And while I’m neither needy nor desperate, there’s no denying they can have the same effect on me as hot, blonde Eastern European totty in a leather dress and no knickers.

The best thing of all?

I spoke to one yesterday afternoon.

Perfect. Just the kind of client we’re looking for.

High transaction sizes... but with massive scope to push the limits of price-elasticity… check.

Good profit margins… check.

A business doing well despite the fact they’re doing NO marketing beyond a fledgling attempt at Adwords, and doing it themselves… check.

Shit website which doesn’t even begin to come up to scratch… check.

Decent bloke to talk to and we seemed to “click”… check.

Operates his business around my home-town so I’m intimately acquainted with the area and know where to find the affluent hotspots… check.

Indirectly referred to me by a massively satisfied long-term client… check.

Man… we can make this man so much fucking money from day one. There are so many über-cool things we can do for him without trying or putting any thought into it. 

We’ve got shit just there waiting to plug into his biz. 

Like, tomorrow.

And if we got him only one extra sale a month at his current prices he, on average, would make our fees back almost double (and that’s so ridiculously conservative a target I should be buggered by the devil for even mentioning it… get thee behind me Satan).

It was a bit like going into a bar and finding yourself being seduced by Kate Beckinsale clad in her finest skintight vampire gear and whispering “come back to mine and I’ll sit on your face so you can guess my weight” in your ear.

Whimper. I am so weak.

But.

Despite the surreal perfection of this chap and his business, I didn’t try the hard sell, I didn’t embellish the truth to get him on board (on the contrary I was bordering on insulting at times, but in an unemotional and logical tough-love kinda way), and I absolutely, definitely, and without doubt did not offer him so much as a Groat’s discount.

You know why not?

Because we want him… but we don’t need him (and it’d make no difference if we did need him). 

Compromising your values to get a client is never, ever a good idea, no matter how appealing the client is or how desperate your needs are. I’ve done it in the past, and it’s never turned out well.

See, our ability to make this guy the money we know we can is predicated on him doing what we tell him to do, when we tell him to do it, even when it’s uncomfortable and he doesn’t want to. 

And maintaining that kind of positioning and relationship is difficult bordering on impossible if you’re whoring yourself out like some desperate crack addict. We all like an easy lay, but no one wants to take the relationship seriously, right?

Harsh but fair. And accurate.

Go down that route and, ultimately, we’d let him down by not serving him to the best of our ability (because we can’t give our best if he’s not compliant and we’re not being paid enough to make it easy for us to relax into the job and give him the attention he deserves).

Anyway… if you have a business like that — typical examples are luxury kitchens, bathrooms, flooring, bedrooms, double-glazing, conservatories, and shit of that nature — you know whom to call.

Witheringly,

P.S. Seriously, this chap had me positively salivating at the opportunity he has to make a fuckton of money with hardly more effort IN his biz than he’s putting in now (probably less).

Put it this way... I'm even more excited than I would be about a weekend in jello with Ms. Beckinsale.

Man, she’s so hot I’d drag my balls for a mile over broken glass just to hear her fart down a walkie-talkie.

Whatever…

… I’m now back off inside for a cuppa and a return to bed for a bit.

TTFN.