Regardless of what some may believe, not all customers are treated equally!  The way we are treated as customers largely depends on our behavior as a customer. Customers that are friendly and willing to allow the expert to do what they do best as long as results are happening will often get more work than they paid for and their projects will be at the top of the priority list.

Niche freelancers and experts have the right to pick and choose who they are going to work with. Some of the best experts I know won’t touch certain clients with a 10-foot pole. When I wanted to hire one of Jack Canfield’s consultants, I had to complete a full page questionnaire and a full phone interview before they would even consider me as a client.

I wonder if these customers know much they are getting in their own way when it comes to getting quality results. After a while, these horrible customers can never get work out of the top experts and end up working with anyone who will put up with the abuse.

Working with a broad range of clients has definitely taught me how to be a better customer and get better results from those that I contract for jobs. For those that desire to get only the bare minimum that they paid for and lower than average results here is a guide to how to be the most annoying customer ever:

Hire A Professional to Solve Your Problems And Then Tell Them To Do Everything Your Way

Even if you know nothing at all about design, copywriting, SEO, taxes, financial planning - or whatever you are hiring a professional to do for you, dictate every single detail of the project and use the professional as a tool to complete it.

When the Professional Delivers Exactly What You Ask For, Complain that You Don’t Like It

After you’ve essentially stripped all of the creative rights from the person you’ve hired to do the job and they’ve done what you asked, complain that it doesn’t work. Ask the professional to do it again using another one of your own ideas that didn’t work the first time.

Hold Up the Project And Then Complain That It’s Taking Too Long

When you are asked for feedback, don’t answer right away or provide elusive responses. Take weeks to respond with critical information necessary to move forward. Then one day, send an email in ALL CAPS asking “WHAT’S THE HOLD UP?”

Involve As Many Unqualified People As Possible In the Decision Making Process

When you get your website/copy/blueprint/etc. to review, make sure that you ask as many people as possible for their comments. Then, have every one of those people email the professional directly with their personal opinion - even if they contradict each other. Do not hash out your feedback beforehand and then send a single email with your collective thoughts, let the professional deal with that. Then, when he/she implements one suggestion given by Mary in accounting and another from Josh the web guy down the street, complain about how horrible the project is turning out and ask to redo everything.

Share Your Experiences!

If you’re a freelancer or run a small business, you’ve no doubt had one or more of these nightmare clients - especially in the early days before you learned the warning signs.  If you’ve got more tips and pointers about how to be the most annoying customer ever, feel free to add them to the list!

Tags: Hangout Cafe, Business Building by Adam - 4 Comments »

A lot of people are talking about the law of attraction now that the book The Secret has become such a big success. Do you believe in the law of attraction? Some people live by this law, others think its BS.

I’m not a law of attraction, “cultist,” I am a big believer that you can attract things into your life. It’s not a science, and it doesn’t work if you don’t feel deep down that you deserve these things, but it does work! Perhaps like you, I started noticing this “phenomenon” many years before I realized there was something called the law of attraction, and I am amazed at how it works.

Coincidence, or the law of attraction at work?

Though 3,000 miles apart, David and I met when I sent him an email to let him know about my copywriting services at the exact moment that he was online searching for copywriters for some of his clients. Was this a coincidence, or the law of attraction at work?

Over the years I feel that I’ve brought quite a few things into my life with the law of attraction but the strangest set of things of all was a 1971 Volkswagen pop-top bus and a tool set.

Back when I was hitchhiking across the country and free as a bird, I had a little notebook that I used to write down observations. Though I was living in a tent and had pretty much nothing, something I really, really did want at the time was a 1971 Volkswagen pop-top bus and a tool set. I wanted it so bad that I made a page of things that I wanted in the notebook and wrote just those two things on the page.

A few months later, my then boyfriend at the time and I traveled up to Oregon to visit his estranged father that he had not seen in years. Though he had been a mechanic, his father was managing some apartments and had started a new family. Ironically, one of the tenants that had recently moved out had just given his father his non-working 1971 Volkswagen pop-top bus in exchange for a rent debt.

Glad to see his son and knowing that we needed a vehicle, he offered to fix up the bus and give it to us! In a week or so, he had it running like a champ and had even spray painted the engine a bright funky yellow and gave us a brand new tool box to go with it!

Hocus Pocus, or The Real Deal?

Is the law of attraction real or just a series of coincidences? Do you feel as if you’ve ever “manifested” anything into your life with the Law of Attraction? What are its boundaries?

More Posts on the Law of Attraction

The Law of Attraction in Business

Responsibility and the Law of Attraction

10 Easy Steps to using the Law of Attraction for Manifesting Prosperity

Tags: Hangout Cafe, General Business Issues by Adam - 13 Comments »

Remember how when you were a kid you weren’t afraid to dream? Then somewhere along the way, you learned to laugh at the foolish people who had dreams instead of having them yourself.

I clearly remember the day that I began to doubt my dreams…

It was 1989 and I was 14 years old… at the time (remember, this was the 80’s ok!) my dream in life was to own a brand new Corvette with customized heart tail lights. That dream consumed my thoughts. Even at 14, I was convinced that I would own a business and be rich one day.

I begged my mom to take me to go look at the Corvettes at the dealership. She agreed and, after work one day she picked me up and we went to the car lot. I was on top of the world when we arrived. I had never seen so many of my dream cars up close like this before. I had never ever seen the inside of one or gotten to sit in once. My mom looked very nice and perhaps wealthy in her corporate attire so it’s no wonder that the sales person approached us so cordially.

“Are you looking for a new car for yourself?” he asked my mom. My mom told him that no, we were looking for a new car for me and that when I was 16, I was going to get a Corvette. The sales person was surprised, probably thinking he had an easy catch. “Wow – so mom and dad are going to buy her a Corvette for her sweet sixteen?” He asked. My mom told him – oh no, she’ll be buying it herself! She’s going to save up the money to buy one.

Then in one single moment, that sales person set me down the path of forever doubting my dreams - He laughed at me. Not a chuckle – a hearty laugh as if he hadn’t been that amused in days. Until then, I completely believed that I could save up the money for a Corvette in the 2 years between 14 and 16, but with that laugh came doubt that this idea was possible.

I started to cry right there in the car lot and my mom told me something that I’ll never forget. She told me that you have to protect your dreams. That you can’t tell people about your dreams because the will not believe you and they will try to tear your dreams down.

Most people do not want you to succeed. I don’t think they do this intentionally, but I do believe that the people in our lives have a very difficult time seeing us for what we might be rather than what we could become.

Even more importantly, most people don’t want you to change because they need you for whatever role you are filling in their life and if you were to succeed, you would not fill that role any longer. The closest people to you in your life are also the ones that can smash your dreams the hardest.

Today I still take my mom’s advice – but I’ve become stronger. I don’t share my dreams with people until I have enough inner confidence in my dreams to handle the blows. I expect that most people won’t be supportive. If they are not, I never talk to them about it again. If they are supportive, then I’ve found an incredible person who is not afraid to dream and I become that much more confident in my belief that anything is possible.

Which person are you?

• The person that’s afraid to dream?
• The person that tears apart other people’s dreams and won’t allow them to change?
• Or the person that is confident enough to dream?

I think we’re all a little bit of each. But one thing is for sure. If you allow yourself to dream, your life can take on meaning again. And if you really LISTEN to other people when they tell you about their dreams and believe that they can change, you might be surprised and what people are capable of.

So do yourself and someone else a favor today – allow yourself to dream and give other people the permission to do so also.

Tags: Hangout Cafe by Adam - 7 Comments »

I’ve been tagged by Wizzer!

THE RULES:
1. Post these rules before you give you the facts.
2. List 8 random facts about yourself.
3. At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names (linking to them).
4. Leave them a comment on their blog letting them know they’ve been tagged!

So here we go… eight random facts about Christine:

1. I hitchhiked across the country and back in 1998

2. Two years ago, I left a great position at a fast paced internet startup in San Diego to move to the middle of the desert in order to start my own business and take more control of my life.

3. I started writing my first book at age 10 called “No One Ever Said Life Was Fair,” but never finished it.

4. I’m a big-time Harry Potter fan and camped out at midnight for both the movie premier and the release of the book this month.

5. The thing I enjoy most about being a copywriter is meeting business owners and learning about all kinds of different business models.

6. My 7 year old daughter and 6 year old son are my favorite people in the world.

7. There have been 4 times in my life when I have made the choice to give away just about everything and started fresh in order to gain a new perspective on life.

8. The fourth time will happen this Friday – I’m moving and am really excited about it!

I’m tagging some of the many interesting people who comment here:
Adam
Andy Parthenopoulos
Josh Buckley
Zaki
Erin
Happy Rock
FRACAT
Adventures in Money Making

Tags: Hangout Cafe by Adam - 22 Comments »

Just about every entrepreneur and small business owner that I’ve talked with has said that these entrepreneurial qualities manifested as early back as they can remember.  What was your first entrepreneurial adventure?

Nate Whitehill started an online community of kids at the age of 12.  Ben Casnocha started his entrepreneurial career by selling pens and gumballs around his house as a child before becoming one of the youngest Silicon Valley CEO’s ever.

When I was 9, I found a little plastic cigar case on the ground and thought it would be a perfect container for a pencil.  With such an important pencil case, I felt I needed to do something important and started a newspaper.  With a staff of 2 other kids, we wrote stories about things like some eggs found at the local duck pond, recipes, and poems.  We got through about 4 issues before our hands were cramping from handwriting copies for all 9 of our subscribers and we petered out.

Later I found one of my mom’s Entrepreneur magazines on the table and became even more obsessed with the idea of starting businesses.  My mom fed my dream and allowed me to order a bunch of random trinkets from a company advertising in the back of the magazine after I went around school with a handmade order form collecting orders.

What about you?  How did your entrepreneurial spirit manifest as a child?

Tags: Hangout Cafe by Adam - 12 Comments »

There’s been a lot of controversial buzz about Google’s new street view feature and whether or not it’s an invasion of privacy. I’m not sure what I think about it, but I do know that it’s a lot of fun.

I decided to peep in on San Francisco and see what was going on the infamous Haight St. While taking a virtual walk, I found these two down near Buena Vista Park. Hey… what’s that in that dude’s hand?

Tags: Hangout Cafe by Adam - No Comments »

I’m starting a new category called “Hangout Cafe” where our various contributors can talk about off topic matters like music, family, life, etc. It’s just a place to unwind and get to know each other better like having and espresso without talking business.

I just spent $15.39 on 4 CD’s at Half.com…

Somewhere More Familiar… : Sister Hazel (CD, 1997)

Bent [Single] : Matchbox Twenty (CD, 2000)

Yourself Or Someone Like You : Matchbox Twenty (CD, 1996)

Crash : Dave Matthews (CD, 1996)

Although the above is a sample of the type music I like, you cannot tell much about me by it because I also like The Allman Brothers and The Black Crows which in and of themselves are two totally different bands.

Tags: Hangout Cafe by David - 1 Comment »