Painful client ~ turned partner - shall I give him the boot/fire him?

If the guys a sale machine and he can do can something that you can't do and you can do something he can't do then you have the basis of a partnership.

If his foibles are only small things as listed above the I would suggest you can live with it. However I suspect you may have some more reservations than you are willing to say. At the end of the day it's a big commitment getting involved in a partnership with someone you don't like and respect and trust. Good sales people don't grow on trees though, if he is bringing in money I would be slightly more lenient .

C'mon. Salesman are notoriously "loose". And you hired him, which say to me you are extraordinarily "tight". Felix & Oscar.

Put him in a box where you maximize his talents, and minimize the damage. Sounds to me like you feel like he owes you something intangible. Maybe he is supposed to act like a better "son" ?

Find a good counselor, set-up 3 or so meetings and have an open conversation about what's going on. What you've been doing to this point obviously isn't working (cause here you are), and it's also pretty obvious that if "something" doesn't happen, this mutually beneficial relationship is going to explode.

And your long-term success depends upon your ability to differentiate between profitable and unprofitable relationships, terminate the unprofitable ones and maintain the good ones. This one is a good one, so your challenge is to fix what is broken in order to sustain it for as long as possible.

Even though he stopped paying for SEO service, he doesnt sound like he is evil by nature. Possibly just forgetful or maybe lazy?? It sounds like you may be nit-picking the guy. Nobody is perfect. If you don't think this guy will rip you off then go for it. Sounds like his strong points that make up for his weak points.

Thanks for the reply so far. Fantastics points made all round. I really appreciate it.

I have a long term solution to fix the problem - Hire Me - and phase him out gradually

Five words that keep $$ flowing in any venture:

"Pamper Your Sales Force"​

Where are you in the world steelballs? If you have something to bring to the table....

Here's a pic of the mainpage I'm working on. Orbits, B.Friendly and Steelballs, thanks again for the posts. You guys really put things into perspective.

You need to weight out how much money you will lose by getting rid of him to how annoying he is. Whichever one means more to you then choose that. As someone above noted, maybe you should switch things around in your business to find out what is the root cause of this beef.

Click to expand...

You're dead right. It's a mixure of things. After all he didn't ask for any favours. That said, I think I will make more money with him, and business aside - he is a pleasant guy.

Better to cut ties...it's gonna turn into some serious cancer later on.

Don't cut him loose, you just have to re negotiate the partnership. You have to be honest and open with everything or else these small things will fester and you will blow up in the end halting all you IM gains.

I speak from experience with partners. Be upfront as soon as you can and lay out the ground rules.

Your the IM brain and he is the salesman. Sort of like Steve jobs and Wozniak (look it up of you need to)

I have a friend who is a verified genius but his lack of sales ability stops him from really leveraging of his abilities. (he had 2,000 customers with his own ISP company when the Internet started going mainstream early 90's) he never acknowledged this and his marketing suffered.

Don't lose him just give him boundaries. Hope this helped