Negotiation, Service, and Other Issues.
The Blog Queue as it stands right now, today:
1.) Post on Faith.
2.) Post on How Marriage Can Get Healed.
3.) Rededicate myself to the goals that I have.
4.) Review books read this year (i.e badlydrawnjeff style).
5.) Some marketing stuff geared at Realtors.
The following is the first in a series of 'baseline business standards,' that I am trying to develop so that service providers can generate predictable results.
Negotiation, Expectations, Satisfaction
How proper negotiation can prevent bad work!
[first draft--will edit at some point]
Recently, I had a poor experience with a web programmer. She was a referral from a friend, and probably even a good person. Her work was competent, if unspectacular, she had good intentions, and I had the need for a service that she provided. It didn't work out like we'd both hoped. From her perspective, I was a difficult, flighty and capricious client, and from mine, she was an opportunistic and less than ethical practitioner. Neither of these are true! I was anxious to get a good job done for me, and she was happy do work for pay. The relationship ended with a partially done job that I didn't (and never intend to) pay for. She was angry with me, and I was disappointed that I couldn't get the work that I couldn't do done.
It absolutely did not have to be this way. Other people have provided me with similar services without incident, leaving us all mutually happy. It failed not because she wasn't good enough to do the work, but because we didn't start with the finished project in mind, and we didn't think we were operating under the same terms during the course of the contract. . I never got the sense that she understood what I wanted--and I never got the chance to spell it out for her. She was uncomfortable with payment terms--from the beginning--and hoped that it wouldn't 'go badly for her.' It went badly for both of us. I seriously considered filing a lawsuit, and consulted an attorney with that in mind. She told our mutual friends that I was a jerk and a difficult person. Some simple communication that both of us are fully responsible would have completely taken care of these problems.
Negotiation
Baseline Standard #1: The Service Provider is Responsible for Generating The Service Agreement, and will only take agreements they are enthusiastic about.
Stephen Covey writes: Win-Win. or No Deal. This idea is that we have to come to an agreement that both parties are enthusiastic about executing. We also have to leave open the real possibility to have no deal. Walking away with a hand shake and a 'no hard feelings,' is a valid and honorable choice. Sometimes you can't get comfortable with someone, and you have to be willing to walk away, no hard feelings. Inquiring about a service or good doesn't obligate you to the purchase, and in my case--for both of our sakes--it would have been better to walk. It was a referral from a friend, and I have a soft spot for small businesses and small practitioners of a service. Still--it was apparent early that the deal wasn't going to be agreeable to me (or to her). No deal should have been the option I took.
That said, a service provider must determine the services provided, and is ultimately responsible for communicating what's happening. This doesn't have to be tedious, lawyerly or arduous, but having a standard agreement, knowing the agreement and being proud of it is simply baseline professionalism[2]. A good agreement will spell out the following elements:
1.) Goods /Service Provided- The itemization of services being bought. For an accountant, it might be to input receipts provided, and For a mechanic it might be diagnose repair, troubleshoot. This should be specific and not vague, and the quality of work should be described.
2.) Services Excluded. Sometimes what's not in the contract is critical. A financial planner, say, may not be competent to provide Probate advice. This should be acknowledged by all parties involved--if there is something in an industry that comes up frequently, what isn't offered should be mentioned.
3.) Time Frames If this is an ongoing contract (say to search the headlines of 6 business newspapers for 1 month to see if there are mentions of the company), or if this is something that has a deadline (we need everything by 6/15/06), and what the penalties are if the delivery dates are not met (the contract is null and void if we don't get a response by 7pm-).
4,) Price . Pretty straightforward--what is the rate of pay for the practitioner? What do the widgets cost, and how is that generated? Is there a standard markup/management fee? Are other services billable? Is there a pre-agreed price ceiling ? Are there any events that trigger an automatic call to the buyer?
5.) Payment Terms Is this a prepaid item? Due upon receipt? What happens if payment is defaulted--what rights does the service provider have? This is always a fairly sticky issue, as I've learned, and without having payment terms that are acceptable, the contract should be turned down. If the provider is making an exception, the exception should be embraced. And, if the customer defaults...there should be a penalty that is collected--though it's hard to collect late charges.
Most of this stuff will be the same each time--and there should be a basic 'fill in the blanks,' ness to the whole agreement. It does take a lot of trouble to do this, but it's a one time thing. There are probably a few issues that frequently come up. Handling the agreement--presenting it to the customer is another skill that should be included in the set of baseline professional skills. "Thank you for having the confidence to work with me--i've found that having an order form really allows me to focus on serving you, and a few moment's time filling this out can save you billable hours on redos." I would guess that a service contract would be one to two pages, and complex things like accounting, programming, legal services will have more to it than that. I would also think that a service provider should not begin work without an executed contract.
When all of the items are negotiated properly, it paves the way for mutually understood expectations. Both the service provider and their customer have ample opportunity to negotiate and understand the deal. Nobody suffers from a lack of understanding. This puts another Covey maxim: Begin with the end in mind, into play. Still--this is ultimately much faster than saying, "Hey, I want a website," or "Hey, I want some legal advice," and then hoping for the best.
What wound up happening, was that the designer thought that I'd agreed to use her before I had, she then began the work before understanding what i wanted--and before payment terms were considered (she told me that she billed at X per hour). After I'd agreed to use her, she figured that she had carte blanche to include 'research,' into the job, and didn't know how to execute one of the project requirements. She 'researched' what I felt that she should have been able to do upfront, and attempted to bill me for the time it took to learn how to do what I presumed she knew how to do. I considered this an underhanded move, and I asked if she had decided to do this. That offended her, she said she wouldn't finish. This was after the conversation had degenerated, and this was the last contact that we'd had.
To Debrief:
From the start, our communication was poor. I never, ever, felt that she understood the simple finished product I was seeking. She probably felt like I was hyper--I emailed her with efforts to clarify, and with instruction as the project was going (she did things that were contrary to what I expected, and I wanted to not pay for that effort). This wouldn't have been the case with an agreement up front--and I am surprised that the issues that she and I had had never come up in the past.
The Lesson:
1.) Always require an agreement--if just verbally--covering the five elements: Goods/Servicces Provided, Price, Goods/Services Excluded, Payment Terms, + Time Frames (there might be a dollar amount that triggers this--maybe we don't need to have an agreement for the guy that washes our car, but then again, there's a lot that's implied with the way car washes are set up).
2.) Be enthusiastic about working with the other party.
3.) Be willing to walk away when you can't get 1.) or 2.) met.
[1] By Burned, I mean accidentally overpaid with pay pal (he over invoiced and I just clicked pay) and never gotten the refund addressed...though it was several hundred dollars.
[2] baseline professionalism is a phrase that governs the lowest acceptable standard of conduct that all professional service providers should adhere to across several industries. It is a concept that deals with business etiquette,