7 Indications it Might Be Time to "Fire" a Client

By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Tracy_Collins]Tracy Collins

As a small business owner, we want to be successful and in order to do that we have to work with several different people with several different personalities. For the most part, the clients that we have are great clients but there may be times when we start to rethink our compatibility and wonder if it's time to "fire" that client. How do we know if we are just overreacting or if we have legitimate concerns?

The Unresponsive Client - This has to be one of my biggest pet peeves with clients. A client who hires you do to some work for them but will not get back to you when you have questions or concerns for days, maybe even weeks. If this is a continued pattern, you may want to rethink your relationship with this client or you may be spending your time chasing this client down.

The Procrastinator - Here we have a client who gives you all the details of what they want completed and you're ready to work but you need some files from them. They tell you they will send it to you later today. It's now tomorrow and still no files. You contact them and they promise they will send it to you today. Still nothing and the cycle goes on and on and on. Finally three weeks later, you get the files you have been waiting for and the client says they need this project completed tomorrow. Which brings me to the next indication.

The Gotta Have It Now Client - This is a client who calls you up at the absolute last minute and says I have this project that I need completed but it has to be done by the end of business day today. Once in awhile is just fine but when you have a client who is frequently doing this, you may want to rethink your relationship with them. Now I am always a huge advocate for good customer service but for somebody who is continually expecting you to drop everything to work on their project is not a great client to have on board. You have to think, is the unhappiness of my other clients really worth the happiness of this one client?

The Needy Client - Here is a client that is very responsive to your requests, doesn't procrastinate, and gives you plenty of time to complete a project. It's the type of client everybody hopes for except, they call you all hours of the day and night, won't make a simple decision without input from you, call you every day first thing in the morning and are the last call you receive before you go to bed at night. This client quickly gets on your nerves and you realize it is taking up a ton of your time and you get no break whatsoever.

The Never Happy/Unaccountable Client - Here is a client that no matter what you do they are never happy with the outcome and if you try to explain to them and show them that it is exactly what they requested, they find a way to blame you instead of taking the blame themselves. This is a client who will stress you out until there is no end in sight. Also this client will have a specific way of wanting something done. You offer suggestions on how to make it better, and they argue with you because they are set in their ways. Once the project is complete they don't like it and you end up doing it the way you suggested in the first place.

The Haggling Client - This client is constantly haggling you over price once the project is complete. You gave them a quote and you are at or below the quote you gave them and they are still trying to get you to give them discounts. This client will take anything they can get.

The Vague Client - This client gives you the vaguest of information and that's it, no more input. You ask for clarification and the client just repeats what he already said so you do what you can with the information he gives you and it turns out to be nothing like what he expected and because of your guarantee you have to redo it for him, costing you precious time and money.

The last thing business owners want to do is "fire" a client but unfortunately, sometimes it has to be done. When we start to wonder whether that client is really worth all the hassle that goes into working with them, it's more than likely the time to let him go. If you continue to work with that client and they continue to take every ounce of your being, you will no longer love what you do, and after all, isn't that why we start businesses, because we love what we do?



Tracy Collins, Confidential Virtual Assistant, owns/operates Collins-Admin Services, http://www.collins-admin.com a virtual assistance company. Offering confidential virtual administrative support services to entrepreneurs/small business owners who feel they need higher than average confidential assistance. For more great articles about business and confidential virtual assistance visit her blog at http://www.collins-admin.com/blog

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Work Smarter With These Time-Saving Twitter Tools

You have probably noticed that Twitter is more popular than ever.  As small business owners and solopreneurs we know how beneficial social media can be but are often overwhelmed at the thought of managing it all.

If you are looking to take advantage of Twitter in your business without it taking over your life, here are some great "shortcut" tools and applications to keep you in the social media game without sacrificing all of your precious time! 

Tweetdeck: A desktop client that allows you to manage all of your Twitter activity without being logged on to the web.  This is very popular due to its ability to organize your followers into groups. Tweetdeck has also recently added the ability to update your Facebook status from the interface as well chat with your Facebook friends.

Twellow: The Twitter yellow pages! Find Twitter users by category or geographic area.  This is a good way to find new and interesting people to follow.

Tweetie/Twitterberry: For those of you looking for ways to tweet on the go, I prefer Tweetie for iPhone.  I have also heard good things about Twitterberry, which is for the Blackberry.

GroupTweet: Group message broadcasting for Twitter.  This tool gives you the ability to send private tweets to only a select group of followers which you choose.  I've seen this used successfully for everything from web development projects and school assignments to diet and exercise accountability clubs.

Monitter:  This is one of my favorite tools.  It lets you monitor Twitter for a set of keywords and see what people are saying.

Twitterfox: If you use the Firefox browser, this is a nice extension which notifies you when your friends update their status on Twitter.

TwitThis: A way for people to send Twitter messages about blog posts or websites. When you click on the TwitThis button or link, it takes the URL of the webpage and creates a shortened URL. You can then send the shortened URL and a description of the page to others on Twitter.  I love using this to quickly share the URLs of interesting articles or posts I come across while browsing the web.

Hashtags.org: Hashtags bring some order to the updates of Twitter users.  For example, a couple of years back the hashtag #sandiegofires was used in order for those interested to easily follow this topic. Hashtags.org provides real-time tracking of all the hashtags being used on Twitter.

WhoShouldIFollow: This is a very simple tool which looks at your current friend list and recommends others to follow based on that list.  One of the Twitter questions I am asked most often is how to find more people to follow.  This makes it quick and easy to do.

TweetBeep: If you want to know when someone mentions your name, company, product or competitors you can get updates sent to you to stay on top of it all.

Twitterfeed: Allows you to quickly tweet your blog posts.  Just sign up and enter your blog feed and Twitter login information.  When you publish a blog post, it will be sent to Twitter automatically.

These are some of my top picks--there are too many tools out there to even begin to mention them all. However, I recommend getting started with some of these and keeping an eye out for any others you think would help streamline your Twitter experience and save you time.  (You'll never have a shortage--there are new applications arriving on the scene every day!)

 

 

© 2009 Communicate Value. All Rights Reserved.

Christine Gallagher, The Online Marketing and Social Media Success Coach, is founder of Communicate Value, where she is dedicated to teaching solopreneurs and small business owners how to use online marketing and social media to communicate effectively and authentically and attract more business. To get your F.R.E.E. 5-Part E-Course and receive her weekly marketing & success articles on leveraging technology, building relationships and boosting your profits, visit http://communicatevalue.com.