I had a potential client call me night before last. We talked, seemed to hit it off, said he needed someone to do his invoices. It was only a couple a week, but when I mentioned payroll, he said, Oh you do payroll? His accountant is 300 miles away. So I thought if I could get that, this would work.

He wanted me to meet him at his 'office' - a pole building on a country road with no one around, or his house. I had him come to my home office. I don't live alone and I have neighbors. He's an excavator. What he wants me to do is fill out 2 forms (QC & Production), not invoices, that take him 15 minutes. Who subs out a job that takes 15 minutes? And he seems to want a lot of my time. I sent him a msg that I don't think it's going to work for those forms, but if he wants to move his payroll closer to home, that's more in line with what I do.

I hope I didn't just lose a client, but I work f/t and am doing this on the side.

How do you gauge the potential of a client when you first meet them?

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Virtual Accountant with 20 years experience in small business accounting.

You were smart to have him meet you on YOUR home turf! To me, he sounds a little scary. If he doesn't really need you to do the forms - what he requested from the start - why does he need so much of your time? You need to ask a lot more questions, it may be worth having a troublesome client. I know, I just "fired" a long time client last week. The client was becoming more and more demanding of the time I had contracted with him.


Janet

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Janet Falkenberg
ExecuStrive, Details Get Done

This may be one of those clients that you need to walk away from. I know you are building your business right now however the core service that he called you for you are not jazzed to do. So the question now becomes, is he really your ideal client.

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Lee Drozak

You definitely did the right thing meeting at your house. If it happens again, you could just say you are a remote assistant and don't do onsite work or house calls.

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Virtual Girl Friday
www.virtualgirlfriday.com

update: we had agreed to touch base on Thursday around lunchtime. I was going to be out of town Friday. I texted him. (he had told me to text him before, so I thought that would be fine) Got no response. I texted him again later in the day, asking him to call me Monday about his receipts. He had given me a box full of 4 months of receipts - mostly personal expenses, not business expenses. Hopefully he calls me today, if not I'll call him and tell him that I don't have the time to devote to his business, to come get his receipts. If he doesn't respond, I guess I can leave them at his pole building.

This is just wierd...

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Virtual Accountant with 20 years experience in small business accounting.