A few years ago, my agency took on a client from a software startup in Toronto. The founder was a guy I will call James. I was doing all the communication with James and when we first discussed supporting his startup, I saw a few red flags in our conversation that revolved around pricing. However, when I presented him with our rates he still wanted to hire us.
I hate doing calls. I find them to be emotionally and mentally draining. Because of this, I require calls to be scheduled in advance. This helps me to divert people to email for quick questions and prepare myself emotionally for when it is important to get on the phone. Over the course of the two months we worked with James’ company, he regularly called me out of the blue to waste my time discussing something that I had already explained in an email very clearly. I knew it was clear, because he would reiterate what I had told him, sometimes two or three times, but then would go off on tangents. On top of this, he would regularly use the time to complain about our rates. Every time the phone rang my heart would jump with a surge of anger. I wasted a tremendous amount of time and mental energy trying to manage the relationship.
After two weeks, I knew that we needed to get rid of him. I formed a simple plan: I was going to charge him for every time he called and interrupted my workday. I could do this, because when we first discussed our working together I explained that we billed for everything. Our billing policy is simple: we bill for every task your project requires that prevents us from working on another client’s project. Continue reading