how to extract yourself from a current Toxic Client and, ultimately, avoid working with a Toxic Client ever again.
This book is designed to share these lessons with you. In the following pages, I’ve included stories from a wide range of business owners who have dealt with Toxic Clients—including myself. You’ll see that no industry is immune to difficult clients who complain, constantly change their minds, yell at you or others, make unreasonable demands, second-guess you, miss appointments, refuse to listen, or won’t pay up. And through these stories, you’ll learn to recognize the signs of a Toxic Client right from the get-go. By doing so you won’t later have to give them the heave-ho. You won’t take them in the first place, to the benefit of your staff, your company’s future and your own sanity.
Chapter One:
Listen
“Hearing is one of the body’s five senses. But listening is an art.”
~ Frank Tyger
If you’re like me, the first fifty times or so that your parents tried to impart some life lesson, you either flat-out ignored it or filed it away in the back of your brain as you rolled your eyes and said, “Yeah, whatever.” It’s only when you eventually learned that lesson the hard way that you acknowledged their wisdom, and that little voice in your head piped up with, “Oh, so that’s what they meant!”
Here I’m speaking from experience. My father was a district attorney, in private practice and eventually an Alameda County Superior Court Judge based in Oakland, California. As I was getting started as an attorney, he repeatedly told me that the most valuable legal strategy was knowing which clients not to take.
But as a newly minted lawyer, I was keen on taking whatever walked in the door. And I thought there were a number of good reasons to do so: I needed the experience, I needed the work, and I was, at some level, kind of flattered that someone wanted me as their lawyer.
So when William Napoli walked in the door with a lease dispute, I was all ears. Unfortunately, I didn’t use my own ears as much as I should have.
William told me that his landlord had failed to make the necessary tenant improvements on his restaurant space. Because of this, William had been unable to continue operating his Italian restaurant—the restaurant that had been his lifelong goal and dream to open in the first place. He was forced to close the restaurant shortly thereafter, and the landlord was now suing William for the tenant improvements, back rent and other damages.
After listening to William and quickly reviewing the documents, I said I would need a $1,000 retainer against my then-hourly rate of $125. William said he could pay me $500 right away and would come up with the remaining $500 at the end of the week. He said he would pay his legal bill promptly.
Taking him at his word, I answered the landlord’s complaint as William’s attorney, thus making an appearance in the case.
In the next few months, I learned several important lessons. First, although William had promised he would pay the rest of the retainer and his legal bills, he did no such thing. In fact, I soon discovered that William had a history of not paying his bills.
I also learned that once you make an appearance in a case, a judge doesn’t have to let you out. When it became clear that my client wouldn’t pay for my services, I made a motion to the court asking for permission to withdraw myself as William’s attorney. Of course, preparing, filing, and arguing that motion constituted even more (unpaid) time for me.
Many judges routinely grant these motions. Many were in private practice themselves and had faced the same issues with some of their clients. But not every judge will grant a motion to withdraw. And in this case, my judge denied my motion. (I’ve always thought that the judge – like my dad – wanted to teach me a lesson.) As a result, I had to defend William, whether I got paid or not. And so I fulfilled my obligation and defended William to the best of my ability.
And for my efforts, I received only a meager $500, for all of it.
It was the best experience I could have ever had, really. Because that experience taught me that I really need to listen to what a client is saying. In fact, I need to listen to what’s between the lines of what the client is saying, too. William had actually told me everything I needed to know. Through what he’d said, and what he had conveniently left out, he had actually announced that he was a Toxic Client. I just hadn’t been paying attention, because I was so focused on getting a new client.
William had claimed that the landlord had failed to make the necessary improvements to his restaurant space. But if that was the case, why had he even opened the business in the first place? I didn’t ask that question then, but I would now. William said he had to close the restaurant shortly after opening it. Was it really because of the lack of improvements? Or could it have been his food? Or the fact that he didn’t pay his bills?
Asking for the client retainer was another listening opportunity.
When William balked at my retainer and indicated that he didn’t have the money, he was giving me a signal that he was only interested in what I could do for him, not in the value of my services. Perhaps he knew I had only recently gone into practice and thought he’d take advantage of my inexperience. Otherwise, he never would have come to an attorney’s office unprepared to pay for services.
You need to listen to how the client reacts to and deals with such a request. If he or she values your services and respects the fact that you can’t work for free, you will hear quite a different response than the one offered by a client, like William, who only wants to milk your skills because he desperately needs your help at that moment.
There are more than a few clients out there who believe that all lawyers are overpaid, and thus can afford to take a case at a reduced rate. And it’s not just attorneys that deal with it. This attitude prevails in all industries, among all professionals. Whether you’re a doctor, an engineer, a plumber, a hairstylist, a designer, or a house cleaner, you’re going to encounter clients who think you can absorb the loss of taking them on as a client, that you can afford to do the work for what they’re willing to pay, and, in some cases, that you’re lucky to get the work in the first place.
These types of clients not only will not pay you, but they will also create so many problems for you that they become what I call “tar babies”—sticky, messy bundles of problems from which it’s extremely difficult to extricate yourself. (We will deal with tar babies in Chapter Nine).
But if you are to succeed, the Toxic Client must be avoided. So listen carefully, because the Toxic Client might just announce himself to you.
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Lesson #1: If you listen well, the Toxic Client will tell you everything you need to know.
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Case No. 1: The Personal Trainer
Jeff Kerry seemed like he would be an ideal client for personal trainer Matthew Martinez. As chief officer of his family’s large engineering company, Kerry was well-heeled and could easily afford Martinez’s hourly rate. And since the wealthy talk to the wealthy, Martinez thought Kerry could prove to be a valuable source of referrals.
Kerry had been referred to Martinez, who was a regular trainer at the upscale tennis and health club where Kerry’s family had a membership. Kerry had asked the clerks at the desk for a male trainer, and the clerks had offered Martinez’s name. Martinez just happened to have an opening in his schedule, and he was one of the club’s most experienced
