Toxic Client. Garrett Sutton
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“One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.”
~ Mark Twain
Lies are everywhere. Governments are big and tell big lies. News outlets are far-reaching and can tell wide lies. Individuals usually stay in the smaller realm of lies but even they can tell some whoppers.
And lies never die.
With all this dishonesty you must gravitate toward the truth. You must work toward clients who are ethical, who won’t waste your time and who will actually pay you for your time. You simply can’t afford to have clients who lie to you and engage in deceitful practices.
The problem is, how can you ever know right off the bat whether they will lie and cheat? You can’t.
A popular study reported in American Psychologist indicates that even those tasked with spotting liars—police officers, psychologists, and judges—were no better at identifying lies than the rest of us. In fact, only Secret Service agents fared better than random chance.
Meanwhile, a study published in the Journal of Basic and Applied Psychology, discovered that in a 10-minute conversation between two strangers, 60 percent of people lied at least once, with the average being three lies per 10-minute conversation.
Bottom line: You can count on being lied to. Knowing whom and what situations to avoid is not only crucial for your business but, ironically, it is gained only by being in business. A big part of knowing is relying on your instincts, which we will discuss further in Chapter Five.
But instincts can take time to develop. How can you know right now?
Part of the answer can come from the scenario you are in. As I’ve said before, getting a client is nice, but it’s no excuse to let your guard down. You need to evaluate what the client says and what situation you’re walking into.
Case No. 6: The Landscaper
Marvin Washington had a funny feeling about the family that hired him to build a patio garden at their country home. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but for some reason Marvin didn’t warm right away to the Collingsworths. They seemed respectable enough, though. Elena Collingsworth was a real estate agent. Her husband, Dexter, was a partner with his brother in a home supply-distribution company. They had two children and a dog. They had enough disposable income for an RV, dirt bikes and toy haulers, and, now, apparently enough to spend on prettying up the grounds.
Washington had recently begun his business as a landscape contractor. He held a college degree in horticulture and had bolstered his education with additional training in landscape design. He also was taking professional development classes in various aspects of landscaping, such as irrigation. Marvin was a full-service landscaper—designing and building projects, renovating gardens and performing limited landscape maintenance.
The only thing Washington lacked was years of experience. He was new to the business and only had a handful of clients. But the Collingsworths didn’t seem to mind. In fact, they said they appreciated hiring someone new. Washington’s sixth sense gave him some apprehension at that comment, but he needed the business.
“Back then, a small amount of money meant a lot,” Washington said. “The landscape job was an $8,600 job, which could pay a lot of bills.”
Today, after nearly two decades as a contractor, Washington has a strong, thriving business. He benefits from the fact that his reputation and customer base consistently generate good clients for him. Word of mouth is the best kind of advertising. Marvin’s clientele for landscaping is largely self-selective. Washington’s typical landscape client tends to be professional, well-educated, and upper middle-class—not rich, but with enough disposable income to afford his services.
It’s not surprising, then, that what Washington calls his “crown jewel of miserable experiences” in business occurred toward the beginning of his career, before he’d carved out his niche.
The Collingsworths’ home was nice but not pretentious, and sat in an idyllic pocket of the greater urban community: a “farmlet” area of winding lanes, green pastures with grazing livestock, pretty trees, ponds, and creeks.
The Collingsworths, by all appearances, could afford to pay for landscaping. They wanted a patio garden installed. Washington prepared a detailed written estimate for an area with interlocking pavement stones, several trees and shrubs, a drip- irrigation system, and bark mulch, all for $8,600.
Elena and Dexter Collingsworth accepted the estimate.
Washington and his assistant got to work. And almost immediately the Collingsworths became less and less communicative. In fact, while the work was being done, they had become rather distant and unfriendly.
Nonetheless, the job was finished on time and on budget.
Everything had seemed to go well until Washington and his assistant finished the work and it was time to pay.
Washington mailed off the bill, but several weeks went by and no check arrived. Instead, he was in for a surprise: On Christmas Eve, he received a registered letter stating that the Collingsworths had found the landscaping work “sub-standard” and had no intention of paying for it!
The letter, signed by both Elena and Dexter Collingsworth, stated that they didn’t like the way the pavers had been installed, in addition to several other complaints. Washington was flabbergasted. A legal nightmare was starting, and he had no idea what would come of it.
Washington realized he was out of his depth. He knew that the small claims limit was only $5,000, precluding him from collecting the full amount. Washington did not know about mechanics’ leins (discussed further on) and had not filed one.
Washington contacted his attorney, who helped him to sue the Collingsworths. The family then countersued, alleging that Washington had been working in their yard without their approval. In other words, they alleged he’d opted to work for free. Not only that, but while incomprehensively working for free, he had improperly staked the tree saplings.
The ugly legal dispute put the two parties before the judge three times, all in an effort to collect the $8,600 owed to Washington, plus $9,500 in legal fees (which would be over $20,000 in today’s dollars). His lawyer told him “I’ve never experienced such a level of viciousness before.”
But when all was said and done, Washington won, and both he and his lawyer were ultimately paid.
This leads us to the next important point about Toxic Clients: Some of them will purposely deceive you.
Since he was just starting in business and needed customers, it’s likely that Washington appeared vulnerable—a quality that the Collingsworths were practiced at sniffing out.
While it can take some time to develop the instinct for spotting liars, every new business owner needs to consider whether that’s precisely the reason they’re being hired: Because they’re new.
There is a class of Toxic Client out there who will take advantage of your limited experience in the business world. Your honesty and flexibility is seen by such calculating types as a vulnerability. While they will say that they like to give new business owners a chance, what they really mean is that they’ll take a chance that new business owners won’t know how to deal with their deceit.
This type of behavior is accentuated by the expense to resolve matters within our legal system. Most deceitful Toxic Clients know that it can quite easily cost $50,000 in legal fees to resolve a $10,000 dispute.
They know that the expense, combined with the stress and time commitment of litigation, makes it more likely for a new business owner (and sometimes even seasoned ones) to walk away.
How do you deal with this type of client? There are a few things you can do.
First, check to see if a potential client has been involved in litigation. You can go down to the county courthouse (or, in some cases, go online) to see if he or she has been involved in court cases previously. Typically, if the person