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
That time when you’ve already spent $5 million only to be told they couldn’t commit (with Brandon Kirkpatrick)
That time when you’re trying to complete a massage only to be met with someone expecting you to do special services (with Suzy Hardy)
That time when you accidentally hire a psychopath who derails your business (with Robert Indries)
That time when you expected a fully formatted book for publication but ended up receiving a PPT presentation instead (with Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell)
That time when the boss used us as training troops to drop his telephone sales bombshell (with Catherine Llewellyn)
That time when you just want to complete a project but cultural differences get in the way so you end up abandoning the project halfway through (with Colin Duff)
That time when you performed a routine investigation only to find out that the billing error was close to $40 million dollars (with Sam Drauschak)
That time when you thought you landed your miracle client and ended up in the depths of court’s hell… (with Ameet Khabra)
That time when you thought you’d receive a whole box of fully functional goodies but get slapped with the reality that you aren’t part of their inner circle to deserve it (with Irina Poddubnaia)
That time when you’ve been working your butt off for a project but your client decides to disappear off the face of the earth because he can no longer afford to pay (...) (with Sherrilynne Starkie)
That time when your client had a meltdown about her bridal look and you ended up not getting paid (with Kelsey Knutson)
That time when your client forgot to disconnect her Facebook and Instagram accounts but you unintentionally saw spicy “tea” from her DMs (with Anika Jackson)
That time when your client wanted to retire early, but his wife was spending $8k a month while he spent only $2k (with Robert Persichitte)
That time when you stepped in to put out the fires in a project, only to have the head of the project play matches and throw gasoline everywhere (with Mark Herschberg)
That time when your client didn’t pay his bill, and you ended up getting a 1000 word text from his new wife instead (with Matt Davis)
That time when your client and his business partners just assumed that each of them know what to do to build a high-rise building (with Jeremy Streten)
That time when your client was super happy to get a negative headline on UK’s biggest tabloid because to them, it’s still brand exposure (with Divya Patel)
That time when your client was upset about why she was in a small podcast, that only got 10,000 downloads for her episode (with Tom Schwab)
That time when a customer frequently visits your workplace and uses the “quality control” card to eat free cupcake samples (with Braden Cadenelli)
That time when the web guy suddenly went MIA because he’s going through an existential crisis (with Timi Orosz)
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