Elie Kochman on Business and Networking

Look at a typical business, and you will see that they have multiple clients active at any point in time. This is nothing unusual – few jobs allow you the dedication to focus completely on a single client or project for any length of time. When you’re working for yourself, though, you need to be careful that all your clients are getting your attention, while at the same time, ensuring that none of your clients feel they are not getting your undivided attention when you work on another project.

The reality is that if you have 10 clients running simultaneously, (and we’ll assume that the amount of work for each is equal,) then you’ll be spending about 8% of your time on each client. (The balance of 20% is for your overhead of administrative work and locating new clients.) You can’t give any one client more than that percentage.

To handle that, I suggest you adopt some of the following strategies. If you have other ideas, please share in the comments.

1. Keep a list of what needs doing for each client, so that the time you spend on that client isn’t wasted figuring out what to do next. Just select something from that list and do that. This will help you be better organized with your time, which may end up freeing up more of your time.
2. Don’t answer the phone if you can’t give it 100% of your attention. Let the client leave a message, and use that to determine if you should call back immediately, or if it can wait a bit. Book some time in your daily calendar to make that call, when you don’t have something else to keep you busy.
3. With e-mails, split your incoming messages into 2 groups (if you feel it necessary to constantly watch your mail) – one that can be answered in a sentence or two, and the other to be dealt with later. Sending off an e-mail that doesn’t address the questions the client was asking properly can generate negative feedback, which you can easily avoid by taking the time to read the questions slowly.
4. Publish your calendar online so your clients can see when it’s best to get in touch with you. Sure, emergencies crop up, but if you allocate specific times each day for phone calls, you should see the number of calls at other times go down significantly. (I didn’t say your calendar has to be accurate, or even fully published – just a list of times that you have booked for meetings/phone calls and a list of available times would suffice.
5. Block off time to work on each client’s projects to the exclusion of all others. Treat that time as if you were in a meeting, that is, only be disrupted if it really is urgent.

Do you have other suggestions for balancing multiple clients and projects? Please let me know of your ideas in the comments below.

One of the main focuses of my company, Optimal Upgrade Consulting, is to look at the core problem our clients are trying to solve. This may or may not be the same problem as the one the client thinks they have, simply because they are often unaware of available solutions to the real problem they have.

This is not to say that I argue with my clients about what they really want. Quite the opposite – I want my clients to be happy, so I give them what they ask for. However, by understanding the problem I’m being asked to solve, I can ensure that I provide the best service possible.

There’s another benefit as well. If I am asked to do some work for a client, and I understand the nature of their business, then I can possibly find other opportunities to help them. This in turn helps me – it’s what drives my business.

If you're not a part of the solution, there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem.

There’s an expression I liked the first time I saw it, and I’ve seen it come up several times since. It’s best expressed in the poster on the right – If you aren’t part of the solution, there’s good money to be made in prolonging the problem.

Naturally, this is poking fun at consultants, who can often charge exorbitant fees and produce no real results at the end of the day. But there’s truth here as well. As a consultant, you can either solve a problem, or further complicate a problem. One solves the need of the client, the other solves the need of the consultant.

As a business, you want to be solving the problem of the client. I prefer to be known as someone who solves problems, not as someone who makes a killing developing complicated solutions to problems that didn’t exist before I first showed up.

How about you? Whose problems are you solving?

A while back, I wrote an article about Managing Accounts Receivable, focusing on management from the perspective of growth of a business. In today’s article, I’m going to discuss collections and getting paid for the work you’ve done.

In order to give yourself the best possible chance of being able to collect, you need to ensure that you have a clearly worded contract, in which it is outlined what you are to deliver to the client, the amount to be paid by the client, and how and when that money is due. In case of dispute, such a document will play a crucial role in determining whether or not you can collect your money.

Assuming you have such a document, and the client is not making the proper payments, you should attempt to open communication by asking the client, politely, why the payments have not been made.

It may be an honest error (in one case, the client had assumed an invoice I sent him had been copied to his bookkeeper, when in fact it hadn’t been). In that case, the question regarding payment can be quickly resolved.

It might be an issue of timing – the client was deferring payment for cash flow reasons, and had forgotten to inform me that the payment would be late.

It could be related to cash flow and ability to pay – the client might not have the funds to pay the invoice, and is embarrassed to discuss it. In that case, by opening conversation, you can work out an alternate payment schedule to ensure you get paid.

Last, it could be that the client has no intention of paying. If this is the case, regardless of the reason, you need to look to other options other than merely talking to the client. (You also need to get rid of the client – read my article Firing Customers for more information on that topic.)

First, you can choose to write off the money owed as a loss. While this doesn’t regain any of your money, it does keep you from having to pay taxes on that money, which at least keeps you ahead of any future expenses on that particular account.

Second, you can hand over the funds to a collections agency. The cost here is usually a percentage of the money recouped by the agency, often as high as 50% of the money paid. Going this route is often not worthwhile to small businesses, as it generates very negative views of your business in the eyes of potential clients.

Third, you can sue the client. Here in Ontario, if it’s a relatively small amount (as of this writing, the maximum is $25,000), then you can sue them in Small Claims Court, and you don’t need a lawyer. In this case, you may be given the option of seizing the assets of the client to pay for the amount owed. However, the amount of effort involved is significant, although the direct cost is not, since the client may be ordered to pay the court expenses if you win the case.

Whatever option you choose, and each case needs to be handled on its own, you need to remember to always act professionally, and to assume that every document and e-mail that you handle may end up one day in court. If you treat the client with respect, and give them alternatives to defaulting on payment, you may find it easier to get your invoices paid.

Several months ago, I wrote an article The Customer is Always Right… Sometimes in which I discussed many of the reasons a business should be listening and obeying its customers, even when it seems to go contrary to what the business stands for. However, there are times when not only is it inappropriate to listen to the customer, you should also get rid of that customer as fast as possible.

The first example is where you sell a product, and on occasion, will be asked for a refund. While you need to have a clear refund policy, you also need to know when to give in and issue the refund anyhow. A customer who won’t be happy, and is out of pocket because of your business (whether reasonable or not) is capable of generating a lot of negative attention for your business. Issuing the refund to get the customer to leave you alone will often not only rid you of an annoying customer, but also generate positive feedback for good customer service.

OK, so the first example wasn’t really about firing customers, but about having good customer service. Here’s another example.

If you do work for a customer, and they don’t pay – get rid of them if you can. A good customer who can’t pay will be upfront with you about their situation, and try to arrange alternate payment schedules. A bad customer will keep taking work, thereby driving up their balance, and not mention that they cannot pay the bill. The problem with such customers is that many of them try to justify their position and explain that they don’t actually owe you the money. In other cases, they will ask for special treatment to get their bill reduced.

It is not in your best interests to do either. When you are out of pocket on a customer, and realize that you will have difficulty collecting, you need to stop. You need to stop working for the client, you need to stop arguing with them (and yes, such situations usually end up with grudge matches, often held through long sequences of e-mails) and you need to just issue a notice that payment is due.

Be polite. Tell the client that you will not be doing any more work for them until full payment is received. Give the client any outstanding material of theirs that they may not have (for example, if you’ve collected data as part of the project, send them the data – even if that’s not part of the contract). Tell them when you expect payment by.Tell them what’s going to happen if they don’t pay (for example, I’ll sue you for the shirt off your back!).

Here’s another example where it’s wise to get rid of a customer.

Sometimes the issue is not that the client can’t or won’t pay, but that the work being done does not match the work requested originally. In that case, if discussing with the client to resolve the differences doesn’t improve the situation, you may want to stop the project. If you do, then you can try referring them to someone else who can better serve their needs. As an example, if you run a business doing SEO and SEM work, but the project turns out to be website development, then you may want to refer them to a web development business.

Sure, you may lose the project as a result, even the parts that were your forte, but at the end of the day, you’ll have less aggravation as a result.

What is the most interesting connection made through your network that resulted in a contract or a sale? We all know the benefits of networking, but I was wondering just how remote a connection other people have found to have landed them a job. I’ll start by giving two personal stories.

My Current Job

When I graduated university, I didn’t have a job, and spent several months teaching part-time at a community high school. During that time, I got engaged, and at the engagement party, the father of my wife’s close friend heard I had a degree in computer science. He gave me his e-mail address, and suggested I send him my resume. I e-mailed it that night.

Three weeks later, I was called for an interview, and then a week later, for a second interview a few weeks after that. Two days before the wedding (it was only a 4-month engagement) I was informed that I got the job, and would be starting a month after the wedding.

Landing a Contract

The second story happened more recently. I did some work for a client for about 15 months building a fully customized inventory management system. I was at an engagement party for a friend, and another guest was chatting with the groom, and asking him about what he did. He mentioned that he worked for my client, and in an off-hand way, said “Elie would know, he wrote our software!” The guest turned to me and asked me what I did, which I quickly explained. A month later, I was hired to build a catalog of 200K files for a community organization he represented.

What’s the most interesting connection you’ve been involved with?