A few weeks after launching my company we got an opportunity for our first project. We met this company a number of times and eventually got asked to put forward a proposal for a system they needed.
Our proposal came in at about $40,000 which, for us, was a fortune at that time. There were two of us working out of my spare bedroom and this was going to give us plenty of cash for the coming months. We were excited because this validated our beliefs that we had something good to offer the market.
The company liked our proposal and wanted to engage us to build the system. Except for one thing. They didn’t like the price. They then proceeded to beat us up on price, on payment terms and on retention. They were also demanding other things to be included in our bid. So what did we do?
We walked away from the project because we didn’t like the behaviors we were seeing. We weren’t nasty about it. We politely told them that they probably needed to work with somebody else who could fulfill their needs at the price they wanted. They couldn’t believe that we were turning down the work. They rang us again the following day to see if we had changed our minds. But we hadn’t!
The key thing about this story is that much as we wanted the project, much as we could have done with the money, we were not going to sell our souls to win bad business. We knew from our previous experience that they were going to be a nightmare client so we did what our gut told us to do, to walk away.
There was a great ending to this story. In the weeks following our decision to walk away, we won two new clients who went on to spend close to $10 million with us over the following years. They were great clients who paid us on time and never argued about our charges.
Our proposal came in at about $40,000 which, for us, was a fortune at that time. There were two of us working out of my spare bedroom and this was going to give us plenty of cash for the coming months. We were excited because this validated our beliefs that we had something good to offer the market.
The company liked our proposal and wanted to engage us to build the system. Except for one thing. They didn’t like the price. They then proceeded to beat us up on price, on payment terms and on retention. They were also demanding other things to be included in our bid. So what did we do?
We walked away from the project because we didn’t like the behaviors we were seeing. We weren’t nasty about it. We politely told them that they probably needed to work with somebody else who could fulfill their needs at the price they wanted. They couldn’t believe that we were turning down the work. They rang us again the following day to see if we had changed our minds. But we hadn’t!
The key thing about this story is that much as we wanted the project, much as we could have done with the money, we were not going to sell our souls to win bad business. We knew from our previous experience that they were going to be a nightmare client so we did what our gut told us to do, to walk away.
There was a great ending to this story. In the weeks following our decision to walk away, we won two new clients who went on to spend close to $10 million with us over the following years. They were great clients who paid us on time and never argued about our charges.