Tweet

When Do You Throw In The Towel?

Guest post by: Ron Finklestein

Article Overview: Is a client causing problems. Is it the clients' problem or yours.

When Do You Throw In The Towel?

When is the time to throw in the towel? I had a client who's having a really tough relationship with a client. My client she never really documented everything, she never got approval in writing, she never gain clarification through what I call a statement of work and consequently over time, things just starting spinning out of control. Is it time to throw in the towel with this client?

For small business owner any amount of money you leave on the table is significant because typically what you're selling is your time and your knowledge. For her customer, who's clearly not happy, you have to look at it from her time perspective too because she's invested time, energy and money in a relationship that she thought would produce results for her. Now, neither person is happy. Neither person achieved the results they wanted.

Sometimes the best thing to do is just admit when you made a mistake, apologize for it and throw in the towel knowing that it's going to be a far better decision to walk away from a potentially litigious relationship then it is to try to solve it and try to make the other person happy.

So you need to ask yourself as a business owner, where are the holes in my process so that we don't have this communication problem again. Do I have a statement of work in place that defines the deliverables that I'm going to provide, when I'm going to provide them and how I'm going to get paid? Has the other person signed the documents saying I agree? This don't have to be long documents or legal documents, they just needs to be clarify. Clarity is the outcome you experience when you put things in writing.

The real lessons learn is that when you make a mistake, learn from it. In this case there was no contract or statement of work in place. If you cannot document what you are delivering then you do not understand the client's problem. When this happens, sometimes the best thing to do is walk away. I would suggest you try to fix the relationship where possible so there's no hard feeling and your reputation doesn't get damage but sometimes the best thing to do is walk away.

Related Articles
  Never Quit: A Lesson from The Apprentice
  Entrepreneurs Persist To The End
  Don't Wait To Be Bailed Out!
  As A Sales Manager, How Do You Know When You’ve Made A Hiring Error?
  Does That Glass Of Water Look Half Full Or Half Empty?
  Close the door on Opportunity?
  Exercises to Keep Your Mouse From Biting You
  The Entrepreneurial "Perfect Storm"
  Developing Winners
  Jump into the Online Internet Business Opportunity
  It Doesn't Matter WHAT They Say!
  Giving up on marketing content far too soon…..
  Home Based Business Opportunity-Choose One that is Best for You
  Should you quit?
  Give Change A Chance
  No Blame Game Played By Highly Successful Online Home Business Owners
  How to Stay Motivated and Focused with Your Work From Home Online Business
  Freelancing Lawyers and Accountants Are the Start-Up’s Friend
  Lesson #5: Stop Doing What is Not Working
  No Blame Game Played By Highly Successful Online Business Owners

Article Tags: clarify, contracts, customer complaints, customer service, sow, statements of work



Related Forum Posts
Need help on some crazy ideas... - Hi guys, We are bidding on a viral marketing video for a US based company (selling over the phone can be a challenge!) and I need your help. Can you please give me some crazy ideas - picture yourself being really really really angry with a website - what would you do to your computer if you were really mad... would you throw it against a wall... hit it with a baseball bat? Throw it off a building? Please let me know ASAP. Appreciate your help! Mark
Ideas on Using Twitter for Business - 1. Build an account and immediate start using Twitter Search to listen for your name, your competitor's names, words that relate to your space. (Listening always comes first.) 2. Add a picture. ( Shel reminds us of this.) We want to see you. 3. Talk to people about THEIR interests, too. I know this doesn't sell more widgets, but it shows us you are human. 4. Point out interesting things in your space, not just about you. 5. Share links to neat things in your community. ( wholefoods does this well). 6. Don't get stuck in the apology loop. Be helpful instead. ( jetblue gives travel tips.) 7. Be wary of always pimping your stuff. Your fans will love it. Others will tune out. 8. Promote your employees outside-of-work stories. ( TheHomeDepot does it well.) 9. Throw in a few humans, like RichardAtDELL, LionelAtDELL, etc. 10. Talk about non-business,
Re: Ideas on Using Twitter for Business - [quote="evieparsons":2o69rd2a]1. Build an account and immediate start using Twitter Search to listen for your name, your competitor's names, words that relate to your space. (Listening always comes first.) 2. Add a picture. ( Shel reminds us of this.) We want to see you. 3. Talk to people about THEIR interests, too. I know this doesn't sell more widgets, but it shows us you are human. 4. Point out interesting things in your space, not just about you. 5. Share links to neat things in your community. ( wholefoods does this well). 6. Don't get stuck in the apology loop. Be helpful instead. ( jetblue gives travel tips.) 7. Be wary of always pimping your stuff. Your fans will love it. Others will tune out. 8. Promote your employees outside-of-work stories. ( TheHomeDepot does it well.) 9. Throw in a few humans, like RichardAtDELL, LionelAtDELL, etc. 10. Talk about non-business,[/quote:2o69rd2a] Hey thanks for these tips. Basically, help others in your market out and build relationships with people. Be someone who gives, not takes. I'll keep them in mind if I go back to social media marketing. I'm currently in the SEO phase of my business.
The Next Level - Yes Barbara, this is a lost part of the board- C'mon people lets here from you! Throw us a bone! While we would all love to get to that level, we all know there is a lot of work involved to get close to that... but WELL worth it in the end! I'm trying to get to the next level right now and I had a slight pitfall this past week that I was so bummed out about that I didn't even sign online for 4 days! But I prevailed in the end (because i'm a bit pushy)! And as the old saying goes, "everything happens for a reason"...well, that little set-back ended up causing me to think and seek another way around it (part of why i was away from my computer for a few days) but worth it. I wouldnt face the same problem again, so came up with a plan B. Even though I prevailed the first time, I can easily see it unravel again and if it did, I'd be back to square one. The thinking I had to do over this led me to a brainstorm of a concept! I envisioned it and I believe it will work out the way I expect it to! I started putting it all together, first in my head and then on paper and I will not only have gotten to the next level, but may have skipped one or two in the process. I was so excited about it, I immediately emailed one of my very trusted contacts just to throw the idea out there for some feedback and I peaked their interest so much so, that I'm currently waiting for a call to further discuss it in more detail. I guess sometimes you have to fall down a few times, but always pick yourself up, dust yourself off and keep running with your ideas because you never know! At the very least, no one will ever be able to say you didn't give it a shot!


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Ten Steps to Go from Idea to E-book for Sale

How To Become A Member of the Paparazzi

Ready for a Fresh Image?

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.