First you come in as their savior. And they praise the heavens they found you. You fast track a fabulous website for them so they will be ready for a big conference. The site was complete 3 days before the event. The client wasn’t prepared.

Months go by and everything is just peachy.

Then they ask you to put up new products on the website. But they can’t process the new product orders fast enough and ask you to take down the new products. Now you are sending them 2 invoices. They grovel and complain but they pay it.

Then two weeks before their prime event they demand you make changes so they can make higher sales. They want a slew of new products, packages, pop-ups, coupons, and descriptions made. You say no problem. And you get your team on it.

Two days in and they wonder why it’s taking so long. Then four days go by and they are sending emails, chats and texts. Finally after 6 days all the changes are complete and throughly tested. Client complains it took too long.

We explain, “we do have other clients who are also needing changes for their events, and that they actually pay a monthly maintenance whereas you don’t. But we fast tracked you anyway.”

Client then refuses to pay for service as it took too long. Calls us slimy crooks, removes us from the website…but forgets we are hosting the website on our servers.

Yo, karma…do your thing.

So why do I share this story?

I share it to give you an insight into what happens when you don’t throughly vet your customer. I failed on this one. I tell clients all the time why it’s important to make sure the client they are accepting meets their avatar. That avatar is the ideal image of who you will say yes to and accept as a client. The reason I let this one slide through was because this whack-a-do client came as a referral from another highly respectable client who I didn’t even think to question.

I should have. I didn’t.

Every single potential client needs to go through your screening process…otherwise in a short amount of time you will go from hero to villain and possibly get ripped off.

Oh and if you don’t have an intake screening process…start one immediately. And stick to it.