As a consultant, have you ever fired a client? If so, when?

Sidney Vianna

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Staff member
Admin
#21
They never did pass the audit (despite attempting with 3 different registrars – one of which has a very loose reputation). Their building was vacant within a couple of years.
Unbelievable. So, the system worked. I mean, they were not able to attain certification. I am surprised, I must admit.
Now many of those chickens are coming home to roost.
For someone with English as a second language, I will have to take time to decipher this one.:tg:
Hopefully, the chickens won't have to cross the road.
 
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Stijloor

Staff member
Super Moderator
#22
For someone with English as a second language, I will have to take time to decipher this one.:tg:
Hopefully, the chickens won't have to cross the road.
Sidney,

Chickens come home to roost.

If you say that chickens are coming home to roost, you mean that bad or silly things done in the past are beginning to cause problems.
Example: There was too much greed in the past, and now the chickens are coming home to roost with crime and corruption soaring. Source: Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms © Cambridge University Press 1998

Stijloor.
 

Jim Wynne

Staff member
Admin
#23
Unbelievable. So, the system worked. I mean, they were not able to attain certification. I am surprised, I must admit.For someone with English as a second language, I will have to take time to decipher this one.:tg:
Hopefully, the chickens won't have to cross the road.
It's another way of saying "what goes around, comes around," or "As ye sow, so shall ye reap," or, "don't be surprised when the boomerang comes back."
 
D

Duke Okes

#24
Yes, I've fired 3 in 22 years, when it became obvious they weren't serious about taking the actions necessary to accomplish their stated goal. I've never regretted it.
 

gpainter

Quite Involved in Discussions
#25
I knew a consultant the fired the client because he felt like they were not listening. They had him come in several times and paid him well, but would not do anything. He finally told them he felt like he was stealing from them since they would not listen and would rather to take their money any longer!
 
J

JaneB

#26
I gave him two choices. Step up to the plate, or I would drop him as a client.
Good for you - I would have made the same choice. To sit by and allow that kind of behaviour would have been condoning his behaviour, and wouldn't sit OK with my professional (or personal) ethics either. We don't need clients like that - and I'm unsurprised they never got it, either.

Yes, I've fired 3 in 22 years, when it became obvious they weren't serious about taking the actions necessary to accomplish their stated goal. I've never regretted it.
Me either. Not one of them. The only thing I've wished is that I'd spotted it a bit earlier and/or done it a bit sooner. But I've also taken what I could learn from each situation, and incorporated that into what I do and how.

I'm interested in how you did it though. Did you point it out, for example? Or did you get 'busy' and stop going? Some other way?

One marketing consultant working for a client of mine just stopped working for the client. But he never actually said he'd stopped. For quite a while, he promised to deliver the marketing report. Long periods would go by - I'd ask him where I was up to (the job having been delegated to me). Eventually (long time later) I'd get a response with another promise. And so on.

Until eventually, even that stopped. It finally dawned on us that he wasn't going to do it, but it took at least 3 months to realise it. (I suspect he found the job much harder than he thought, and decided not to do it after all.) It would have been infinitely more ethical - and just plain courteous! - to have said so, so that we didn't waste a lot of time waiting for him, before we had to go source another.

He finally told them he felt like he was stealing from them since they would not listen and would rather not take their money any longer!
I agree with the consultant on that one, too. It's not a long way from what I said to one client I left - because there was simply no point continuing on, as nothing was going to change.

There's little value, and no satisfaction at all, in simply doing something useless. Far, far better to find other clients with whom one can also obtain some satisfaction and that wonderful sense of not just spinning wheels, but also doing something useful.
 
S

surendro - 2009

#27
I have very bad experience with my clients. Unfortunately, most of them want short-cuts without bothering to follow any suggestions. All that they are interested in is the certificate. The worst part is all the time they keep on promising that they are really interested in improving their working, yet always they end up trying inventing some excuse or other.

Ultimately, I make it clear before accepting an assignment that in case they do not like to follow my suggestions, I am not for them. I have even put in on my website.

And today I do not have a single client; whereas my friends who do not have any such restrictions have no time in their hands.

Surendro
 

Wes Bucey

Quite Involved in Discussions
#28
I have very bad experience with my clients. Unfortunately, most of them want short-cuts without bothering to follow any suggestions. All that they are interested in is the certificate. The worst part is all the time they keep on promising that they are really interested in improving their working, yet always they end up trying inventing some excuse or other.

Ultimately, I make it clear before accepting an assignment that in case they do not like to follow my suggestions, I am not for them. I have even put in on my website.

And today I do not have a single client; whereas my friends who do not have any such restrictions have no time in their hands.

Surendro
May I respectfully suggest that our job as Quality professionals is to educate and persuade our employers and clients to the notion "Quality really does pay off both in the short and long run" based on our own conviction of the truth of that statement.

Most of us would be without clients if we waited for clients who were ALREADY convinced of the idea.

ASQ has an ongoing campaign to help members "make the case for Quality." Folks report small and large successes all the time. The key factor, in my opinion, is to answer the question in the mind of every stakeholder,
"What's in it for me?"
with a satisfactory answer that fits the ethics and goal of our profession and provides incentive for those stakeholders to continue with the program/process we put forth, and provide meaningful compensation and/or reward to us for helping them achieve this realization.

If we don't have a good answer and a "doable" plan, maybe we aren't ready to put ourselves forward as experts. It is not enough just to know the "rules," a good advisor has to know how to help even the totally clueless achieve some measure of success.
 
J

JaneB

#29
Gee, interesting, Surendro. Sounds like you have 'fired' or disqualified all your clients. That is not at all what I want - I actually asked this original question following some discomfort in deciding not to persist with a difficult client, but that was almost a year of trying. I still feel sad about it in some ways, because there are some good people there, but I decided it was ultimately a no win situation for my consultancy.

But with great respect, this statement of yours bothers me.

Ultimately, I make it clear before accepting an assignment that in case they do not like to follow my suggestions, I am not for them.
I do not make any such condition. In fact, as a business owner, if I came across a consultant who said that, I would actively reject them and most definitely not consider engaging them. Because it says to me the consultant has no interest in what I want and doesn't intend to listen to me - their way and only their way must prevail. And as a professional consultant, that makes me sad.

You see, I never insist on any client following any of my suggestions. In fact, I always make it clear that they are suggestions, and if one doesn't 'sound right' then we'll keep turning ideas over, and trying different ones until we reach one that does. Working with a client for me really does mean working with them - ie, it's a partnership approach. I don't insist they do things my way - in fact, I think that sounds like a somewhat arrogant position, & definitely not one that engenders good interpersonal relations. The tricky thing here is that your opinion may well be technically correct - you may be right, right, right... but as a wise person once said to me: you can be right but dead wrong at the same time.

After all, it's their business, and their money they put into it, their risk and of course their reward also. I respect that and never forget it.

Many years back, I must own that I was much more inclined to insist, and think I 'knew better'. But I also discovered that it just was not an effective way to achieve real change. People resented just being told and they resented not being involved and they resented not having any say. And I learned that it was infinitely better to work with them - even if that meant things appearing to take a bit longer - because the ultimate real change was to the hearts & minds and culture of the people. And that kind of change really sticks.

As a consultant, I see my role as helping my client to meet a particular goal that they have identified. I do see it as my responsibility to clarify the goal, and very much to help them learn and hopefully understand and appreciate the real value of quality management - but I do not lose sight of the fact that they want that certificate, either!

And today I do not have a single client
If that's what you wanted, then you achieved your aim. If it isn't... perhaps it's time to consider a different approach?

Because yes, I do agree with Wes that our role is to educate and persuade, not to order and demand. That "What's in it for me?" question is essential.

I agree strongly with what Wes has said. The 'perfect' client is quite rare. But there's an awful lot of great clients out there I am working with, where it's a privilege to help. Even the odd one I decline isn't necessarily 'bad' - it may just mean we don't fit well together, and they are better off with a different consultant.
 

Sidney Vianna

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#30
Even the odd one I decline isn't necessarily 'bad' - it may just mean we don't fit well together, and they are better off with a different consultant.
The essence of your post is spot on, Jane. I don't disagree one bit. However, Surendro's experience is diametrically opposed. He bluntly offers that his clients are not interested in performance improvement, betterment, etc...they only want the ISO 9001 certificate, a.k.a. the ticket to trade.

Emerging economies obviously don't have the same quality culture maturity that Australia, Western Europe, 2/3 of North America and a few other regions around the World have. What makes a strong point for Jim's thread on ISO 9001 implementation and auditing differences around the World. Based on bits and pieces of information provided by India-based covers, I suspect that "quality management" over there is very different than what you have in Australia. So some of our paradigms and advice are very difficult to be applied to their reality, I guess.
 
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