s surprise! She then asked the bride to figure out what kind of look she wanted and worked on the rest of the bridesmaids’ hair. The bride eventually decided she would prefer a messier look. Like the superstar that she is, she was able to fix the look and somehow got everyone done in time. At this point, Kelsey had already started feeling defeated but overheard the bride talking to her grandma and cursing her on the phone.
This is when Kelsey realizes that there’s probably something wrong with the bride. Red flags had started popping up left and right but she continued to pull through. But you know what the worst part is? Despite her best efforts, Kelsey ended up not getting paid for her services.
As the episode ends, Kelsey shares the importance of asking questions before committing to something, taking time to assess what you could do differently in certain situations, and establishing proper communication.
This episode is an eye-opener to businessmen and entrepreneurs, but you’ll need to watch the whole episode to understand more!
Morgan Friedman
Kelsey's Linkedin
Kelsey's Facebook
Kelsey's Instagram
In this episode, our guest, Anika Jackson, shares a story of when she worked with a client who had a million projects plus a nonprofit which was bankrolled and produced by her husband. Although that’s a good thing, there are plenty of red flags that came with it and Anika had first-hand experience with this situation.
To start, each project had its own logo, website, and brand identity. The client hired multiple experts in different fields and with different scopes of work, including Anika, who was assigned as her PR manager. Whenever they would go to meetings, the client and her husband would be there, which causes confusion surrounding who is the actual boss.
Then, the client wanted to hire people as her employees but under Anika’s company. Anika didn't know them, didn’t vet them, and didn’t want to hire full-time, but it happened. As days went by, things started getting weird, a lot of missed meetings, and all of a sudden, the contract just stopped without notice.
Anika found out that she was ghosted, and the client made a bunch of reasons like she wanted to stop doing services, she wasn’t happy with Anika’s team, and she didn’t feel like she was getting enough of Anika’s time.
But there was spicy “tea” that Anika discovered. Let’s just say it had to do with a risque virtual affair with somebody who was not her client’s husband.
Learn more about the “tea” and more professional lessons in this episode!
Morgan Friedman
Anika's Linkedin
In this episode, our guest, Anika Jackson, shares a story of when she worked with a client who had a million projects plus a nonprofit which was bankrolled and produced by her husband. Although that’s a good thing, there are plenty of red flags that came with it and Anika had first-hand experience with this situation. To start, each project had its own logo, website, and brand identity. The client hired multiple experts in different fields and with different scopes of work, including Anika, who was assigned as her PR manager. Whenever they would go to meetings, the client and her husband would be there, which causes confusion surrounding who is the actual boss. Then, the client wanted to hire people as her employees but under Anika’s company. Anika didn't know them, didn’t vet them, and didn’t want to hire full-time, but it happened. As days went by, things started getting weird, a lot of missed meetings, and all of a sudden, the contract just stopped without notice. Anika found out that she was ghosted, and the client made a bunch of reasons like she wanted to stop doing services, she wasn’t happy with Anika’s team, and she didn’t feel like she was getting enough of Anika’s time. But there was spicy “tea” that Anika discovered. Let’s just say it had to do with a risque virtual affair with somebody who was not her client’s husband. Learn more about the “tea” and more professional lessons in this episode! Morgan FriedmanAnika's Linkedin
In this episode, Robert Persichitte, a Financial Planner of Delagify Financial, shares a relatable adulting story of a client who absolutely hated his job and just wanted to get out of it.
This client was a pretty high-level attorney, a pretty high earner, and a very high-stress job. He wanted to retire as soon as possible. So Robert followed his usual process with the client and tried to put everything in the context of goals.
But this is where the problem came in with this client. The client gave him an estimate of about $6,000 a month in lifestyle expenses which is considered as having fun money, paying for things like groceries, and going out.
However, something common amongst high-earning clients is that they're unaware of the numbers they're actually spending. Robert then came to an actual estimate of the client's household spending, which totaled $10,000 a month. The catch is that his client was not the one in the household spending that money. He only spent about $2,000 a month, and the other $8,000 came from his wife.
At this point, Robert knew that his client's goal of early retirement wasn't possible. Robert formed a great strategy to resolve this issue, focusing on purposeful communication and subtle approaches to client management.
Watch the full episode to learn how he did it!
Morgan Friedman
Robert's Linkedin
In this episode, Robert Persichitte, a Financial Planner of Delagify Financial, shares a relatable adulting story of a client who absolutely hated his job and just wanted to get out of it.
This client was a pretty high-level attorney, a pretty high earner, and a very high-stress job. He wanted to retire as soon as possible. So Robert followed his usual process with the client and tried to put everything in the context of goals.
But this is where the problem came in with this client. The client gave him an estimate of about $6,000 a month in lifestyle expenses which is considered as having fun money, paying for things like groceries, and going out.
However, something common amongst high-earning clients is that they're unaware of the numbers they're actually spending. Robert then came to an actual estimate of the client's household spending, which totaled $10,000 a month. The catch is that his client was not the one in the household spending that money. He only spent about $2,000 a month, and the other $8,000 came from his wife.
At this point, Robert knew that his client's goal of early retirement wasn't possible. Robert formed a great strategy to resolve this issue, focusing on purposeful communication and subtle approaches to client management.
Watch the full episode to learn how he did it!
Morgan Friedman
In this episode, Mark Herschberg, a Chief Technology Officer and author shares his story when he was working under “Evil Corp” (a code name for the company).
At that time, he was assigned to a company division that was working on creating a new type of video service/ video marketplace platform where viewers could watch content from movie studios and tv stations under controlled access. With this wonderful idea in mind, Evil Corp put out a press release stating their release date.
The catch is that Evil Corp wasn't very good at doing projects like this, so they decided to get a vendor to do it for them. But there’s more…The funny thing is the vendor wasn’t optimized for this project, and they wanted to bring in 2 more vendors that had the technology that Evil Corp needed.
By the time Mark was brought into the company, the project was launched. Instead of being a convenient video platform, everything was done manually by phone and email. Plus, there was a game of broken telephone going on between the 3 vendors and the internal team of the company.
As Mark said, everything was on fire, and he was there to put out the fires. By the end of the episode, Mark and Morgan talked about the essence of management, communication, and problem-solving, which could be helpful to you as well!
Morgan Friedman
Mark's Linkedin
Mark's Facebook
Mark's Twitter
Mark's Instagram
In this episode, Mark Herschberg, a Chief Technology Officer and author shares his story when he was working under “Evil Corp” (a code name for the company).
At that time, he was assigned to a company division that was working on creating a new type of video service/ video marketplace platform where viewers could watch content from movie studios and tv stations under controlled access. With this wonderful idea in mind, Evil Corp put out a press release stating their release date.
The catch is that Evil Corp wasn't very good at doing projects like this, so they decided to get a vendor to do it for them. But there’s more…The funny thing is the vendor wasn’t optimized for this project, and they wanted to bring in 2 more vendors that had the technology that Evil Corp needed.
By the time Mark was brought into the company, the project was launched. Instead of being a convenient video platform, everything was done manually by phone and email. Plus, there was a game of broken telephone going on between the 3 vendors and the internal team of the company.
As Mark said, everything was on fire, and he was there to put out the fires. By the end of the episode, Mark and Morgan talked about the essence of management, communication, and problem-solving, which could be helpful to you as well!
Morgan Friedman
Mark's Linkedin
Mark's Facebook
Mark's Twitter
Mark's Instagram
In this episode, Matthew Davis of Davis Business Law, reveals how his law firm decided to not do family law anymore because of this client-horror story.
It all started when a client came to his law firm where his ex-wife hated his guts, and she had a very good reason to because he got another woman pregnant. Still, he thought that his ex-wife was interfering with his relationship with the kids, which she legitimately was, but he wanted to be the victim in the whole ordeal.
The client kept coming to Matt, asking him to help him with his case, and Matt tried to explain to him what would happen in court and what the judge would possibly come up with in his case. Matt started to feel sorry for him, and he was pretty persistent, so Matt decided to help him.
The time came when they took the case to court, the judge was losing his temper with Matt’s client, and Matt ended up being the bad guy instead. At the end of the episode, Matt shared some interesting concepts about the drama triangle game, the grudge match, and some ways to incorporate psychology to prevent troublesome issues.
Morgan Friedman
Matt's Linkedin
In this episode, Jeremy Streten, a Lawyer and Business Coaching Support, shared a story of when a client from a construction company approached to get approval to build a 30-story high-rise building in Australia.
His client was thinking of selling the property and packaging it all up to a developer for building the high-rise. However, his business partner, an architect, was caught up in the thought that he was going to earn a lot from this and actually develop and build the property himself. A third investor, who had invested 10%, was supportive of selling the property to a reliable developer.
So, two of them were on the same page while the other one was thinking of something grand. The catch is that these three guys didn’t communicate their end goal for this. They just assumed that each of them knew what they would do. Worst of all, this misunderstanding ended up in court.
As the episode ends, Jeremy shared valuable thoughts that are not only helpful in the legal profession but to other businesses as well. He also pointed out the little things we often overlook are essential in big decisions.
Morgan Friedman
Jeremy's Linkedin
Jeremy's Facebook
Jeremy's Twitter
This was when she was just newly working for a brand, selling luxury watches for men. Divya Patel, a PPC Specialist, was handling the PPC service of the brand.
At that time, they were going to launch a YouTube campaign and she offered to create the ad assets for them since she’s been with the brand from the start. She was there to help the clients with the brand message, tone of voice, and everything about branding.
The client declined her offer and told her that they will sort the video out themselves so that they could focus on the campaign. Still, Divya and her team briefed the client on how the video should turn out. Divya and the team expected the video to be showcasing the watch that they’ll be launching.
One day, as Divya walked into the office that day, her manager was upset and the team was circled around a computer. Turns out, the client posted the video on YouTube without telling the team.
To their dismay, the video was the complete opposite of what they expected and what was discussed in the briefing. Instead of men wearing and showcasing the watch, women in lingerie were there and the video didn’t focus on the watch, which was their product.
That’s not all. Divya Googled her client and she saw her client's name plastered on UK’s biggest tabloid negatively, something about how the video was degrading to women.
Divya and the team were utterly disappointed and upset. They felt that all the work they’ve been putting into the brand was just thrown out the window. When Divya and the team approached their clients about it, they were really happy about it because they thought it was good publicity and a nice way to put their name out there.
Thankfully, Divya and the team were able to get through this issue. Watch the episode to learn more about how they resolved the problem and the steps they took moving forward.
Morgan Friedman
Divya's Linkedin
Divya's Instagram
In this episode, Tom Schwab of Interview Valet shares how trust and communication flow in the same river towards success. His story pointed out how important it is to educate clients, provide a timeline and establish clear solutions in risk analysis when working with clients.
The story happened when Tom, a podcast marketing specialist, worked with a client with zero knowledge of how podcasts work. At first, the onboarding was great, the podcast recording was super smooth and it was a really abundant podcast session.
Five days later, he received a nasty and angry email from the client, all about how upset she was for not getting results in those five days. She also mentioned that she was with a radio show and had 4 million listens, which were not actually 4 million listens as she thought.
She started to complain and demanded to have her money back. Tom didn’t want to ruin their reputation so he asked her to wait 10 days after the podcast to see the results.
By the end of the episode, Morgan and Tom shared interesting conclusions about the hierarchy of communication and how it helped Tom to deal with the client. Watch the episode to learn more!
Morgan Friedman
Tom's Linkedin
Tom's Twitter
Tom's Facebook
In today’s tasty episode, Braden Cadenelli, the Senior R&D Manager at National Innovation Centers of Puratos shared one story that happened during his previous employment. This particular event has served as a lesson for Braden on how important trust, communication, and leadership are in business.
Back at that time, he was working for a semi-industrial pastry wholesaler in the food industry. One time, a customer approached him asking for a large order of cupcakes from them. The company accepted the offer and this customer frequently made visits to the company.
At this point, Braden already suspected that this could be a troublesome customer to deal with because of 2 major reasons.
First, every time the customer comes in, she would taste test their products including the ones that are actual orders. It came to the point where they would make her separate samples and leave them somewhere else so she wouldn’t bother with their work.
Second, when the deal was made and the company ordered ingredients for the production, the customer threw a tantrum saying the company ordered the wrong ingredient just because the packaging was different. It was the same ingredient made by the same manufacturer, just a different packaging because it was bought in bulk.
Fortunately, the company owners dealt with the situation professionally and have proceeded. The day of the production came, everything was super hectic and stressful. What’s worse is, the customer was there doing “quality control” eating 10 cupcakes in every batch they made.
As we reach the end of the episode, Braden shares some realities about such work environments and how important the principles of trust and leadership are in every industry. Let’s hear more of Braden’s story and learn a lot of interesting things in the food industry along the way!
Morgan Friedman
Braden’s Linkedin
Braden’s Twitter
Braden’s Instagram
In this whiskey and wine-powered episode, Timi Orosz, a marketing expert, shared a story where she learned three crucial things in business: communication, boundaries, and friendships. It happened when a friend of hers approached her and asked her to help him develop a branding strategy for a new business.
At that early point, a little voice in her head told her that this could lead to something troublesome, but Timi decided to push through and help her friend.
Everything went smoothly until she needed to outsource a web developer to build the business website. She found this developer with an amazing portfolio and reasonable rates, and her impression of him was great.
As they have been working together, Timi was on good communication terms with this web developer. Suddenly, the web developer went missing in action and ghosted the project. Timi had no choice but to hire another developer at a higher rate since it was already a rushed project.
As she continued working on the project, she started receiving emails directly from her friend’s teammates, asking her to fix some technical stuff. Timi’s not the technical type, but she still offered to help (thanks to Google) and suggested having a professional handle it.
Timi was disappointed in herself since she still helped them even though it was not part of her responsibilities. She was also disappointed in her friend since he didn’t communicate with her about this. Things eventually piled up until both Timi, and her friend decided to call off their partnership.
As the episode ends, Timi and Morgan share the importance of communication, setting boundaries, and friendships in business. Watch the episode to learn why you need to establish these three essential principles in business.
Morgan Friedman
Timi’s Linkedin
Timi’s Instagram
Timi’s Facebook
In this episode, Ari Krzyzek, the co-founder of Chykalophia, shared an exciting-turned-heartbreaking project that led her to learn how important it is to have detailed contracts and establish policies when offering digital services.
It all started when a client approached her to do an exciting project, and Ari was excited about it too. The client also recognized Ari’s expertise, saying that they are the professionals they’re looking for, which for Ari, was very warming and boosted their ego.
During the brainstorming phase of the project, Ari and her team threw lots of ideas to the client, and in return, the client wanted them to try everything out. Little did they know, this triggered the problem. So the original contract of getting 15 pages done in 5-6 months became 150+ pages and lasted for more than a year.
Since a lot of time was wasted on revisions and demands, Ari and her team were burned out from finishing the super delayed project. What’s worse is, they weren’t paid the full price.
As the episode reaches the end, Morgan and Ari share a lot of lessons and ideas preventing such things from happening. One of them is establishing a process structure and strictly following it every time a new project comes in. Watch the episode to hear more!
Morgan Friedman
Ari's Linkedin
Ari's Instagram
Ari's Twitter
In this episode, Rachel Brenke, a multi-faceted entrepreneur and intellectual property attorney shared two stories with key takeaways: (1) Always establish good communication with your clients and (2) Know that no money is worth the stress and mistreatment.
The first story started when Rachel was diagnosed with cancer in her early 20s, but she just shrugged it off since it was “impossible” for her age. Two years later, her cancer worsened, and she had to undergo therapy.
As Rachel was about to head home after 3‑day radiotherapy, she was in the elevator with her client. After that, she received an email from that client.
The second story was when a big shot photographer approached Rachel to help with a copyright infringement case. Rachel did what she was good at and produced results, aka “financial compensation” for her client’s case. However, the client had some sort of different expectations.
As the episode wraps up, Morgan and Rachel point out a lot of lessons, primarily on the good practices and preventive practices that every entrepreneur or business owner should have.
Links:
Morgan Friedman
Rachel’s Website
Rachel’s Instagram
In this episode, Morgan meets fellow Will Smith fan, Liz Wilcox. A self-employed Email Marketing Specialist from Miramar Beach, Florida.
A while ago, Liz´s was contacted by her friend because their client needed some email marketing services. And of course, she was very excited to work with her buddy.
The client worked in the funeral industry, and to begin with they thought Liz´s rate was waaay high.
In Client Horror Stories #28, Liz works with a friend, who was the middleman between her and the clients, getting in contact with grieving customers, and a client who does not believe nor let her use her usual tools.
Talking about her style and brand and her client´s persona, in Liz´s own words “If you are on a fundamental level so different from your client, that's probably a red flag that you will never make them happy”
A year later, a new marketing manager comes in, Liz goes on holiday, and when she comes back her client stopped replying to her calls.
Luckily Liz has a policy of getting paid upfront... good advice especially when your client disappears.
As in many of our stories, one key lesson to be learnt: when something feels funky, it probably is.
Links:
Morgan Friedman
Liz Wilcox
Always be careful when working with friends, close ones, or family members. You might wind up becoming their packager!
In today's episode Nick Janetakis, a Full Stack Developer, tells us the story of a time when he was introduced to a friend´s friend who sold sports sweaters and now wanted to start selling them online, so asked Nick to work on this.
He ended up taking the job and because he sort of knew the business owner, he didn't seal the deal with any type of contract. He even gave him a special discount.
The client lived within walking distance of Nick's office, and he ended up going there quite often.
Eventually, it got to the point where the business was working well and there were many orders. The client asked Nick to help pack the merch up and move boxes around!
Nick even started helping set up his client kiosk in the mall, at midnight! f
Nowadays, he doesn't resent that time but has learned from it. Boundaries are healthy and very necessary.
This episode leaves us with a very important lesson: Focusing too much on the relationship part of the job is counterproductive. Always be careful when working with friends, close ones, or family members.
And a very important lesson in Nicks' own words: You should be respectful of yourself when it comes to how you value yourself.
Links:
Morgan Friedman
Nick Janetakis
https://nickjanetakis.com/
Today’s episode brings us, straight from Hollywood, Rick Schirmer, CEO & Founder of Viral Brand, with a super interesting and incredibly well told story that, regardless of the horror that made it CHS worthy, actually has a happy ending.
Rick’s tale brings us back to 2020 (or, as he calls it, the “pause” year) when he took under his wing a “cut deal” client with very little experience, and a lot of expectations. Along with some very powerful lessons on cheap clients, setting boundaries, and trusting your instinct, Rick shares with us a key learning from the whole experience: the inequality generated when someone gives you something that means everything to them, and very little to you. And yes, no matter how deep that sounds, we are talking about budget.
“Influencer sommelier” and “delusional button” are only a couple of awesome concepts that we’ll definitely steal from Rick, and definitely only a peak at how fun this story turned out to be.
Links:
Morgan Friedman
Rick Schirmer
Viral Brand
Dimitri Constantine is the CEO & Founder of Brandcoders, and the protagonist of today’s tale. His story brings us back a couple of years when a long-time friend brought him into a brand new project that seemed all too good to be true. And here’s our first lesson: if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Dimitri’s narrative walks us through the birth and development of a business that, even though it seemed brilliant and crazy easy to sell, for some reason was not able to get investors to commit. And that was just the first red flag.
An abusive culture of “slow-boiling” employees, talking trash behind other people’s backs, and firing people every three months after deciding they were the ones to blame for the lack of success is only a couple of highlights of Dimitri’s client.
To wrap up this gripping story, Dimitri leaves us with some wonderful and original lessons learned: it is not a good sign when there’s only one full-time employee in the company, you should always work with people looking to learn and progress, and that you never realize exactly where you are until you are in too deep.
Links:
Brandcoders
Morgan Friedman
Today’s story might as well fall under the “Managing Horror Stories” category because that’s exactly what it is. Kison Patel, CEO and Founder of M&A Science and DealRoom brings us a tale on the insights of starting a business that you really believe — and trying to save it at all costs.
Kison’s tale takes us back a couple of years, to the time where he decided to chase an idea he was passionate about, along with his partner who also was a very dear friend. And the first thing that he teaches us about is this one: no matter how excited you are about it, take the time to evaluate the product and business model you are pursuing before it’s too late and things start crashing all around you.
In Client Horror Stories #25, Kison brings along a couple of powerful managing secrets, such as the importance of creating an environment where people feel comfortable communicating their thoughts and feelings (even when it’s bad news), acknowledging people’s achievements, and creating a culture where colleagues feel like friends that are happy to work together.
To wrap up Kison’s story, he and Morgan reach the end with a super interesting addendum that only strives to fulfill their #1 conclusion: how essential it is to keep feedback going and to be able to give and receive criticism.
Links:
Morgan Friedman
Kison Patel
M&A Science
DealRoom
Andrew Kemendo is the Principal Architect, AI at Unity Technologies, and also the star of Client Horror Stories #24. Today, he brings us a story that has that one killer combo: just enough drama to keep you gripping, and just enough lessons learned to know it was time well invested.
Andrew’s tale brings us back a couple of years ago, to a young startup dedicated to creating augmented reality experiences who accepted what looked like an unbelievable deal from a huge company meant to be their hero case. And even though they were for a little while, Andrew wouldn’t be here if that would’ve remained the situation.
Out of the blue calls to demand a demo from one week to another (even though you weren’t supposed to have it for two more months) & trying to pull their software to massively fail in the way are just a couple of the dramatic highlights this story brings along. Reaching the end, Andrew gives us some powerful lessons on how important it is to never dedicate completely to one project, aligning with your client’s entire company and not just themselves, and overall understanding that it’s not only your client who hires you, but you also hire them.
Links:
Morgan Friedman
Andrew Kemendo
Unity Technologies
How often do you see a headline like that? Well, that’s because not often we get stories like this. On today’s episode, we have our first ever guest from the finance world: Liz Farr, Founder & CEO of Farr Communications, telling us an incredibly dramatic story, filled with incredible twists and lessons.
Liz’s story takes us back to 15 years ago, when handwritten tax notes and mail filing your returns were not red flags at all… unless they actually were. Apparently, even when you refuse to pay your taxes for 10 years, you might still want the documentation in order to continue developing your tax-avoiding business.
Being a powerful combo that includes horse riding while balloon shooting, IRS agents, vanishing clients, and massive debt, today’s tale has a lot to teach us on retainer costs, gut-instinct listening, and the risk of being too close to the person you are working for.
Links:
Morgan Friedman
Liz Farr
Farr Communications
In our 21st take at Client Horror Stories, we have Ben Nuttall, Software Engineer at BBC News Labs, with a story that, from the very beginning, has us wondering what’s with people’s common sense: showing up for an interview all dressed up, only to have the interviewer receive you in shorts and flip flops, and announcing that the person who called you in was no longer working there.
Ben’s tale takes us back to 2011, when the apps market was flourishing, and everyone trusted them to get them instant success. So much that a properties company figured it was a great idea to have a small team developing quick and easy apps to make some extra money. But you see the problem with having an absolutely unrelated industry’s company dive in the app development business is that they actually believe two people and one designer can develop 2 apps everyday, and believe pushing employees to the edge is the right way to accomplish it.
Today’s narrative brings us a bunch of different horror moments, such as bosses that take you to their offices to yell at you until you quit, so they don’t have to fire you, and other bosses that hire someone’s son to be your boss, even though they have 19 years old and zero experience. Along with a wide variety of absolutely bizarre and unbelievable moments, the older and more experienced version of Ben can’t believe he actually went through.
However, as every good story does, Ben’s one leaves us with some very valuable tips and lessons: First of all, if something smells weird, don’t hesitate to ask someone you know and trust in your industry what they think about it. Secondly, find people to learn from, and make sure you have at least some of them in your workplace. And finally, even bad experiences can be worth living, even if it’s just for the hope of it all.
About Ben:
Ben is a software engineer building prototypes for BBC News, and previously spent 6 years at the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Ben likes Python, Linux and all things open source.
Links:
Morgan Friedman
Benn Nuttall
BBC News Labs
Our 20th take at Client Horror Stories brings in a particularity that sets apart from the rest: there are actually no clients involved. In today’s episode, we have Mark Jacobsen, author of Eating Glass: The Inner Journey Through Failure and Renewal, with an excruciating story that has us sharing his pain from the very beginning.
Mark’s narrative brings us the point of view of a military pilot during the hottest years of war with an unstoppable will to help the Syrian refugees, which eventually led him to begin a non-profit with his own resources. His tale starts in the very beginning of the motivation for it, then goes through his innovative idea of using drones to reach places he couldn’t fly to, and eventually gets to the breakdown point: creating a 3-acre wildfire in Stanford.
What’s so special about today’s episode, is the fact that it teaches us that, no matter how pure our intentions are, some moonshots can be achieved by just trying and trying. Among some of the many lessons that this story taught us, we shall highlight Mark’s point on being able to create and maintain healthy habits both for you and your team, and making sure you have a business plan before you start anything, even when your anything is a nonprofit. But overall, it teaches us that even though our intuition can really help us see a problem coming, sometimes other people’s intuition can also help us find the right solutions to it.
Links:
Morgan Friedman
In our 19th take at Client Horror Stories, we have James Hush with a story very different to anything else we’ve heard: for the first time in Client Horror Stories, we have the story of a client with nothing to do with the tech world, and we definitely loved it. Not only today’s guest comes from the music industry, but he also has an awesome ability to link bands and shows management to handling a traditional enterprise and its clients. And also, he was happy to share with us many clips from his teenage band.
Today’s tale brings us back to when James was a college kid with rockstar dreams, and was taken under the wing of a show manager who taught him everything he knew. So when he was experienced enough, the best thing that ever could have happened happened: he was hired to plan and manage the event of his most admired label in the world. However, if everything was so great, he would not be telling his story here, would he?
James’s tale is as exciting as it is worth listening to, and it leaves us not only with some pretty cool Beatles and Aerosmith’s anecdotes, but also a lot of valuable lessons on handling clients, no matter the industry you work in. So, as a general best practice in James language: don’t focus on just one project at a time, choose your door person, and, no matter what happens, write down the terms beforehand. Oh, and over anything else: that sometimes just showing up and doing what you are asked to makes a huge difference.
About James:
James has given teams the ability to ship features at 5 pm on a Friday in 15 minutes to millions of users. He believes any engineering team can deliver high quality features that customers love on time, without working late or opening a bottle of Advil.
Links:
https://www.jameshush.com
James Hush
Morgan Friedman
In our 17th take at Client Horror Stories, we receive Violet Femmes, who brings us a dramatic and introspective story that lasted two years but gave her lessons for a lifetime. Today’s episode has a therapy-like tint that definitely makes the narrative strike a significant chord in us.
Opening with the phrase “I am terrific at making mistakes”, Violet’s tale has more than enough elements to make it a memorable one, but if we had to choose a couple of them to highlight they would definitely be emails “accidentally” sent to the wrong people, a lot of fancy wine, bewaring procurement, and the fact that horror comes not only from your client, but also from your own company.
Today’s episode leaves us slightly unsettled, and the realization that sometimes, no matter how hard you work, some things just can’t be accomplished. Violet’s tale teaches us that, every now and then, not even a 36 hours workday can get all your tasks done, and that’s when you need to take a step back and be able to ask for the help you need, and hope that your company is there to back you up.
Links:
Morgan Friedman
In our 17th take at Client Horror Stories, Scott Kveton, founding partner of Fractionalist.co, brings us a story that takes us 11 years back in time, back to the moment where people used to camp and wait in line for hours to get iPhone 3.0.
Scott’s tale starts with a “Why wait three months? Let’s launch in 30 days!” optimism, and includes everything that a good story should: The press, young and inexperienced entrepreneurs, a deal with the biggest app in the app store, and even Steve Jobs.
Today’s episode leaves us with a couple of great lessons on how to properly build your teams, how carefully you should choose your clients (even if they are tech giants that say they’ll refer you!), the importance of trusting someone’s instincts, even if they are not incredibly experienced, and definitely choosing wisely the jokes we’ll tell to the press.
Links:
Fractionalist.co
Scott Kveton
Morgan Friedman
In our 16th take at Client Horror Stories, Bonnie Rothman, CEO of Company B, brings us a fast, exciting, and very well told (not that she tells stories for a living!) horror story. Today’s tale has everything that a great story needs: dynamism, excitement, plot twists, and shoes in the oven.
In today’s episode, Bonnie walks us through the story of an incredibly well-funded startup that had a great idea and had been growing super fast, so everything indicated that the future ahead could only get brighter. And it did, at first. As Bonnie’s strategies kept making her client’s company grow more and more, so did the excitement that both created revolving around the company’s acceleration and expansion, until one day, 10 minutes before their scheduled team meeting, Bonnie received the call that turned this into a horror story: The team meeting was being canceled, and the investors decided to shut their business down because they weren’t reaching their expected numbers. Harsh.
Bonnie’s tale leaves us with more than a couple of interesting lessons on how sometimes you do everything right (and how important it is that you recognize it!), and you still fail due to factors that could never be managed by you. Reaching the end, Bonnie tells us what she thinks the bottom line is: The most important thing is to be able to build a trust-based relationship with your clients, that allows them to be vulnerable with you and express their fears. Make sure you are trusted, that you provide good and coherent ideas, and that you are a good partner, even if that includes offering to go for a drink after your client learns that their business will be shut down.
About Bonnie:
Your story drives your business and builds your brand. I'm the founder and CEO of Company B, a digital communications agency. A lifelong storyteller, former New York Times journalist and screenwriter, I help high growth companies tell stories through content and public relations, driving massive media attention. Stakeholders want to hear more from you, learn more about you and do more business with you.
Links:
Bonnie Rothman
Company B
Morgan Friedman
In our 15th take at Client Horror Stories, Collin Slattery, founder, and CEO of Taikun Inc. brings us a story approached not too dramatically, but rather as a learning experience for everyone who was a part of it (and, obviously, us as well!). Today’s tale gives us a lesson on how good students are the ones that don’t need an atomic bomb of a client in order to pick up a bunch of good lessons on how to manage them.
Collin’s narrative takes us to August 2020, very deeply diving into the pandemic craziness and a client who, no matter how hard he tried to change his mind, simply believed that advertising would solve every single one of his problems. But of course, advertising was not a magic success potion for their business, and so our story smoothly turns into micromanaging meets blaming marketing for everything mess.
Today’s episode leaves us with a sour taste in our mouths, and more than a lot of lessons to take notes on, such as: “In some situations, techniques that worked for everyone else, simply won’t do it”, “ABT: Always be testing everything you do”, and our personal favorite “If a client wants to do something, even though you insisted that it was not a good idea, have them sign a document where they agree that the did it against your professional advice”.
About Collin:
Literacy quotes:
“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” - John Maynard Keynes
Links:
Morgan Friedman
In our 14th take at Client Horror Stories, we have Will Rico, CEO of CommonMind, along with a parade of mentors, telling us probably the weirdest yet most gripping and surprising story so far. Today’s tale is the compilation of horror, random, and sometimes positively surprising situations that went along in Will’s 9-year long relationship with his then mentor.
Will takes us back to 2001, when he was just a 27-year-old starting a company and renting an office from his high-school boss, who couldn’t help but try to get involved in the young startup’s business. Little did we know that he would not actually end up being the trouble-maker, but actually the guy that he introduced Will to in order to create (what he thought would be) a fantastic deal.
The narrative that Will walks us through has everything from drama, sweet-angel wives, sketchy guys with a lot of stories to tell, and even unexpected (and later on canceled) inheritances, to end up with very wise advice: Choose your mentors wisely, don’t take advice from just anyone, and learn how to say “no”.
Links:
CommonMind
Will Rico
Morgan Friedman
Take 13th at Client Horror Stories is starred by Anthony Highman, along with an exclusive selection of what he considered his top-notch horror stories of many years in the industry. In a quick and easy short story method, Anthony walks us through the perks and quirks of what it takes to engage in a committed and beneficial for both parts working relationship.
Anthony’s tales have everything that a captivative story needs: plot twists, cross-state driving, lawyers, conflictive exes (even the marketing world has them!), and the perfect amount of fishing metaphors. All the drama and random turns that today’s episode has are nothing compared to everything we can learn from them.
Reaching the end, Morgan and Anthony agree that working with clients has three big and essential keys: Being able to explain your strategies and the decisions you make, understanding what your client’s real objectives are (even if they include firing the person who hired you), and building a trust-based relationship from the very beginning.
Literacy quotes:
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” - Anna Karenina
Links:
Morgan Friedman
In our 12th take at Client Horror Stories, Rachel Smith, PPC Manager at Platform 81, gets us involved in a tale where the actual horror ended up not actually coming from your client, but from your manager instead. Her story (which is told in an enchanting british accent, and accompanied by all sorts of fun british slang) has everything that a good story needs: Drama, hidden information, secret meetings, a really tall guy, and incredibly useful lessons.
Rachel’s narrative teaches us all we need to know when we are the new people in a legacy project, in a much valued client, and how crazy it can get when communication becomes a children’s telephone game. She also gives us some lessons on the type of managers who think that just because they know how to run a business they’ll know how to do everyone’s job better than them, on how to find your way around them, and how to force you into meetings you weren’t invited to.
Today’s story leaves us with a bittersweet taste in our mouths when we realize that, every now and then, we are just going to run into people who really need to be educated on the service that you are selling to them, and not just presenting a report once a month and hope that they understand all of it. In tales like this one, the key is to realize that not everyone can handle the same management style, and that there are moments where you really just have to stand up for yourself and do what has to be done.
Links:
Rachel Smith
Platform 81
Morgan Friedman
In our eleventh take at Client Horror Stories, we have Jess McCarter sharing with us a story that started with a way longer meeting than necessary. One of those meetings where they discussed the solution to all the world's problems. And that was the start of many, many meetings like that.
Jess' tale takes us back 15 years when he was still a young start-up founder trying to climb his way in the custom software industry. He landed a massive client on the East Coast with a very ambitious idea that was way ahead of its time idea. Jess' team was blinded by the lights of this huge contract with an ambitious client. Previously they had worked only on small contracts with a fixed scope. But, of course, the team wanted a client with a vast open-ended project. It was an incredibly bright future, or so it seemed. Unfortunately, because due diligence ended up a very low priority, disaster lurked just around the corner.
With today's story, we learn a couple of lessons on managing clients, especially when we don't have so much experience yet, and when we actually believe in our client's project. And with that comes along one of our highlighted quotes of the day: "The only thing worse than no contract is a bad contract." And with that line, Jess pretty much summarizes everything there is to know about encountering the client version of the saying "Jack of all trades, master of none."
Reaching the very end of this tale, we learn that not every lousy client is a bad person and that working hard and being honest really pays off. Even if it's a couple of years later.
Links:
https://www.jessmccarter.com
Jess McCarter
Morgan Friedman
In this week’s take, we receive Paul Stephenson, founder, and CEO of 47 Insights, who tells us a story on going back to working with clients after many years in consultancy, and how to take a harsh come back to the industry. All along his hearing process, we have the chance to take on a lesson or two on following our guts, being able to detect yellow flags (and realizing the moment where they start getting darker), and know how and when we should settle boundaries.
Client Horror Stories’ 10th take (Yay!) is a great opportunity to figure out which type of business we should avoid working with, and when’s the moment to press pause and back down. Paul here teaches us 2 key points for life: First one it’s that sometimes it’s ok to leave a project, opportunities will always come along. And the second one is that everyone is smart and rational until the friend of a friend gets rich by doing something they are not doing.
Paul here narrates the whole story of how a new ambitious start-up managed to drag him into their own internal process (Trello and Slack included) and created a whole mess with his productivity system. So much that not even Paul’s intentions to be always 100% honest and communicative were able to solve it.
Links:
Morgan Friedman
In our 9th take of Client Horror Stories, we have Josh Silverbauer, CEO of Great Big Digital Agency, opening up with the line “When you are a CEO, saying “yes” can take you very far, but sometimes you just reach a point where you wished you’d said “no ``''. From then on, he tells us a tale protagonist by a (former) celebrity of the holistic environment whose only concern was to remain famous and his partners with very strong opinions about absolutely everything.
Josh’s story has the usual randomness and drama that we love but includes a twist that’s both rare and inspiring to witness: the ability to admit when you’ve also got yourself to blame. Months and months of meetings just to choose a logo, a print artist wallpapering the office with your web designs, social media haters raging against your client, and a $120.000 blog are just a couple of the keywords for today’s episode.
Josh leaves us with a couple of lessons on the whole concept of saying “no”, as well as being able to express to a client what’s necessary for their project to succeed, and the ability to draw a limit on what you will not be willing to take back and forth anymore. Sometimes clients simply won’t get it, and sometimes it’s all a matter of figuring out what “value” means for them, and making sure you are fulfilling it.
Links:
Josh Silverbauer
Great Big Digital Agency
Morgan Friedman
Literacy quotes (from every culture):
"You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." - Batman: The Dark Knight
Today’s Client Horror Story is the short version of a horrifying scandal with Will Haire, CEO & Founder of BellaVix, as the protagonist along with the kind of person that has a Zoom call while he drives. In our 8th take, we bring you a tale full of drama, randomness, and emails telling people that they are a complete piece of a, and all of that in just 30 minutes.**
Will’s narration takes us on a trip of discovery of the many aspects that build a proper and bright deal, including hiring the right project managers (you know, those that are so good they become your client’s go-to to talk trash about their partners), doing the required background checks, and even making sure that you are talking with the person that is actually making the decisions.
So today's story leaves us with a big lesson on trusting our instincts and listen to them when something seems weird at first (even if it’s just a promissing young man), making sure that our brands are correctly represented in every possible aspect, and Will’s personal advice on how to deal with horror clients: Just recommend them to your competitors.
Links:
Will Haire
BellaVix
Morgan Friedman
On our seventh take at Client Horror Stories, we receive Stephanie Schwab, CEO, and Founder of Crackerjack, who tells us a story that sounds weird from the beginning, even if she only realized during the interview, when a colleague that you met 3 weeks ago has a project that appears to be a match made in heaven for complementing what both your companies do.
So the first yellow flag comes up when he brings in the fact that he’s not actually partnering up with you, and simplifies it with a short “You bill us, and we’ll bill the client” to make things quick and easy. So how surprising must have been to find out that, in fact, they were also being outsourced by the company the client was actually hiring, right?
So this messed up chain of command that looked much more like a children’s phone game obviously needed to end up blowing, and the blow up involved everything from delayed payments, micromanaging, and even end up talking sh*t about your not-so-partner on the phone with the main company.
This story gives us a lesson on confidence, integrity, upfrontness, and being able to call for an attorney once the situation begins to get weird. And all of it in the times where “Influencer Marketing” was just called “Working with bloggers”.
Links:
Stephanie Schwab
Crackerjack
Morgan Friedman
In our sixth take at Client Horror Stories, we have FM Byers, CEO and Founder of SM Digital Partners telling us a tale that involves drama, diversity, round tables, and maybe too much ambition.
Our story begins with a random meeting on a cruise that soon would be followed by a two-year-long back and forth that included everything (from product developments, translators, many flight tickets, and even elementary-school children) except an actual written contract or agreement.
FM’s tale tells us everything we need to know on how to handle cross-cultural clients, take risks, explore our patients, and realizing that sometimes it’s just time to go. This story gives us a lesson or two on how to be genuine and create real value, and just take a moment to come to a conclusion: Maybe people just won’t get it, and maybe our ideas work, but the timing just wasn’t right.
Links:
FM Byers
SM Digital Partners
Morgan Friedman
Literacy quotes:
“This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.” - T. S. Eliot
In the fourth take of Client Horror Stories, we receive Roger Parent from Digital Position, with a tale that could be classified also as an Employee Horror Story. Today’s narrative includes everything from betrayal, drama and friendship, along with over 10 lessons on managing not only clients and employees, but also every human being relationship you have.
Our story begins with a guy bursting into tears in a desperate ask for a job, and our guy Roger really trying to help him, even when he could not afford him. So an unexpected solution came in the shape of a new client who also had an open position in his business, who’d work side by side with Roger’s agency: A win-win-win situation, right? Well, if that was the case then we would have no story to tell.
Roger’s narration involves budget blow ups, account destructions, ghosting, contract-escaping manners, and even the creation of a brand new separate strategy. However, as we reach the ending of the story, we end up with the sour taste in our mouths that even the most loud and chaotic stories can end up really quiet.
As this tale develops, we’ll have the opportunity to be a part of Morgan and Roger’s moral debate on human nature and expectations, as well as taking advantage of everything that there is to learn here (and I don’t just mean management tips, but also Shakespearean quotes). The bottom line we end up with is pretty simple: Mental health, teamwork and happiness always have to come before money.
About Roger:
I'm a dad, an athlete, and a guy who started a marketing agency because most of them suck. Culture is everything, and I'm lucky to have a team full of amazing people who "get it", truly care about the work they do, and are able to have a ton of fun through it all.
Literary Quotes:
“How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is. To have a thankless child.” - William Shakespeare, King Liar.
“Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.” - William Shakespeare, Sonnet 94.
Links:
Roger Parent
Digital Position
Morgan Friedman
In our third episode of Client Horror Stories, we have Jason Pittock, CMO of ClickGuard, telling us a passionate and gripping story about making huge deals with big fishes while you are still a reckless (and naive) 21-year-old.
Filled up both with a British accent and Argentinian slang, this story takes us to 6 years ago in the streets of Palermo, Buenos Aires. Back then, Jason, who was a very ambitious and smart young man, happened to land this millionaire deal for the company that he was working for and didn't hesitate for a second before he agreed.
From the beginning, we have a feeling that bad luck was chasing him down: A surprisingly pregnant project manager, broken elevators on delivery day, and a fully flooded storage basement were only the first signs the universe sent Jason to tell him to back off. However, being a persevering and responsible person, Jason continued to do everything he could to accomplish this deal until the very end, when a lawsuit for 50% of the job value arrived.
This story includes everything from lawyers with food stains in their shirts, clients stalking you at the beach, and even calling your dad for some advice. Reaching the end, Jason leaves us with some very valuable lessons on boundaries, mental health, and the importance of telling someone to back off when needed.
Links:
Jason Pittock
ClickGuard
Morgan Friedman
In take three of Client Horror Stories, we have Manar Hussain telling us an unbelievable and soap-opera worthy story about a client who showed up on a Friday afternoon saying: “I need to launch on Monday” and ended up, not only with no launch but also hidden under a desk.
Manar and Morgan agree, from minute number one, about how much of a red flag is that someone comes in with an emergency of those characteristics because it makes very obvious the fact that someone before made a really huge mistake. However, being the nice guy he is (and considering how worthy the payment was), Manar said let’s do it and jumped into it.
Decided to focus his entire attention on achieving this goal, Manar got together a team and signed just one work condition: Giving his best efforts to make it happen. Everyone was working crazy and meetings continued happening every two hours to make sure that term was accomplished, when, all of a sudden, they lost access to the servers and were completely ghosted by the same client that started up as the neediest and thankful in the entire world. Having realized that they had been kicked off, Manar and his team got into this intense “Geek-Moral debate” and stress crisis about how much effort they should put given the situation that could have easily been avoided with a simple “Stop working” text.
This story’s dramatic twist includes not only what they learned from it but also a bunch of gossip they learned the days after the incident: “Geek moral debate”, “Hiding under desks” and “reputation of not paying until a lawyer’s involved” are just some of the keywords. Manar here leaves us with some very important business lessons: Decide prior to the beginning what you will do if at some point you don’t get a satisfactory answer and always sign a contract.
The last highlight here is that, if you pay attention, you’ll notice Manar called this experience “the most fun he had had in months”.
Links:
Manar Hussain
Morgan Friedman
In our second episode of Client Horror Stories, Chris Johnston from L2D, tells us a both passionate and unbelievable story about a young start up that he worked with almost ten years ago (but that he remembers as if it’d been yesterday).
From the first moment, Chris and his team developed a very close relationship with this group of young guys with a great idea that they believed in. However, beginning from a surprise move-in that he chose to go along with, bombshells just never stopped coming. Even when Chris and his partners tried to handle them all (because, of course, they happened to be the nicest people ever), things just started to get unbearable.
This story includes everything from employee-kidnap to crazy announcements that required a pizza party to be made, and even a fist fight for a chair. All of this leading to an ending you never expected: Having your company absorbed by someone that began as your super nice StartUp client.
Chris finishes his experience with a couple of very valuable learnings: How to read people outside of the actual content of their words, realizing when it’s time to push the “stop” button with a client (and anyone) and that sometimes you need to prioritize your mental health over money. To conclude, Morgan and Chris give us a bottom line on the importance of writing things down and getting paid on a regular basis, no matter how nice everyone involved is.
Links:
Chris Johnston
L2D
Morgan Friedman
In our first take in Client Horror Stories, we have Artur Maklyarevsky from Design2Dev, who’s been in the Startupland for years, sharing with us his heartbreaking (and also very recent) story. You’d think after a long time working with the same type of projects, you are probably going to have everything under control and have a full automated StartUps scientific method, right?
However, Artur here shows us how easy it is to leave aside the key factor when it comes to this field: The failure probability. Yellow flags, unwritten conditions and arrangements, lack of information in a contract that was later used against him, are just a few of the tags this episode could answer to. On and on, Artur kept telling the client what could go wrong and what improvements needed to be done, and on and on his client kept ignoring him, until the least surprising thing ever took place: Every failure that Artur predicted happened. Only this was at their launch party, in front of 300 people.
In this Client Horror Stories episode, we’ll have the opportunity to learn through Artur’s experience on how an idea that seemed very exciting and fun to pull out with a friend turned out to be a conflict-of-interests nightmare that lead to the worst finale: Having a bunch of strangers taking over your project and your team due to a serial of yellow flags you decided to ignore, and a “Don’t worry man, I won’t stiff you” as a Kiss of Death.
Links:
Artur Maklyarevsky
Design2Dev
Morgan Friedman