Shady businessmen are all around us, like the wind, they have essentially carved the landscape we do business on today. Through shady dealings, business to business relationships have painstakingly evolved from ‘gold as gold’ hand shake policies, to prepayment and escrow practices. Unless you’re the type that enjoys drama, a good cliff hanger, with the hero dying at the end; if you run a business and don’t have any of the last two practices set in place, you’re taking a gamble with every customer and project you take on.
Good news though! I’ve discovered patterns in these shady businessmen, for the dramatic purpose of my blog, let’s call them scam artists.
So here it is, the qualities of a shady businessman...
- The quick talkers
Conversations with them are usually one sided, they preach to you, and you have no choice but to listen like a helpless lamb. Don’t even bother contributing your ideas or thoughts, because they know what they want, and your only existence is to absorb every bit of their glamorous achievements and knowledge.
- Unnecessary praise
Throughout your meeting you’ll feel as if someone has attached a air hose to your butt and is giving it a pump every few minutes. Scam artists love to praise, even unnecessarily and awkwardly until you melt like the fine chocolate that you are.
- Dealing with them will make you rich
They’ll give the impression that they know hundreds of powerful people that will spend money with you at a wave of their hand. This is far from the case, they don’t know anybody, have no friends or any respect at all from anybody, not even their wife. So charge them full price, don’t give them any breaks.
- They just got back from some place super exotic
Now, everyone takes vacations, BUT they talk like they’ve traveled the world, how they just got back from some place so exotic, it’s not even on the map, and googling it wouldn’t do it justice because you’d never understand anyways...
They have probably only scrimped away enough to take a 3 day trip to Cancun to fill their Facebook page full of “life style” photos. Oh don’t be surprised if they are developing property or have some business in this mysterious foreign land.
- They need it so quickly, you’d better buy a flux capacitor.
Shady Businessmen know how to close a deal quickly, they’ll push push push... remember they know, dealing with them will make you rich. And they’ll make you work for every dollar from the million they are going to throw your way... one day.
The client will call you 5 times, email you another 5 times within a 6 hour time span, just to make sure you are prioritizing his project over your other clients. Oh yah, he’ll probably pop by your office too, because he was in the area between his investor meetings.
- Brand name clothes and a base model BMW
His shirt will cost more than it costs to feed 50 homeless people; his car will be the latest base model BMW; Why? because somewhere along the lines of their education, they learned that it’s ‘important to portray success’, and not actually earn it.
- Even though you’ve Van Gough, Shakespeare or Warren Buffet, your work wasn’t up to par
This client knows your abilities, has seen your work well before ever meeting you. He’s given you clear instructions and you’ve delivered. You think it’s amazing and so does everyone in your home or office, but it just wasn’t good enough for him. Now, he’s only doing this because he knows it’s getting closer to payday for you.
- His partner in business is coming by to pay tomorrow.
Tomorrow will never come, you’ll never age; you’ve just been given the fountain of youth.
Your client has what he needs, and got it in a remarkable turn around time, but his ‘partner’ will take his time to pay. Months will go by, and then his partner will say, when you call him up, that, it’s the other guy that should pay. This will go back and forth, until your client confesses to you that he’s had enough of his ‘partner’s’ crap and never wants to be seen with him.
Don’t worry though, you haven’t broken up any friendships... they are still partying together.
...still though...you haven’t been paid.
If the achievements they chant don’t add up in your inner vibe-o-meter, check them out on google or www.ripoffreport.com. A quick search saved me a half a day meeting I had with one of these potential clients, it ended up this client had 14 negative reviews all over the net.
On becoming aware...
I laugh at my experiences, and take them as donations for life lessons earned. The best advice I can give you right now is...just get over it. And to make the healing process as quick as possible, think about all your good clients. Oh yah...and don’t do it again
I define the ‘scam artist’ as a person that doesn’t respect the value of your hard work or any hard work in general. I believe work on the path of dishonesty...doesn’t count.
I’ve crossed by 6 of these people in my life, and through self reflection while sorting through their unpaid bills, have come to see patterns; while each scam artist casts a shadow in a different angle, their mannerisms, way of speaking, and ego are generally the same.
I’m proud to say I’ve had thousands of wonderful clients over the decade and a half of running my businesses. Those years of sacrifice have given me the experience and social intelligence to categorize the qualities of shady business men.
If it happens again to you, don’t worry about it, even I, have been ‘had’ 5 more times after the first time before I established by rules.
It’s a small world, I strongly believe if you’ve had a negative experience with a business, talk about it with everyone, the same as you would a positive business experience. Shady businessmen pray on peoples embarrassment to speak up. Through conversation you’ll learn from their experiences and they’ll learn from yours. With these shady people, you’ll be surprised how many people have also been unfortunate to have crossed their paths, and like you, have been ripped off, which figures, like all of us, scam artists are creatures of habit too.
Now, this doesn’t mean you have to turn down a paying customer, this just means, get your money up front and get the expectations down in writing. (Don’t worry, you probably won’t even get to the stage of having to write up an agreement, they’ll refuse your services, earning you back a whole lot of time that would’ve been wasted.)
The marvelous moment, by turning this client down or setting your rules, you’ll feel great and the satisfaction plus the peace of mind you’ll feel is immeasurable.
An honest customer will respect your talents, pay you your going, negotiated rate for your time, and will have no problem prepaying for your services.
Smaller clients leads to bigger ones, but if you’re just building up your business the easiest way to work up the ladder is to spend your ‘pro bono’ time for a good cause such as charities or cultural communities. Scam artists only know scam artists, so don’t waste your time.
Also, don’t cave into their just dumped emails after you reject them as a customer... they’ll try and keep at you...
Feel free to share your comments and experiences below.
Follow me on Twitter @bhattmaan
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