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Chapter One:

Listen

“Hearing is one of the body’s five senses. But listening is an art.”

~ Frank Tyger

If you’re like me, the first fifty times or so that your parents tried to impart some life lesson, you either flat-out ignored it or filed it away in the back of your brain as you rolled your eyes and said, “Yeah, whatever.” It’s only when you eventually learned that lesson the hard way that you acknowledged their wisdom, and that little voice in your head piped up with, “Oh, so that’s what they meant!”

Here I’m speaking from experience. My father was a district attorney, in private practice and eventually an Alameda County Superior Court Judge based in Oakland, California. As I was getting started as an attorney, he repeatedly told me that the most valuable legal strategy was knowing which clients not to take.

But as a newly minted lawyer, I was keen on taking whatever walked in the door. And I thought there were a number of good reasons to do so: I needed the experience, I needed the work, and I was, at some level, kind of flattered that someone wanted me as their lawyer.

So when William Napoli walked in the door with a lease dispute, I was all ears. Unfortunately, I didn’t use my own ears as much as I should have.

William told me that his landlord had failed to make the necessary tenant improvements on his restaurant space. Because of this, William had been unable to continue operating his Italian restaurant—the restaurant that had been his lifelong goal and dream to open in the first place. He was forced to close the restaurant shortly thereafter, and the landlord was now suing William for the tenant improvements, back rent and other damages.

After listening to William and quickly reviewing the documents, I said I would need a $1,000 retainer against my then-hourly rate of $125. William said he could pay me $500 right away and would come up with the remaining $500 at the end of the week. He said he would pay his legal bill promptly.

Taking him at his word, I answered the landlord’s complaint as William’s attorney, thus making an appearance in the case.

In the next few months, I learned several important lessons. First, although William had promised he would pay the rest of the retainer and his legal bills, he did no such thing. In fact, I soon discovered that William had a history of not paying his bills.

I also learned that once you make an appearance in a case, a judge doesn’t have to let you out. When it became clear that my client wouldn’t pay for my services, I made a motion to the court asking for permission to withdraw myself as William’s attorney. Of course, preparing, filing, and arguing that motion constituted even more (unpaid) time for me.

Many judges routinely grant these motions. Many were in private practice themselves and had faced the same issues with some of their clients. But not every judge will grant a motion to withdraw. And in this case, my judge denied my motion. (I’ve always thought that the judge – like my dad – wanted to teach me a lesson.) As a result, I had to defend William, whether I got paid or not. And so I fulfilled my obligation and defended William to the best of my ability.

And for my efforts, I received only a meager $500, for all of it.

It was the best experience I could have ever had, really. Because that experience taught me that I really need to listen to what a client is saying. In fact, I need to listen to what’s between the lines of what the client is saying, too. William had actually told me everything I needed to know. Through what he’d said, and what he had conveniently left out, he had actually announced that he was a Toxic Client. I just hadn’t been paying attention, because I was so focused on getting a new client.

William had claimed that the landlord had failed to make the necessary improvements to his restaurant space. But if that was the case, why had he even opened the business in the first place? I didn’t ask that question then, but I would now. William said he had to close the restaurant shortly after opening it. Was it really because of the lack of improvements? Or could it have been his food? Or the fact that he didn’t pay his bills?

Asking for the client retainer was another listening opportunity.

When William balked at my retainer and indicated that he didn’t have the money, he was giving me a signal that he was only interested in what I could do for him, not in the value of my services. Perhaps he knew I had only recently gone into practice and thought he’d take advantage of my inexperience. Otherwise, he never would have come to an attorney’s office unprepared to pay for services.

You need to listen to how the client reacts to and deals with such a request. If he or she values your services and respects the fact that you can’t work for free, you will hear quite a different response than the one offered by a client, like William, who only wants to milk your skills because he desperately needs your help at that moment.

There are more than a few clients out there who believe that all lawyers are overpaid, and thus can afford to take a case at a reduced rate. And it’s not just attorneys that deal with it. This attitude prevails in all industries, among all professionals. Whether you’re a doctor, an engineer, a plumber, a hairstylist, a designer, or a house cleaner, you’re going to encounter clients who think you can absorb the loss of taking them on as a client, that you can afford to do the work for what they’re willing to pay, and, in some cases, that you’re lucky to get the work in the first place.

These types of clients not only will not pay you, but they will also create so many problems for you that they become what I call “tar babies”—sticky, messy bundles of problems from which it’s extremely difficult to extricate yourself. (We will deal with tar babies in Chapter Nine).

But if you are to succeed, the Toxic Client must be avoided. So listen carefully, because the Toxic Client might just announce himself to you.

~ ~ * ~ ~

Lesson #1: If you listen well, the Toxic Client will tell you everything you need to know.

~ ~ * ~ ~

Case No. 1: The Personal Trainer

Jeff Kerry seemed like he would be an ideal client for personal trainer Matthew Martinez. As chief officer of his family’s large engineering company, Kerry was well-heeled and could easily afford Martinez’s hourly rate. And since the wealthy talk to the wealthy, Martinez thought Kerry could prove to be a valuable source of referrals.

Kerry had been referred to Martinez, who was a regular trainer at the upscale tennis and health club where Kerry’s family had a membership. Kerry had asked the clerks at the desk for a male trainer, and the clerks had offered Martinez’s name. Martinez just happened to have an opening in his schedule, and he was one of the club’s most experienced trainers. Martinez had been training himself for 16 years, and he had been a personal trainer for five years, with certification from the International Sports Science Association.

Kerry contacted Martinez and immediately booked two one-hour sessions per week, on Mondays and Wednesdays. Right from the start, he proved to be a challenge and was full of complaints.

“He was awfully picky about the temperature in the gym,” Martinez says. “It was either too warm and stuffy, or too cold. I constantly had to open the door or adjust the thermostat.”

Then there was the hour of his appointment, which seemed to always be inconvenient. “He didn’t want to stay in his spot,” Martinez remembers. “He’d show up late, and say, ‘Well, I need a later spot.’ I’d try to schedule him later, and then he’d say, ‘I want an early spot now.’”

Martinez got to talking with another client, one who knew Kerry personally. This client told Martinez that Kerry had a reputation for chiseling construction contractors on engineering jobs. He’d haggle over their invoices and never pay in full.

But this didn’t add up for Martinez. Kerry kept his family’s account current at the health club. The fifty-something business executive also seemed dedicated during his workouts. He wanted to build muscle, lose weight, and increase his flexibility, since Kerry was, as Martinez assessed, “stiff as a board.”

“The workouts weren’t bad,” Martinez recalls. “I could really hammer him. He had a lot of pride and didn’t want to look weak. He wanted to be pushed. Push-ups, sit-ups, bench press, squats, lots of stretches. Every once in a while we’d talk about his business, the engineering projects and stuff like that. But he was not a man of a whole lot of words. He came in, did is thing, complained, and left.”

Then, one day after six months of twice-a-week workouts, Kerry was a no-show. Martinez stood around waiting at the appointed hour.

There had been no advance phone call from Kerry to cancel or reschedule, nor was there a follow-up call explaining why he’d missed. Martinez called Kerry’s cell phone, but only got the voicemail. Martinez left a message, but did not hear back.

At the next scheduled workout session, Kerry was absent again.

Martinez spent another hour waiting in vain—an hour he could have filled with a different client. Martinez felt like he was in limbo. Should he scratch Kerry’s name from the tight schedule and book another client in that time slot? Surely, Kerry would make good on the missed appointments, Martinez thought. After all, Kerry was an important business man, one who valued the training and understood what it meant to make appointments.

The following week brought two more missed sessions. Martinez saw Kerry’s teenaged daughter working out at the club.

“I asked her what had happened to her father,” Martinez says. “She said he was out of the country on a trip to the Far East.”

Martinez left another voice message for Kerry, this time saying that the club would be charging him for the missed appointments.

Martinez turned in the usual slip at the club desk so that the family’s account would be billed.

It was Kerry’s wife who responded to the voice message.

Evidently, she’d reviewed her husband’s missed calls in preparation for his return. She was not pleased that they had been billed for the no-shows. She called up the club and demanded that her husband not be charged for the missed sessions. The clerk left a message for Martinez to call her.

“I’m not paying for this bill,” she told Martinez over the phone, in a superior, snobbish tone.

Martinez protested: “He didn’t tell me he’d be gone, and I was there. You’re paying me for my time.”

Kerry’s wife did not raise her voice. But she did not change her position, either. “I’m not going to pay for the time,” she said, smugly.

Martinez was flustered. It’s standard practice for personal trainers—and for professionals in other fields that set appointments with clients, such as dance instructors, massage therapists and hairdressers—to bill clients who fail to give a minimum 24-hour notice of a cancellation.

“I fill my hours,” Martinez says, “and if somebody flakes and has already bought my time, that’s how it works.”

Martinez explained this to Kerry’s wife, but it was to no avail. Her mind was set. Martinez was not paid for the no-shows.

The long-term listening strategy involves hearing and evaluating what the client says throughout the term of the relationship. In the case of the personal trainer, Jeff Kerry was constantly complaining about everything, including the hour of his appointment. A client who constantly wants to shift his time to fit his ever-shifting schedule is ignorant of the fact that personal trainers need to assign people to fairly fixed schedules in order to maximize their earning potential. The client who is unwilling to stand in the shoes of the provider and appreciate their business position is the client who must be told the rules early on.

When the trainer, Matthew Martinez, kept hearing about schedule changes, he needed to interpret and evaluate what was being said.

Essentially, Jeff Kerry’s actions revealed that he did not care about Martinez’s business model. If Martinez had given Kerry’s words a proper evaluation, he would have developed a written policy about missed appointments. If Martinez had addressed the issue early on, in anticipation of the inevitable problem, he would have had a client who called ahead to cancel, out of consideration for his time, or who would at least have paid him for the missed appointments. Instead, he had a client who took advantage of his time and valued it even less.

Case No. 2: The CPA

Victor Lee was a CPA in Seattle. He had a good practice handling the bookkeeping and tax work for a number of businesses and individuals.

One day, John Yang came into the office looking for a new CPA. He indicated that his last CPA had improperly filed a tax return, which had caused him problems with the IRS. As the initial client consultation went on, Yang also complained about two other previous accounting professionals he had used. He said that they didn’t know what they were doing.

Lee liked to bring in new clients to the firm. As some of his elderly clients passed on, he always felt the need to attract new accounts so his billings would be equal to or higher than those of the previous year. He listened to Yang’s explanation of his background without focusing on the caustic comments expressing dissatisfaction with all his previous accountants.

Lee agreed to take on Yang’s work. He filed an amended tax return for Yang, sent out a bill, and did not hear from or receive payments from Yang.

Three years later, Yang called Lee in a panic. The IRS had put a lien on his bank account. Yang was furious that Lee had allowed this to happen. Initially, Lee drew a blank. He hadn’t heard from Yang for a few years and couldn’t recall the file. He asked if he could call Yang back, and that’s when Yang made another disparaging comment about accountants.

Now he remembered Yang.

If Victor Lee had listened carefully to John Yang, he would have heard the signs of a Toxic Client. He would have heard that John Yang has financial trouble—why else would he repeatedly have problems with the IRS? He would have heard John Yang say all his previous CPAs didn’t know what they were doing – a sure sign of future trouble for you.

Listening is a key technique for dealing with or avoiding Toxic Clients like Yang. Too often, business owners see listening as a two-step process:

1. Listen to what is said.

2. Respond to what is said.

But this doesn’t account for your processing of the information you take in when listening. Rather, you should consider engaging in active listening, which is a four-step process:

1. Listen to what is said.

2. Interpret what is said.

3. Evaluate what is said.

4. Respond to what is said.

As you listen to the client, you need to interpret and evaluate what is being said. Actually, you unconsciously do this anyway. But by recognizing and focusing on these steps, and making them a priority, you will be much better at identifying the true natures of your potential clients.

When you force yourself to actively interpret information as it’s given to you, rather than passively taking in the information as it’s presented, you’re assigning it meaning. If you’re not sure that you have correctly interpreted what’s been said, ask questions until you can make a clear interpretation.

When you make an evaluation, you weigh the information and decide how to apply it. The task is to keep listening (and to ask questions to further your listening) until you have enough information to make the correct decision.

The active listening process is both a short-term and long-term strategy for avoiding the Toxic Client. In Victor Lee’s case, the client made his dislike of accounting professionals known in the initial interview. As longtime professionals know, when someone complains about the mistreatment he’s received from others in your field, chances are good that he’ll be complaining about you next.

Active listening requires singular focus. Too many of us are trying to do too many things at once—checking email, looking at notes, responding to texts and thinking of what next to say. But if you’re going to avoid a Toxic Client, you can’t be distracted.

A part of listening and evaluating is paying attention to those non-verbal signals that clients give us. You can ‘hear’ what people say in part by what their body language and tone of voice indicate. Learn to interpret the various non-verbal cues to your advantage.

Signs of impatience or annoyance include finger tapping, shifting of weight from one foot to another, abrupt or rapid speech, or a rise in voice volume or pitch. Clients shouldn’t display anger or impatience in an initial consultation. If one does, there’s a high likelihood that you’re interacting with a potentially Toxic Client. Their next bout of anger may be directed at you.

As well, clients shouldn’t go on and on with elaborate tales of woe. Many want you to be an enabler of their victimhood. You probably won’t be able to help this person and they will drag you down even if you somehow can. (Again, more on tar babies in Chapter Nine). Listen carefully, and evaluate even more carefully.

Finally, here’s another benefit of active listening: You’ll not only be able to weed out Toxic Clients, but you’ll also probably learn more about the clients you want to keep, and develop stronger relationships with them as a result.

Of course, listening has played a big part in the creation of this book. I have listened to the experiences of a number of friends and clients. I have come to realize in general terms and through a thoroughly non- scientific sampling that:

95% have encountered Toxic Clients.

80% have dealt with non-paying clients.

50% have been stiffed (never paid) by a client.

40% regularly deal with clients who take longer than 90 days to pay.

In listening to these stories and learning of the common experiences shared by all business owners it becomes abundantly clear: The Customer Is Not Always Right.