Bharat Karavadra

People who call you names (behind your back).

Tuesday, May 8th, 2007

This matter has been bugging me for days now but I never found the time to “get it out”.

I went see a prospective new client through an agent (of sorts). The meeting went well and I said that I would have to go back and think about what was discussed and put together a quote. After doing the quote, I spoke to the agent and he asked me to deal with the client directly. So, I called up the client and discussed the project and he seemed OK about everything until it came to payment terms. My usual policy is to request 50% of my fee in advance and 50% on completion and and aptly in this case as the client had only set-up a few months ago.

The client tried to haggle the payments to 30% / 70% and I told them that as they were a new client I would prefer the 50% / 50% split. He then went on about some payment method which I simply did not comprehend and I said that I preferred a cheque payment. He was not entirely happy however the conversation went on and when they found out that the agent wanted to me to bill them (the client) directly they sounded a bit surprised and said that he would have to speak to the agent about it and rudely put the phone down.

Anyway, remaining positive, I thought I’d hear back from the agent or the client but I didn’t. So I called up the agent and asked him if the client had called him and the agent said that yes… The client called him back and told him that I am an arrogant something or other.

Well, if the the client and the agent didn’t got the courtesy to call me back and resolve the matter then I ask “do you need clients or agents like that?” If the client hadn’t said such words then I would have called them back to come to an agreeable resolution.

If you think I have done wrong then I apologise but at least I’ve got it out of my head now and feel a bit better. So if you hear bad words about me from someone then the above may be the reason.