Candice (00:07.138)

Hey, it's your coach, Candice. Today I want to talk about the client who's making you absolutely miserable right now. The one that you are half hoping misreads their contract so that you have a clean, great excuse to walk away from their wedding. This topic is a hot topic recently. Several of my students and my private coaching clients have brought me this exact situation this week and have asked me, Candice.

How do I fire this client? And honestly, I understand. I think we all understand. We've all had one client who we realized is not a good fit. They either communicate outside of our boundaries, they're not listening to our suggestions or our recommendations. They're going behind our backs and doing things behind the scenes. They're just not.

Playing nice, they're playing way outside of our processes. And most of all, they're not trusting us, our advice and our expertise. And so if you have found yourself in this situation recently, I want you to know you're not alone. I mean, this is a pattern that has been brought to me over the last 30 days by multiple people who are not discussing it with one another, but who are coming to me for advice. So I thought, okay, obviously.

Something's in the water. Something's going on here. And you know what? This makes a great podcast episode. Cause I can guarantee there is somebody on your calendar right now who you wish was not. And when you saw the title of this episode, you probably thought to yourself, my god, I'm dying. I need to let this person go. Thank God Candace is recording this.

So, if you are a wedding pro who is dealing with a frustrating client experience and you're not sure whether it's time to pack it up and walk away, if you're dealing with a draining client, this one is for you. And if you are not currently dealing with a draining client and if you have yet to experience a situation like this, first of all, count yourself lucky. It will happen eventually.

Candice (02:24.962)

But even better than that, you are going to be much more equipped to understand when it's actually time to fly fire a client and how to prevent this from happening in the future. So let's get into it. Welcome back to the Power and Purpose podcast. It's your girl, Candace. If you're new here, I'm Candace. I'm your coach. I'm a former wedding planner and designer who built and sold a very successful business.

And now I get to coach wedding pros, and I've been doing this for a very, very long time. So I'm so glad you're here. Make sure you hit that follow button so that you get every episode that we release here on the Power and Purpose podcast. We talk about hot button topics, we talk about mindset things, business strategy, we cover all of the really great business buckets that you care about. And we do it in a way that feels like you're sitting down with a friend who is just giving you no BS advice.

And I am that friend, and I am no BS. So thanks for tuning in today. If you are a returning listener, as always, I appreciate you. And I'm so happy to spend another week with you talking about all things wedding business, wedding industry. Thanks for being here. Make sure you share this episode with a business bestie who was just complaining to you about their nightmare bridezilla client. And drop it in the group chat. Let this conversation that we have here today spark.

Conversations with wedding pros in your community. Share this to threads. Share it in the private group chat. Add it to the Facebook group that you have, the private Facebook group that you have with fellow wedding pros. And let this spark a conversation, a debate amongst one another in what I share with you today. So, like I mentioned, this conversation came up with many of my students over the last month. They want to know, Candace, how do I fire a client? And

It's a question that almost everybody jumps to when a relationship goes sideways or gets really frustrated. We think, how do I get out of this cleanly and without returning any money?

Candice (04:31.49)

I've been asked this question for many years. It is a pattern that I'm seeing recently, but I I just think that it's the universe bringing similar people together, asking similar questions. I don't necessarily know if clients are just more misbehaved today than they normally are. This has been happening since I was a planner, since I started my business. So I don't think that this necessarily is an uptick in misbehaved clients, but I do think that as wedding pros and as business owners, we are getting

More comfortable with how we work and how we want to work, and we're becoming less tolerant of people's bullshit. So if anything, I think that has been the shift is as business owners we recognize we're not we're a service provider, but we're not in business in servitude. You know what I mean? We're not indentured servants. So we get to decide if we want to continue working with the client, and we actually don't need to always tough it out.

On that note, though, I want to tell you that a difficult a difficult client isn't just a personality that you got unlucky with. And I think sometimes it can really feel like they didn't show me any red flags. I didn't see any of the normal indications that they were going to be difficult or not a right match. And we kind of feel like they either did a bait and switch or something shifted and their personality shifted, or we just got unlucky.

Just kind of luck of the draw, luck of the universe. And I'm here to tell you that's not true. The reason why you are in this situation is unfortunately a you problem. But let me explain. This is really about a standard that you have not set in your business. When we think about business standards, your mind might go to how you serve people. That's a good thing. You might also think about

How you want to exist in the wedding industry, that's a good thing. But I'm gonna challenge you to actually set some standards for how clients should behave in your business. How clients should interact with you, how they should treat you, your team, fellow vendors that you might work alongside or even refer and recommend, how they are to communicate with you.

Candice (06:59.426)

How they trust your expertise and your recommendations. And when you think about relationships with clients through this lens, and when you set some standards for how clients should operate inside your business, it is going to become a lot easier for you to see red flags in the sales process before your book.

And even after to see things popping up and course correct and get people back on track and hold your standards, or if there is a situation where the relationship is irrevocably damaged, you can fall back on your standards and ask yourself: is this client habitually going over the line? And immediately.

My brain is going to a Dave Chappelle skit with Charlie Murphy, one of the best comedy skits of all time, where he's talking about Rick James as a habitual line stepper. So, on that note, if they're a habitual line stepper, you get to say to yourself, hmm, do I really want to continue working with this client? Because

My amount of evidence shows me that they don't respect our standards and they're constantly stepping over those standards. Okay? So that is what we're gonna talk about today, because there are four standards that actually put you back in control here as the service provider. And I want to say standards aren't rules that you just spring on a client to kind of box them in. Nobody's perfect. People are human, they're gonna do human things.

They're gonna go behind your back accidentally. It's not meant with malice. They're going to forget to email you back. All right. So we have to recognize that there's human behavior here, but there are also standards that we set that help make sure our clients are receiving the standard of care that they're paying for, but that they're also participating in that standard of care.

Candice (09:12.578)

And these standards are decisions that you make as a business owner ahead of time about how you're willing to work with clients. So you're not kind of renegotiating your own boundaries in the middle of a client situation where they've been difficult for weeks or months. And of course, you're not burning out as clients take advantage of you, take advantage of your time and your desire to be helpful and kind.

Now you're gonna set these standard once, and they're gonna work with every client you ever book, so long as you maintain the standard. So let's talk about the four standards that are gonna put you back into control, starting with the first standard, communication. This is how clients reach you, how fast you respond, when you're off the clock, how they communicate with you. That email that they're sending to you at 11 o'clock at night isn't the problem.

It's you deciding whether or not you think you need to answer it at 1105. So I want you to think about the standards you're gonna set around communication and how you want clients to communicate thoughtfully with you. Next, feedback and your expertise. Think about the standards you wanna set and how a client responds when you give your professional.

Recommendation. If you're a photographer and you're like, I don't think that this location is right for your engagement shoot because X, Y, and Z, and they say, we don't care about your expertise or the fact that you have photographed a hundred couples in the last two months and have specifically chosen not to use that location because of your experience, that is a standard that is not being met. Also think about.

Are you being hired as an expert or as a pair of hands? Because some of you are positioning yourself as the person who is going to clean up the mess, the person who is going to put out the fires, the person who is going to schlep and move around all the things, not the expert who is in control and is going to

Candice (11:31.53)

So when we think about feedback and respecting your expertise, what are some of the standards you need to set to make sure that your client is meeting your standards of care and operating as a customer? The third is money, finances, and budget. So you need to create standards around payments, around budget honesty, what they're spending, how you're talking about money, scope.

A client that is mismanaging their own budget is a problem. And a client mismanaging you on the budget is a standards problem. So, what standards are you gonna set for your clients around money, finances, and budget? Are you going to require that clients have open conversations with you about what they're willing to spend on their invitations, on their flowers, on their catering, on their planning or their photography?

Are you going to require perhaps or set a standard around who's paying for the wedding and how much input they might might get on the work that you're responsible for? Perfect example of this is for a planner who's being hired to plan, and then suddenly out of nowhere, here comes a parent with big opinions who wants to take over everything. If you set a very clear standard from the very beginning,

That anybody who might be contributing to the wedding needs to discuss their opinions with the couple, and that can be relayed to you by the couple. You're not gonna walk into meetings where dad or mom upends everything or takes over. And at the very least, if you do walk into that meeting, you can reference the area of your contract that speaks about decision makers. You can reference the consultation conversation you had with your couple.

Around who gets to attend meetings and give their input. And you might think that this is wild and crazy and that you don't have this kind of control, but you do have this kind of control. It's your time, it's your life, it's your weekend, it's your 11 p.m. work schedule that this client gets to take over or have a piece of.

Candice (13:54.184)

So you deserve to have a say in all of these things and what makes an ideal client for you based on the standards that you set. A final standard that I want you to consider thinking about is vendors and hiring. Now, you might not be a planner and in charge of who they hire, but you can set standards for what you expect. Example, if you're a photographer, maybe you set a standard that all of your couples have to have a wedding planner.

And in the consultation process, in the booking process, you ask who's your planner? You don't have one, you need one. If you want to work with us, you need to have a wedding planner. Here are the three planners that we recommend. Talk to them and come back to us if you want to work with us. You might be thinking that's absolutely crazy and that you don't get the chance to do that. But what I'm telling you is if you set those standards and you maintain those standards, you're gonna work with more high-end planners and great clients, and you're not going to be in charge.

Of the wedding day timeline, how the day flows, answering questions that are outside the scope of photography. You either set the standard and hold it, or you allow your clients to set the standards for you. It's your choice. So think about how you want clients to engage with the vendors that you recommend or the vendors that they even hire and what that means to you. Example, if you're an invitation designer.

You might set a standard that the client has to work with a specific planner or have a planner in order to work with you. Another just like the photographer. If you're a planner, you might set a standard that the client has to book somebody off of your preferred vendor list. Period.

No wiggle room, no room for any kind of margin. And you might think that's a crazy thing to require. But what I'm telling you is a client who is hiring you for your expertise wants access to those people, wants access to your people, and should be very willing to trust your recommendation because your reputation.

Candice (16:07.254)

rides on the coattails of every vendor you put in front of a client or every vendor you're tasked to have to collaborate with and work alongside.

Every one of these standards, communication, feedback in your expertise, money, finances, budget, vendors, and hiring starts with you. What do you want as a photographer? What do you want as a floral designer? What do you want to decide?

I want you to stop asking, how do I deal with her? And start asking, does this meet the standards I set? One question kind of makes you a victim, the other makes you the leader of your business. The other one actually positions you more as an authority and more as an expert, which we have established on this podcast is absolutely critical for business moving forward.

AI can do a wedding budget. Chat GPT can create a wedding budget, but it can't create a wedding budget from an expert's point of view. And this is just one of the gazillion reasons why expertise is a hot commodity and why you need to lead with it this year and just going forward. Now, if you are in this situation right now where you're actually dealing with a client.

Who you think you need to fire, let's talk about three questions to ask yourself when you're in the thick of things. I gave you standards to set to try to mitigate this in the future, but also to fall back on should you find yourself in a little bit of a Jekyll and Hyde situation, and you you do need to consider letting a client go, okay? First, does this client meet my standards? Hold them up against the four standards I just named.

Candice (18:03.99)

And sometimes you realize they're not a nightmare. They've just been maybe operating in a vacuum that you never filled or standards that you never created.

Just like team members who are given training versus the people who aren't. If you've never trained someone on your team on how to do things, how to operate on a team, how to meet your standards, how could you ever expect them to meet those standards? So ask yourself: does the client meet my standards? Hold her or them up against those standards. Next, if not, what can we do to get them back on track? The next step everyone skips on the way to.

You know, the exit sign is what can I do to get this person back on track?

There might be one kind of direct, kind, specific conversation that you need to have about standards and how to get them back on track to reset this person. Now, I'm gonna be honest, this is a 50-50 shot. 50% of the time the person's like, oops, sorry, I'll stop being a crazy asshole. And then the other 50% of the time, the person's like, yeah, no.

Doubling down on my crazy asshole tendencies. So, but it's worth a shot because you get to check the box. Did I do everything I could do to try to get this person back on track? By the way, caveat, asterisk, it's never too late to start setting standards and leading from this. I think a lot of people feel like, I'm in too deep with this client. You know, I've just let this person just completely have free reign to act like a total ass. And I can't reel this in. Yes, you can.

Candice (19:53.13)

Yes, you can. You can start setting standards and modeling those standards and communicating those standards from here on out with the rest of your clients, including the one who's driving you berserk and all the future ones who are going to come through the door. Final question, third question. If that's truly not possible, if we can't get them back on track, what are our options? And now we talk about the exit sign as one option among several that help put you in the driver's seat.

Firing a client is sometimes the right call, but it should be a decision that you make from the driver's seat with not emotion, not frustration, not anger, not trying to rescue yourself. Okay. Not when you're feeling hog tied in the back of the trunk, but actually from the driver's seat.

And I think you have to make the decision about firing a client from a place of can this ever meet my standards? Can I make this person happy? And am I the right fit for what this person truly needs? And when you look at it through that lens, even through the lens of people pleasing, which I know you want to make everybody happy. And if you strive to do that, you're gonna make nobody happy. But back to the point.

You will quickly realize that this client could be better served by a different photographer whose editing style and ability to liquefy is going to be the right fit. You'll quickly realize that if they just want to print their invitations themselves and use AI to make certain things, you should just let them go to do it. If you're a planning client, you're gonna quickly realize that they just wanna boss somebody around. They just want a warm body with two hands and two feet.

And there is somebody who is getting started in their business who needs to earn their angel wings. And once you recognize this, it puts you in the driver's seat and you can say, you know what? I recognize I'm not the right designer for you, not the right photographer for you. And you deserve to have the right fit here. And you let them go under that premise.

Candice (22:15.244)

And so at the end of the day, this all boils down to you and your brand. And this is what makes standards non-negotiable, even when setting a standard feels uncomfortable, because you're not just protecting your sanity, you're protecting your brand and your reputation. And these are things that can become quickly damaged with the wrong client.

Every client experience becomes a referral, a review, or a warning that somebody might pass on to another person. And if you let a client run all over you, it doesn't just cost you sleep and your time and a lot of anxiety and this and nervous system disruption, but it could cost you the next three clients that she might talk to and paint you in a bad light, unjustly. Unjustly.

And is that fair? No. Standards are how you protect the thing, the baby that took you years to build.

I mean, being a business owner is not for the faint of heart, but a business owner who knows that their work is worth protecting and that they have to set standards, not just for how they operate and serve clients, but how for how clients exist within their business, those are businesses that are protecting their brand reputation. So I want to know which one of these four standards.

Maybe it made you a little defensive or made you a little bit like, ugh, I know Candace is right. DM me, open your phone, go to Instagram, type in candice.coppola, share with me an experience. Share with me how this episode has got you thinking. I want you to pick one of the four standard areas of standards this week and think about.

Candice (24:16.108)

What makes a really good client for you in those standards? What should they be doing? How should they be reacting? How should they be trusting you?

Candice (24:27.96)

How do you want to work with them? And this is the exact kind of work that we do in Wedding Pro Insiders, of course, also in the Planners Playbook for all my planner friends who listen to the podcast. Situations are brought to me daily in WPI, weekly inside planners playbook. And I am more than happy to help you untangle this as your coach.

All right, friends. Well, thanks so much for listening to today's episode. I hope this has given you some things to think about. And I hope your first instinct is to start setting some standards for how clients should behave inside your business. Be sure to make sure that you're following the podcast. Shoot me a DM. Let me know what stuck with you after today's episode. And I'll see you in next week's episode. See you soon.