By Marc Gordon

How much is a can of soup worth? After you bought one, it’s pretty hard to argue you didn’t get your money’s worth. After all, you knew what you were getting before you even bought it. There were no surprises.

But does the same hold true for services? Bookkeeping, house painting, web design – these are not as easy to relate to a specific cost like a can of soup. After all, services are abstract. No two are ever alike from one provider to another. Is a plumber that charges 100 dollars an hour twice as good as one that charges 50 dollars an hour?

While customers can find this concept difficult to grasp when shopping for services, it can prove even more challenging for business owners trying to market themselves.

Many business owners, bowing to competition and market conditions, feel the need to compete on price. Others take the opposite approach and attempt to position themselves as “premium” providers.

But in the end the ultimate decision on value lies with the customer. And their role as judge, jury and executioner can bring intolerable stress to even the most committed business owner.

So what can a small business owner do when questioned about the quality of their work? How should they deal with clients who ask for more but refuse to pay for it? And most importantly, what should they do when the customer is just plain unhappy?

Here are 5 tips to help keep every business owner from having to defend their work, beg for money, or apologize for giving the customer what they originally wanted, but longer want.

It all starts with the proposal (or estimate). This lays the ground work for the whole supplier/customer relationship. Expectations, responsibilities, obligations, warranties, after sales service – all need to be detailed and explained. It amazes me how many service providers, both B2B and B2C, don’t spell out these conditions in detail, if at all. A detailed proposal not only protects both parties should disagreements arise, but can also serve as a marketing tool showing how attentive and detail oriented your company is. In many cases, explaining terms that may not always be 100% beneficial to the customer is still better than not explain them at all, as the customer will at least know where they stand.

Communication throughout the service process is also crucial to a happy and long term business relationship. Check in with your customer often and provide status reports either by phone, email or in person when possible. This will help, should unexpected things like delays or budget changes arise. And customers that continually receive communication tend to be more understanding – and usually more accepting.

Encourage you customers to share their concerns by explaining that the sooner you know about their worries, the sooner you can deal with them. Comfort them by welcoming even what appears to be a dumb question or unreasonable request. What’s important to remember is that just because you’re letting them make a request, doesn’t mean you have to grant it – without making a change to the estimate, of course.

Payment schedules, should they apply, must be adhered to and should be thoroughly detailed in your proposal. I have heard many stories of business owners not wanting to ask for money out of fear of offending the customer. Lets keep in mind this is a business relationship first and foremost. After all, if they didn’t agree to pay, you wouldn’t be working for them in the first place. Should the payment schedule not be adhered to, then the work must stop. You cannot risk incurring additional labour or material costs while not knowing if another cheque will ever arrive.

And finally, only choose to work with customers than value what you do. And while the argument “I have bills to pay” might be a motivating factor for taking any work from anyone, the fact is that in many of these cases, between the complaints, unreasonable demands, and unreliable payments, you will actually end up losing money. In which case you would actually be further ahead by not working.

Marc Gordon is a professional speaker and marketing consultant based in Toronto, Ontario.  His firm, Fourword Marketing, specializes in helping businesses create a brand identity and developing effective marketing campaigns. Marc can be reached at (416) 238-7811 or visit www.marcgordon.ca