I was filming an educational series last week, and one of the points that the speaker was making was the idea of making sure you always take care of your key clients, no matter how big you get. So I asked her, what happens when you start to outgrow your clients, at least in price point, and we discussed making sure you continue to have a price point for where you want to take care of clients who have been with you during your growth.

This conversation came a few days after having a conversation with one of my long standing clients. Now by long standing I mean we’ve done work for them years ago, and they call every once in a while to check in on projects that they "haven’t decided on yet", and let us know that when they’re ready for something new, they’ll call, but they haven’t been necessarily breaking bread with us all of these years if you get my drift.

It’s a different version of kicking tires.

However, most of our business is business-to-business, and we work strictly in the field of production marketing, which are products that should allow our clients to receive more business when used right. And in most cases, we’ve watched our clients grow with us, some have grown past us, and others have stayed pretty much at the same level they were at when they became out client.

That’s not a problem for us at all, but unfornately it’s become a problem for them.

The call came through with the project they’ve been talking about for years. They’ve contintually called in to talk about what they wanted to do over the past several years, and was finally ready to pull the trigger on the work. But when we mentioned the price, they about fainted on the phone. And I guess they missed the part where we say that included the customer discount.

For the work we do, and for what we were charging, it was an absolute steal of a deal, yet they had valued our time and work at a level that it was at 7 years ago. Times have changed and so has technology. Not only are we a lot more knowledgeable than we were 7 years ago, but we’re a lot more efficient and more advanced creatively. If you were able to get the same amount of work for the same price from us after 7 years, we wouldn’t have been able to have grown over all of this time.

And unfortunately this client took a bit of banging over the head to get it.

As the owner of the company, I try to make sure that we take care of all of our clients as much as we can within their budgets, and so we were able to work out something for them that would work and give them a service they could use. But as I sat there on the phone talking to them, I couldn’t help but hear the same kind of charitable askings that I run into with most black owned startup companies. They were in a sense looking for the same "hook-up" they wanted 7 years ago. As if there hadn’t been any growth in their company over the past 7 years. They had essentially placed the same value on our services they did 7 years ago, but wanted us to give them all of our past 7 years of experience, knowledge, and upgraded skillsets, at the 2005 price.

I began to remember a colleague of mine who always reminded me that at every level of growth, specifically in the service industry, as you grow, you’ll continue to lose a small percent of business, but you’ll gain a significant amount more to replace what you’ve lost. He was definitely right. And although I may view the comment "outgrowing" in a negative way, as a business we strive to provide a service of excellence, commitment, and value. Our prices go up and we get better, faster, and able to continue to serve.

You shouldn’t have to ever feel bad about your price.

Let’s face it, when you’re black in business, it’s the unfortunate curse that somewhere along the path, someone is going to ask you for the dreaded "hook-up". As if amongst us blacks, there is a secret code of doing business and an obligation to show favor to patrons who share the same skin shade.

Now I’m not one to knock anyone’s business practice. In fact, I’ve been known to work with budgets of different sizes on different occasions. But I’ve never "hooked" up someone because we happen to be the same race. Not only is this just bad for business period, but it continues the trend of bringing color to the work. And as I’ve said before, that’s not a good look for any black-owned business. We deal with enough of that involuntarily.

So as I segway into what’s on my mind today, I can’t help but think of times when as a black primary contractor, we had been questioned as to when payment was coming as if there were extra precautions to be taken because I was black, or as a black subcontractor, being treated as if I could get paid when the primary darn well felt like paying us.

So as to lead to by example, I want to talk about why it’s important to take care of your contractors period.

We recently were reacquainted with a previous client of ours we did some work for several times a year for the last couple of years, and I was slightly surprised when the call came out of the blue. We hadn’t done business with this company for a while due to some miscommunication on scheduling and payment from previous projects. Basically they didn’t pay us on the contracted schedule and were avoiding us like the plague.

I’m generally pretty understanding when it comes to issues, especially if you can keep the communication lines open, however these guys were not answering phone calls, dodging emails, and straight up ignoring us and our pursuit for proper compensation.

I thought of all of that as I answered the phone this one last time.

We discussed budget, timing, planning, and the project, and made clear what the expectations were on both sides. In fact, my point of contact was in such a distraught state, he offered a little bit more than our normal rate, because this was a last minute issue we were saving them from. Good thing I don’t hold a grudge.

Midway through the conversation, I reminded him about our problems from projects past, and he assured me that those problems would not happen again, they had a new accounting firm that was handling all payroll, and that it was a smooth and easy process for everyone involved and all of his contractors were well pleased. I was happy to see he had taken a necessary step in the right direction for tightening up his business practices. For as the saying goes, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice…

As we got close to the end of the project I had inquired again about turning in invoices in accordance to his new workflow. I should have known we’d have a problem when emails weren’t returned nor information I had expected to receive I hadn’t gotten yet.

After pulling him to the side on the job, I was promised everything I needed that evening. I didn’t get it.

But what our wonderful friend forgot, is that he gave me the information to his accounting firm in an earlier conversation, so I went straight to the source.

They were courteous and let me know everything I needed to get paid and taken care of, and also let me know that the company we were working for was actually about 2 pay periods behind paying their contractors because they hadn’t done a good job on collecting from slow paying clients. Hmm. If that went over your head, that meant, we couldn’t get paid, until they got paid. And it wasn’t quite clear when they would get paid.

This happens all the time when working within the contracting field, but had I have had more information up front, I could have made a more informed decision. We could have politely turned the job down to focus on other available work. He chose not to share the slow paying information with me from the beginning, probably knowing they didn’t have the money to pay us on hand, however, my responsibility in this is that I wasn’t clear on my ask. Sometimes you do have to be as specific as asking "when can I expect to get paid"? There are always lessons to learn. He called in a favor, and used his last one up due to some miscommunication. We unfortunately won’t be there to bail him out next time.

Luckily we didn’t have any outstanding bills to pay immediately and were able to wait for the funds, but this is why I try to take care of my contractors as soon as I can. You never know someone’s situation. People show up for work everyday on time because they expect that paycheck to be there on time when it’s payday. We have the same expectation as contractors.

Unfortunately this is the last time we’ll be working with these guys. And hopefully they won’t burn too many other businesses in their practices. But we have learned our lesson, and continue to practice good business and integrity.

We hope you are doing the same.

As African-American entrepreneurs, I feel we are role models in our community. With the everso glamourous lifestyle of celebrities and entertainers, our influential youth are sucking up every bit of what traditional media and social media is telling them what it means to be successful. However you slice it, a lot of our youth’s idols nowadays are entrepreneurs themselves, but they never real show just how much hard work it takes to get into self-sustaining positions of high success.

In other words they always show you the finished product and let you fill in the blanks.

When we flick on the TV or the internet now, there are people being rewarded just for being stupid, or having the most views in a certain amount of time. Even youth sports leagues are giving out trophies to EVERYONE who plays, whether they played good or not. We are in the age of instant gratification, and I’m afraid that some of the next generation is going to grow up and be mad that "nobody told them".

There in lies the rub. I try to share with up and coming black business owners who are younger than me some tricks of the trade and advice that could help them avoid mistakes along the way, but they are quick to judge and ask me who have I worked with, and how many followers do I have on Twitter. And I begin to realize that the generation after us is in for a real wake up call if they are measuring success strictly on visibility and not profitability.

Even our young ladies think that the new thing is how much shock and awe they can get by sexting and posting nude photos and videos of themselves. It’s become a competition in some inner city circles. All the while the media keeps feeding us reality shows full of negative nonsense reaffirming these young girls that they are cool for doing what they need to do to get famous.

I pause for a minute to reflect what life would be like if I had a daughter. Pause.

I just recently joined the Urban League and look forward to hosting and attending workshops that help our inner city youth really understand what it means to be black in business. I can’t recall someone getting a mortgage loan lately because of how many likes on Facebook they had, or because they had a couple thousand hits on YouTube. Sure, some of you will argue with me that there are some success stories out there based on these new media trends, but for every success story you give me, I bet I can find at LEAST 1000 people who failed at their attempt at instant fame and fortune.

And for every success story you give me, I bet I can give you at least three that didn’t have a clue what to do next and ended up being in a worse position before the success.

I feel if I don’t use my continued success to help others do the same, then it’s all for naught. There are days I wish that there would have been a "me" to talk to when I was growing my business, as I wouldn’t have made the same mistakes. I want to continue and be a role model for those coming up. I think it’s our responsibility as black business owners. Are we doing enough to really become role models in the eyes of our youth? We can’t let reality TV raise our kids.

But that’s just one man’s opinion.

One of my colleagues and I recently had a conversation about slow paying clients and the attempts on collecting from those who have no motivation to pay you after a service is completed.

It happened after a client of mine whom after “window shopping” for a year had finally decided to jump onboard with us to get his website designed. But wanted it done at last year’s price.

I agreed to work within his budget, but made sure the deal was fair for both of us. After an initial round of revisions, the site went for weeks without any word from what was needed to be changed to move forward. I reached out to complete the project, but was met with no responses. I figured when the client was ready to complete it, he would reach out and let me know.

So we took the site down in the meantime. No need in having incomplete, half payed for work out there with our name on it.

Usually when we have a client slow to complete a website, it’s because they don’t have the balance available to pay, so they’ll prolong the revision process. Although that’s none of our business what their financial situation is, we generally hear from them at the end of the project that that’s what they were doing. So I kind of have a feeling about these things.

Out of the blue about 6 weeks after discussing revisions for my client’s site, he calls in a pickle saying he needs to get the site up in 3 days because he has a client that wants to vet him through his website.

So we discuss what needs to be done to meet this newly appointed deadline, and move some projects around to get him to the front of line to hopefully get this new client for him.

We successfully complete the site in time, and to his liking, and everything is fine…until we talk about collecting payment for the balance. He asked could we possibly hold off three weeks for payment because he doesn’t have the funds at the time.

Now I generally don’t take business matters personal. And this situation was no different. We generally have a policy that we don’t launch a completed website until the balance is paid. Plus, in this case, since he came at us with a priority deadline, we moved other projects around to accommodate him. Not to mention we were already cutting him a deal on the rate.

So I politely told him we could wait the three weeks for the payment, and we couldn’t launch the site until payment was received.

He understood and said he would arrange for payment within the three week request.

It was about 6 and a half minutes before the phone rang again and he had somehow found space on his credit card to pay the balance in full and we were able to settle up and launch his site.

But as I was saying about my colleague earlier, we discussed this situation and the nature of clients treating your services like a real bill. He was letting me know he had experienced similar situations. I know everyone’s financial situation is different, but I’m a firm believer in people will pay for what they want, and figure out whatever way possible to get deals done. Whether it’s a new TV, new shoes, a new car, or some other item of great want. We (black people) unfortunately have things already figured out before walking into establishments requesting that must have item.

But when it comes to collecting on a debt, we have every excuse in the book.

It’s not like that with everyone, but I think the majority of you know what I’m talking about.

So are your clients treating your services like a real bill? Or just figuring they can pay you whenever they feel like it? It’s important to establish boundaries, and stick to good practices for your business.

Did you see those crowds of (black) people running for those new Air Jordan tennis shoes? Aren’t we supposed to be in a recession? But hundreds of people found a way to come up with the money for those shoes.

Think about it.

I was recently fortunately enough to be blessed with a new account that was well worth its weight in gold. It was a situation where the previous vendor hadn’t delivered and the client was just too tired of not getting their product right, and on time.

So when I was presented with the opportunity, I was told a little bit about the previous guys, and how they were making promises that weren’t fulfilled. Then I also found out that they weren’t necessarily using the money received to actually get the job done, more than just getting as much as they could get.

It’s one thing to maximize profit, but it’s another thing to try and take as much money as you can without getting the job done.

I remember one time I recorded a hair show competition event, and the company sponsoring the event had put a budget together for production and prize money, and the promoter they chose to be the host ended up keeping some of the production money and prize money for himself. The whole thing got ugly right on stage as the $5,000 prize was announced…but the company had set aside $10,000 for the grand prize. You can imagine the look on their faces through my camera lens.

This was one of those situations.

I had heard that the previous production company had been spending a lot of their budget trying to buy and learn how to use the equipment to do the job, instead of actually just contracting out professionals who could have had the job done without the headache of a learning curve.

The last thing you want to do is hire someone to do a job, and find out later you just financed their crash course in learning what you needed them to do. You can assure the quality of the product will not be top notch.

When I got the call for this job, I was a bit surprised, but from my other dealings with this client, I knew they respected our work and knew we had a good business relationship already. If I was going to take on this job, it was going to have to be executed flawlessly.

So I called in help. I reached out to two other production companies whose specialties were in areas mine weren’t, and we came together and produced a great end product. With that teamwork, my client was so satisfied we booked 9 more gigs just like it for next year.

I was told once by a good friend of mine that "teamwork makes the dreamwork". And this couldn’t have been more truer.

In the end I realized that I got the job because I could get it done, not necessarily because I could do it myself. I was glad to have built relationships with two other businesses (both minority owned), who were serious about their business, and whom I didn’t mind working with.

Sometimes you gotta call in for some help. My main concered was getting my client’s project done. Not trying to take him for as much as I could. As long as I could meet my financial expectations and pay the other two companies their price, that’s al that mattered. Unfortunately I know a few of us that are black in business that don’t think of building relationships and working together for future endeavors more than just trying to get it right here right now. That hustler’s mentality.

That sort of thinking has to change if you plan on staying in business long.

The problem with being a small business is that sometimes the word "small" describes more than the fiscal label or employee count of the business entity. Unfortunately some people have taken the "small" mentality right into their business thinking. You can’t grow a business if you continue to be small minded about growth, marketing, practices, and just what it really means at the core of your business, to really be focused on what’s best for you, or what’s best for the business.

Simply put, don’t let your personal hangups stunt the growth of your business. Everyone wants to be successful, but everyone isn’t willing to do what’s necessary to achieve that success in business.

I’ve had clients before who I could tell would be looking at me funny handing me 4 and 5 figure checks or asking me about ways to make services cheaper and making jokes about "me" (personally) receiving a nice amount of money as if they felt they were giving me money compared to hiring a company for services.

I run a business. This business has expenses, taxes, payroll, etc. Plus I have a value on my time. My clients who understand this are constantly growing their business and thinking of ways to continue growing. But the one’s who don’t are generally the same ones who look at me as if they are somehow financing my lifestyle. Like I take their check and run straight to the casino and have a good time.

But even if I did, didn’t they still receive the service they paid for?

Although we focus on film and web production, our core intent is marketing. If we aren’t making the products that you need for the marketing of your business, and they’re not doing for you what they need to do, then we haven’t done our job. And I try to stress this to some of these "small" businesses to get them thinking past the dollar, and looking at the investment. I’ve even turned jobs away that I knew were going to be a headache because there was no clear vision about what was needed.

If you’re going to be in business, you have to be in all the way. You can’t want your business to succeed without contributing to the success of other businesses. And black businesses unfortunately do this the most. We want everyone to pay our prices, rates, and follow our rules, but we don’t want to be supportive of others. We look for hookups, good deals, and the cheapest way of doing something. And I think that’s what keeps the "small" in some of our small businesses.

I have no problem with shopping around for the best deal, but it can’t always be about price. You have to know what is best for your business. What’s going to help your overall growth? What do you need to invest in to get you to the next level? Of course if you’re still running around trying to get the lowest price, chances are you haven’t figured that out yet and you’ll continue to be stuck at a "small" level in your small business.

I’m generally an advocate for never leaving money on the table if you can. So I’ve spent a lot of projects negotiating better deals, better payouts, just whatever it took to get the sale. But a lot of times I would find myself overworked and underpaid in the end and wonder was it really worth it?

There used to be a time in my business where things were super slow, and I would jump on some extremely low paying jobs. And although it would be a nice band-aid, the work would never stop the bleeding.

Things of course changed as the business grew and I got clear about my business goals, boundaries, and practices. And if I had not been prepared for the story I’m about to tell, I could have seen me making similar choices again that really don’t enhance the overall scope of my business. Because generally people who don’t want to pay you your price, won’t be the ones to help your business grow In my opinion..

I had a potential client call me the other day to discuss contracting us to do some website video work for a network of businesses she wants to market to. She basically wants to sell them on the service, then have us do the work. Fairly straight-forward standard contracting fare. But once she asked what the price would be, she went on to complaining that her clients wouldn’t pay that much.

So I asked her if she had a budget she was trying to stay around and she told me. Then I said for around that budget we could not provide the level of work she was requesting and would have to scale back on a few things. She seemed frustrated and then made the most disturbing comment.

“I mean I know I paid that much for my own video, but these people don’t want to pay that much”.

I then became clear it was not an issue of value to dollar, it was her way of hoping to take something of value and resell it for cheaper. And I had to retract myself from the conversation. She wasn’t too happy about me not coming down (significantly) in price. As a matter of fact, it was something like $500 for $5000 worth of work (surely you jest).

When I tried to talk to her about maybe streamlining the process a bit to create something in her budget, she wasn’t really attentive to that, and actually missed a schedule conference call we were to have to discuss ideas. When she didn’t show up on the call, or follow up to apologize for missing the call, even weeks after the fact, I knew then to put a nail in the coffin of this business relationship. Because now it was all out of the boundaries of how I do business.

Even when business isn’t going well, there are some deals where leaving money on the table is the best thing for the business. We’ve been blessed enough to be doing extremely well in this economy, so we continue to pick and choose the best practices for our growth, but even if we weren’t doing well, I would have still turned this down. Realizing your value and what you can and cannot do for money, especially if the price isn’t right, will save you a lot of headaches in the l

When you’re an entrepreneur, you are bound to run into a client sooner or later that will attempt to “do your job for you“. By this I mean strictly someone who will offer to do a portion of the work at a reduction of your costs of course. And I guess in the grand scheme of things, if it’s work you don’t have to do, then that could be a good thing right? Sort of like boxing up all of your stuff before the movers get there.

Wrong.

What I’ve run into are situations where people are paying for a service, but they want to belittle that service by saying they can do some of the work, and think that entitles them to some huge discount.

I had a bride who had recently gotten married call me one day and ask could I re-edit her wedding video. She had went with another company to shoot it, and I guess the videographer was fond of one of her guests, because this guest was all over the highlight reel. The bride wanted me to go through the video and edit out pieces that featured our unwanted guest. She (the bride) claimed she could edit it herself if she knew how, but just needed this done “right quick“. She also mentioned wanting a color label for her final DVD, and once again mentioned she could do it herself because she knows “Photoshop“, but just doesn’t have a printer. Right. And I could fix my truck’s transmission if I just had one of those hoisty car lifty thing-a-ma-bobs.

Going into this project I knew it was going to be a headache. Not because the work was challenging, but because of the constant reminders of the services provided, that they could “done by myself, but“, and how that’s supposed to drop the price.

In the end it just made it easier for me to charge by the hour and just have her sit there and “watch” me do all the things she claimed she could do if and only if she had the equipment. Amazingly enough there were indeed things that I did do that she had no idea needed to be done.

But that didn’t stop another client of mine who needed something as simple as a DVD Copy of a trailer we had done for his company. He called me late on a Friday and begged and pleaded that I get him 10 copies of this trailer for a big pitch meeting he was having. And when I told him the price, he quickly changed his tune, “well make just one copy and my fiance can make the rest.”

I asked him if he knew how to “duplicate” a DVD for set top playability and he confirmed that his fiance indeed knew what to do, because they had done it on some of our other DVD projects. I confirmed with him one more time, because I knew the next three days I was on a set shooting another project.

I met early with him to give him this master DVD and went to my shoot. I thought nothing of it until we cut for lunch and I checked I had 12 voicemails from him. It appears that his fiance didn’t know after all how to burn a DVD, and they had already ruined eight DVDs trying to burn copies. I knew what the problem was, which is exactly why I tried to confirm with him before. My break was almost over, and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to solve their problem, so he goes off on me like it’s my fault.

I thought about all of the times we had worked together and his “fiance” had her laptop open like she was taking notes on everything I was doing. I even remember him coyly asking one time if a final DVD I gave him could be further edited in his computer. As if he had already planned to start doing some editing of his own at home. I told him that if he wanted to edit, a DVD was not what he needed, to which he quickly refuted he was “just asking a question.”

The problem with the technology age is people think they can get the tools and do the jobs themselves. Companies have marketed certain products as consumer friendly, and so you got average Joes going out and buying video cameras thinking they’re the next Spielberg or Abrams, but don’t know how to remove the lens cap. So in turn, professions like mine get looked at as tool driven instead of skill driven and people “think” they can do my job for me and want to tell me what I should charge.

And when you’re black in business, this happens more often than not.

No you cannot borrow my expensive camera to film your own event. The service of filming comes with me performing the filming.

No you cannot borrow my DVD duplicator and printer to make copies. The service of ordering copies comes with burning and printing.

No you cannot use my studio “right quick“. The service of studio time comes with me as the engineer.

There are plenty of professions that have experienced this phenomenon. I’m sure carpenters go into homes all the time having to fix something someone thought they could do on their own because they seen it on HGTV. And there’s no telling how many financial analysts get laughed at because someone had fun playing around with online stocks. And let’s not forget how many weddings I’ve been to where cousins and uncles are doing the photos and videos with products make for vacations and not professional settings.

Because we live in a money driven society, you will meet clients that will try to devalue your service by assuming they know exactly what goes into it. I make a mean Eggs Benedict, but I’m sure if I go to IHOP and ask for $3.00 off because I know how to cook it myself, ask the to just provide me the industrial stove, pan, and eggs, they’d think I was crazy and kindly decline.

When you offer a service, let your clients know that the service has value and what it entails. There are times where you may adjust it, but don’t get put in a situation where you feel devalued. And definitely don’t let clients dictate how you run your business. Leaving off pieces of your services doesn’t equate to the quality of the entire experience.

This is the service. This is the price. This is your business.

Some of you may have read the entry a few weeks back about me redoing my studio. What I left out of that story was my "quest for the perfect desk".

I had been searching around for a desk that would hold my audio and video equipment in the same editing space so I wouldn’t have to go to another part of the room to work on the same project, it could all be done it one area.

I found a few desks online, read reviews, and did measurements wondering if the desks I were looking at would suffice for my needs. Besides, for those long editing hours, I need to be comfortable and have the tools I need right in front of me.

I settled on a desk and had planned on taking a two hour drive to the store that had one in stock. I had researched it for weeks, and read all types of reviews on it, even looking at photos from other studio setups to reassure my decision. But in the home stretch of what I was considering making a weekend trip out of, I read one last review that talked about the desk making a weird reverberation during mixing. And since audio is a severely important part of my job, I had to pass. It was back to the drawing board. I did find a second and third opinion about that reverberation, so I felt comfortable leaving this desk at the altar.

Now I’m back on the search and find the perfect desk locally on Craigslist at a warehouse. I make the call and the guy still has it and tells me I can come look at it anytime. Perfect. I head out the next day and sort of put my buddy who has a pickup truck on notice. I may or may not need his help depending on if I like the desk or not.

I get to the warehouse and absolutely love the desk. My only problem is it’s two feet longer and one foot wider than the original desk I was going to get. And it was in the "back" of this warehouse. It was going to take muscle and patience to get it out of the warehouse, and then another set of huffing and puffing to get it onto my buddy’s truck, and then drive it back to the studio. There was a piece of me that felt I had taken a big bite of something I couldn’t chew.

But I wasn’t ready to spit it out yet.

Because I knew how important that it was to have the right desk in my workspace, I stayed focused on the end result of getting the setup that I needed to do my job even more efficiently than I had been doing it instead of the hassle to get there. It took us several hours, and it rained on us, and we struggled to get it on the truck, tied down, and transported. But there was a great feeling of euphoria as we got it into the hallway next to the studio and just left it there until it was time to put it in place.

That few hours of hard work won’t equate to hours of productivity I’ll experience working on this new desk. Sometimes sacrifices have to be made for your own self-worth. Whatever it is in your business that can help you go to the next level. No one ever said it would be easy. Because if it was, more of us would be doing it.

So the next time you’re faced with a challenge, look it in the face and think about being on the other side of that challenge. It’ll help you grow.

As a small business owner, I tend to do a lot of business with other small business owners. From time to time I’ll inadvertently find myself letting other business owners know of certain situations I’ve dealt with, that may or may not be beneficial to their business. It sort of comes with the territory.

However, I understand some of the issues that go along with being a small business owner. And it’s because of this that sometimes I’m a little bit more lenient on some of my small business clients. I know how cash flow can be up and down, and know sometimes you need to subcontract to get a big Corporate job done. This can put contractors in a position where they may have to wait for final payment. And is some cases, Net 14 seems a long way away.

I recently was subcontracted on two big video jobs, both in which I had agreed to a Net 14 payout upon completion of the projects. Besides, these were repeat clients that we had been doing business with for a while. And although I was going against my policy a little, I thought it would be for the greater good and a further investment into my relationship with these clients.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Let me go on an editorial rant here for a minute. I firmly believe that in being black in business, sometimes (not always), as soon as we stray from our "policy", we’ve increased our chances to get taken advantage of 10 times greater than that of our non-minority counterparts. There are things that people try with black owned businesses that they would never try with other companies.

So I’ll talk about the first company I was subcontracted with. Once those 14 days were up and my phone calls were not getting returned, I felt played. But not because I felt I was being played, because i had played myself. I knew the rules of the game, and when you give someone the chance to hold your money, you better believe someone is going to cash in that chance.

I received a call from the client around Day 21 saying he was sorry he couldn’t return my call, he was in Costa Rica at the time, but should have my money by the end of the week and gave me a post-dated check for that Friday (Day 25). I told him he had some nerve to take a vacation and splurge before paying his contractors, and that was totally not cool. And in that moment I knew that we would not be continuing to do business.

At least not by his rules.

It was another two weeks before I would receive balance on this gig. You can imagine that the check was no good from the time he wrote it, until the time I sent it back to his office. It took him a minute to receive it because he (guess what), took yet another vacation during those two weeks.

It was also 30 days before I received payment from the second company I had subcontracted for. I think it was the universe’s way of letting me know there’s a risk anytime you give someone a chance to screw you over, and to take that risk carefully.

It was clear that new boundaries had to be put in place with these clients, and that I would be cautious to let something happen like this again.

People talk about those bad apples that spoil bunches. Let’s just say moving forward I don’t plan to separate what apples are good or bad, just treat all the apples the same. And that way I can remain in control, which is where as a business owner you want to be.

The problem with showing mercy is that you let your guard down. And some people with walk all over you if you let them.