On our seventh take at Client Horror Stories, we receive Stephanie Schwab, CEO and Founder of Crackerjack, who tells us a story that sounds weird from the beginning -even if she only realized during the interview with Our Beloved Host, Morgan Friedman-, when a colleague that you met 3 weeks ago has a project that appears to be a match made in heaven for complementing what both your companies do.
So the first yellow flag comes up when he brings in the fact that he’s not actually partnering up with you, and simplifies it with a short “You bill us, and we’ll bill the client” to make things quick and easy. So how surprising must have been to find out that, in fact, they were also being outsourced by the company the client was actually hiring, right?
So this messed up chain of command that looked much more like a children’s phone game obviously needed to end up blowing, and the blow up involved everything from delayed payments, micromanaging, and even end up talking sh*t about your not-so-partner on the phone with the main company.
This story gives us a lesson on confidence, integrity, upfrontness, and being able to call for an attorney once the situation begins to get weird. And all of it in the times where “Influencer Marketing” was just called “Working with bloggers”.
