Morgan: Hello, hello! Welcome, everyone, to the latest episode of Client Horror Stories. I’m excited to have the one and only Rhonda Lawson with us today. Our prep call was so much fun, and I know this is going to be a great episode. I’m looking forward to it.

And since we strongly encourage alcoholism while recording, what are you drinking tonight?

Rhonda: I am drinking a very delicious Malbec.

Morgan: I am currently sitting in Argentina, the land of Malbec. I only have a few dozen bottles downstairs.

Rhonda: I’m so jealous!

Morgan: I’m happy that your wine choice is right on target. Since I’m a coffee addict with eight cups a day, I’m having a coffee with whiskey tonight, Irish style.

Rhonda: Okay. I’m not mad at an Irish coffee, but did you say eight cups a day?

Morgan: I have a bit of an addiction. I have an addictive personality.

Morgan: Rhonda, all of us here are very excited to hear about your craziest client experience ever. Let’s jump in while I take my first sip.

Rhonda: Oh my goodness, there are so many! The problem is that when you first get into business, you’re just excited. You want people to know how good you are. You want to prove yourself. Then you start taking clients, and you don’t realize that you kind of have to vet people just like they’re vetting you.

What happened with me is that I took some clients I didn’t really need to take. I had a friend who invited me to a college—

Morgan: By the way, before you continue the story, I just want to jump in. You took on some clients that you really shouldn’t have taken. I want to observe that I’ve heard this advice so many times. A lot of guests on the podcast have said, “No, don’t take these not-nice clients.” And I totally agree with that.

But in real life, when you’re just starting out, you have no money, and you don’t know how things are going to go, someone paying you thousands of dollars is a lot of money. So the obvious advice—I find it condescending too often.

Rhonda: Yeah, and it seems condescending because you’re like, “Of course I’m not going to take a bad client!” And then you realize you took a bad client.

Morgan: Totally, totally. Exactly.

Rhonda: So, a friend of mine invited me to a college. He was going to be talking to some students about what he does, and he asked me to come with him. I was like, “Sure, why not?”

I went with him, and we were talking about what we each do. One of the students was excited. He said, “Hey, I’m a rapper, and I need a publicist. I’d love for you to help me.”

I thought, “Hey, this seems pretty cool.” I normally talk to authors and represent authors, but I thought this would be a different challenge for me. The way I would market an author is the way I would market a rapper, so why not?

At that time, I had six-month contracts, and I would let people pay me monthly. He decided to pay me for the entire six months upfront, so I was like, “Okay, boom! This is going to be great.”

Then I started listening to his music.

Morgan: So you did this before hearing his music?

Rhonda: Well, I had only heard one song, and the song sounded pretty cool. But then I started hearing more of his music, and I thought, “Okay, it might not be too bad.”

I knew somebody who had his own radio show, so I reached out to my friend who had the show. He listened to the music and said, “This isn’t all that great, but because you’re my girl, I’ll go ahead and have him on the show.”

I was like, “Okay, fine.”

So the guy went on the show. I guess maybe I had a computer glitch or something. I don’t know what happened, but I had emailed my friend all the information he would need for the interview, and for some reason, the information didn’t get to him.

When the guy showed up for the interview, my friend asked him, “Hey, do you have your stuff?”

Morgan: Actually, I have a question. Did the information not get to him, or did he claim the information didn’t get to him?

Rhonda: I don’t know. Whatever information wasn’t there, I guess.

But instead of calling me to say, “Hey, Rhonda, I think there’s an issue. He didn’t get my bio. He didn’t get my music,” I answered the phone, and the guy goes, “Did you send that music?”

I’m like, “Hold up. First of all, who the hell are you talking to?” He didn’t even say hello! He just came shouting at me. I’m thinking, “Hey, you’re not famous yet, bro.”

So I said, “I sent it, but I’ll send it again.” And I sent it again.

They did the interview, and I listened to it. At the end of the interview, my friend asked, “Anybody you want to shout out?”

The rapper decided to shout out a couple of people, but he didn’t mention me. My friend, who always has my back, said, “Okay, well, what about your publicist?”

“Oh, yeah! Shout-out to my publicist, Rhonda Lawson.”

I was like, “Oh, so that’s what we’re doing.”

As soon as the interview was over, my friend called me and said, “Don’t ever send that guy back to my show.”

Morgan: By the way, I just want to comment on him not giving you a shout-out. Even if he was angry at you because, for whatever reason, the email didn’t get through, he was on the show through a friend of yours. Very obviously, you got him in there. It’s not some unrelated context. So that means it has to be a clear “F-you” type of move.

Rhonda: Exactly, exactly.

Morgan: I think if I were observing the situation based on how you describe it, someone saying, “Oh, he didn’t thank me,” could come off as egotistical. Like, what? Whatever. You just want to be named.

But I actually think the power or importance of him not naming you is that these tiny little slips reveal what you’re actually thinking and feeling.

Rhonda: Right, exactly.

Morgan: It’s his way of revealing that he’s not valuing what you’re doing for him.

Rhonda: Exactly, exactly. And then, you know, he’s always coming across as rude. He’s always thinking he’s more than what he is.

I remember one time he told me, “I’m mainstream, too. I want to get on Tiny Desk.”

Morgan: I don’t know Tiny Desk.

Rhonda: Tiny Desk is this really cool show. It’s kind of an internet show where huge celebrities—huge singers, rappers, and different types of performers—gather around this tiny desk and do a concert. It’s the coolest show. The desk isn’t all that big, but they all gather around it and perform.

When I say famous people go on this show, I’m talking about big-name performers. It’s an internet show. You should look it up. It’s really cool.

Morgan: I’ve never heard of that show before, but I just wanted to make the parenthetical comment that I like the name Tiny Desk because, to me, it implies something cozy. A whole bunch of people in a small, enclosed place. I imagine a fireplace and people holding hot chocolate.

Rhonda: Well, you know, it’s not really cozy like that, but it’s fun. It’s just a fun show.

Morgan: I’m looking it up on my phone as we’re talking. You know what it also reminds me of? How everyone I know, no matter how rich they are or how big their houses are, just hangs out in the kitchen. Everyone goes to this small little place.

Rhonda: It’s actually called Tiny Desk, and it comes on NPR.

Morgan: NPR! Yeah, okay.

Rhonda: The people who come on this show are invited. They’re invited to be on the show.

Morgan: And NPR is super prestigious. So, okay. If my friend with the local radio station doesn’t want him anymore, how does he think I’m supposed to get him on Tiny Desk?

Rhonda: Not easily, and not with a lot of enthusiasm!

Morgan: Exactly.

Rhonda: So it really came to the point where I said, “You know what? I’m not the right publicist for you. I am going to send you—”

Morgan: Wait, hold on. You’re jumping ahead. Before we got to that point, how did you respond to the Tiny Desk request?

Rhonda: I just let him talk because I knew there was no way in the world he was getting on that damn show.

Morgan: Did you tell him that directly? Did you say, “Hey—”

Rhonda: No, I just let him talk. I just let him talk because there was no way he was going to get on the show. He could have his delusions of grandeur by himself.

Morgan: The way you describe it, I feel like he’s saying, “Hey, I want to open for Madonna,” or whoever. It’s like, “Yeah, good luck with that.”

Rhonda: Right! I’m like, “Really? Madonna? No.”

I can’t even get you Big Freedia, and Big Freedia is from New Orleans, the same as you are. I can’t even get you to open for that YouTube-only act that has six followers!

Morgan: Exactly!

Rhonda: Finally, after he made all these crazy demands and wasn’t actually appreciating what I was able to do for him, I said, “I’m not the publicist for you. I’m going to send you all your money back.”

Remember, he’d paid me for six months upfront.

Morgan: How long into the engagement was this?

Rhonda: I think we were probably together for a month.

Morgan: A month?

Rhonda: Yeah. So I gave him five months’ pay back because that’s how much I wanted to be rid of him.

Morgan: I think it’s an excellent strategy to proactively say, without him even asking, “I’m giving you the difference back.” It avoids problems. It’s the most elegant way to close out an engagement that’s not working, so I think that’s great.

I also want to comment on another interesting component. I have no idea how much he paid you, but something I’ve found is that, often, for small projects, people will pay you a tiny amount—maybe a few hundred dollars—and then expect magic to happen.

This sounds like one of those situations.

Rhonda: Exactly. At that time, I was basically charging pennies. Remember, I was new in the business, and I’ve pivoted a couple of times since I started my company almost ten years ago.

At that time, I thought that if I charged a little money, I could show people what I do. Then, if they renewed their contract, I would charge more because they could see what I was worth.

I was only charging $200 a month, which is way less than I should have been charging. He paid me six months in advance. So, what’s that? $1,200. And I gave him $1,000 back.

For $1,200 for six months, that is way less than I would charge a person for one month’s worth of work now that I know better.

Morgan: By the way, what I would add to that is something I’ve found: there’s a surprising and interesting correlation between how little you charge and how high people’s demands are.

I’ve hired lawyers for more than $1,000 an hour. When you’re paying someone $1,000 an hour, I’m super careful even about the questions I ask. I don’t want to waste two minutes of their time because I’m going to get billed for the proportional amount of the hour, and that will be $100.

So the interesting pattern is that trying to help by being affordable creates this weird situation where people feel it’s okay to ask for more and more and more, with bigger and bigger demands.

Rhonda: Exactly, exactly. And that was the lesson I learned: people don’t appreciate it when you charge too little.

For instance, if I give you something for free and then you pay for something else, you’re going to value what you paid for more because you feel like you have skin in the game. You’ve sacrificed something for it.

But if I give it to you for free, you don’t really appreciate it as much. It’s like when people register for a free event. On the day of the event, they’ll say, “I don’t feel like going. I’m tired. I don’t want to go.” Then they turn over and go back to sleep.

But if they had paid $500 for those tickets, they’re going to go. They’re going!

Morgan: My way of making the same point is that you want people to pay you a lot, not necessarily because you really want or need more money—you may not—but because it’s a sign of how much they value you.

Rhonda: Exactly.

Morgan: By definition, you’re going to value more the person you pay $1,000 an hour than the person you pay a thousand pennies an hour.

Rhonda: Exactly. Absolutely. Those were the lessons I had to learn very early in my career. And I don’t think I got better about it until I got a business coach.

Another lesson: get a business coach!

Morgan: Let’s see if we can extract a couple of other lessons here.

You said something at the very beginning, ten or fifteen minutes ago, that stood out in my mind and that I want to bring back. You said you met this rapper and he was really cool, or that you listened to his song and it sounded really cool.

I flagged that because here’s a pattern I’ve found in my experience: the cooler people tend to be much more difficult to work with than the uncool people.

To me, coolness is either a red flag or maybe a yellow flag. Not necessarily a red flag, but I think what happens is that people who are cool, by definition, think, “Yeah, I’m so cool. I’m the shit. I’m so great.” So, by definition, they’re going to think you’re going to think they’re cool, too, and you’ve got to treat them like they’re cool.

Rhonda: Yeah, exactly! It’s an affront to them if you don’t.

Morgan: Exactly. As a result, you always have to be on your knees, treating them like they’re the king while you’re the servant.

So, in addition to the lessons you learned, another lesson I’ve learned from my experience is to be careful about people who think they’re cool.

Rhonda: Absolutely.

Morgan: I also want to compliment you on some things you did well in this situation, because I think we can get some positive lessons from it as well.

We talked about how you ended things elegantly by returning the money upfront. Great.

Something else you did well, which most people who are starting out don’t realize, is that you ended it very quickly. I think most people, especially when they’re starting out, would let it drag on and on and on.

I always use the metaphor that working with people is like dating someone. If things are a disaster in the very first month, dude, cut it off while it’s still easy and early, before the cancer grows.

Rhonda: Yes, yes. I think you’re right about that because the longer I would have put up with the disrespect, the worse the disrespect would have gotten.

Morgan: Actually, that’s a new point. I don’t think I’d thought about it that way before. Over time, if they’re disrespecting you, it tends to get worse, more intense, and more frequent.

I think the reason is that the way people think is that they start by testing you a little on small things to see how much they can get away with. If you let them get away with the small things in the beginning, they push it further and further until you collapse, it explodes, or something happens.

Rhonda: Absolutely, absolutely.

Morgan: So I think the broader version of that lesson is: deal with problems when they’re small and just starting. Difficult people are just one type of problem, and difficult clients are one type of difficult person.

It’s hard to decide to address something at that point, but it’s always easier to solve a small problem before it escalates into a big one.

Rhonda: Absolutely. Yeah. And it’s not easy being a new business owner.

When I started my company, I wasn’t planning on doing what I do now. Right now, I do literary services—editing, ghostwriting, things like that. That is my love and passion.

When I started my company, I wanted to get into image consulting and publicity because I actually enjoy that, too. There are still some elements of that in my business, but I’ve learned that it really wasn’t my passion. My passion was literary work.

So I said, “I’m going to need to pivot my business and do something I’m more passionate about,” because dealing with people like that? I couldn’t do it. I knew I didn’t have the temperament to deal with that.

And if I was going to deal with somebody who thought he was on a certain level, what would happen when I was actually dealing with somebody who was on that level and had the same attitude?

I had to realize this really wasn’t for me.

Morgan: It sounds like you’re a fast learner, because a lot of these lessons—even though they’re things like “get rid of terrible clients very quickly”—have taken some people, possibly me, much longer to learn.

Another thing you did well in dealing with this situation was that you started by introducing him to a friend of yours so he could appear on a show.

What I really like about that is that, instead of going straight to the heavy hitters and trying to get him onto Tiny Desk on day one, you said, “I’m going to test you out with a friend in a small place.”

It’s about testing new clients on small things to see whether they’re worthy of you doing bigger and better things for them.

And because it was a friend, your friend was able to give you useful information behind the scenes. He told you the guy hadn’t thanked you or acknowledged you properly. If you’d gotten him another small engagement with someone you didn’t know, you might never have received that useful information.

Rhonda: Yeah, it was good. I think you’re absolutely right. By going with somebody I already knew and already had a relationship with, I was going to get feedback that somebody I didn’t know probably would never have given me. They might have whispered about it, but they might not have told me what was going on.

Morgan: Exactly. One hundred percent.

Okay, Rhonda, we’ve gotten so many useful and interesting lessons, including some new ones, which has always been one of my objectives. I thought it was an interesting story.

Final question: after you fired him, did you ever hear from him again? Did he turn into Kanye West? Did he disappear?

Rhonda: I believe he’s disappeared. I’ve never heard that name again.

I will tell you, though, that you remember when I started the story, I told you a friend of mine had invited me to the college? Well, he saw the guy again, and he gave him a piece of his mind.

He said, “Not only did you disrespect her, but you made me look bad because I introduced you to her.” He told him, “I don’t really want to have anything else to do with you.”

So he stopped talking to him as well.

Morgan: By the way, what’s great about that ending is that it shows that you have strong, trusted friendships with not just one person, but two people who had your back. They defended you, took your side, and told you what you needed to know. That’s a very good sign.

Rhonda: Yeah, I appreciated that. You’re right. I never thought about it until you just said it, that I had two people who really had my back during that situation.

And it feels good to know that people will stand up for you even when you’re not in the room.

Morgan: When you’re not in the room, and also when they’re not even involved. They’re just outsiders who saw what happened and then came in to defend your side. I think it’s great.

Rhonda: Yeah. I never thought about that until just this moment, so thanks for mentioning that.

Morgan: Happy to help you realize that. It’s good to know—or to be reminded—that your friends defend you when you’re not there.

Rhonda: Yes, absolutely.

Morgan: Great. Rhonda, thank you for your time. And everyone who’s watched this episode and made it to the end, thank you for watching all of it. We hope you’ve enjoyed watching it as much as we’ve enjoyed this conversation.

Until next time, thank you!