In our 14th take at Client Horror Stories, we have Will Rico, CEO of CommonMind, along with a parade of mentors, telling us probably the weirdest yet most gripping and surprising story so far. Today’s tale is the compilation of horror, random, and sometimes positively surprising situations that went along in Will’s 9-year long relationship with his then mentor.
Will takes us back to 2001, when he was just a 27-year-old starting a company and renting an office from his high-school boss, who couldn’t help but try to get involved in the young startup’s business. Little did we know that he would not actually end up being the trouble-maker, but actually the guy that he introduced Will to in order to create (what he thought would be) a fantastic deal.
The narrative that Will walks us through has everything from drama, sweet-angel wives, sketchy guys with a lot of stories to tell, and even unexpected (and later on canceled) inheritances, to end up with very wise advice: Choose your mentors wisely, don’t take advice from just anyone, and learn how to say “no”.
Links:
CommonMind
Will Rico
Morgan Friedman
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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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