E54 Why I Fired My First Client (and Would Do It Again)

Speaker: 00:00:00

Welcome to begin as you mean to go

on where we help black women with

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mission-driven service-based businesses,

grow your income and impact while

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creating a more peaceful, profitable

business by strategically automating

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your critical business systems

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Kronda: My name is Kronda Adair.

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And I went from making $500

websites to becoming a certified

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automation service provider.

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Doing multiple six figures per year,

while working part-time wrangling

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to high energy dogs and having some

of my highest revenue months while

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taking completely off-grid vacations.

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Thanks to strategic

automation and a small team.

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Inside my million dollar system service

and my automation club membership, we

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help you create a cohesive software

stack and automate one new thing per

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month in your business resulting in a

compound interest of time, energy and.

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peace So you can build your business

without the patriarchal white

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supremacist hustle and grind.

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If you're ready to work hard once

and hire and employ technology to

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execute proven marketing strategies.

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So you can get back to the rest

of your business and your life.

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You are in the right place.

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Let's get it going.

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Hey friends.

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Welcome back to Begin,

as you mean to go on.

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This episode has been burning in me.

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For a few weeks now, and it's

probably gonna be titled, is

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The Customer Always Right?

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But it's really about deal breakers

because if there's one thing that

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I want for us both, it's that we

don't waste each other's time.

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So I wanna make sure if you are thinking

about working with us, that you get

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all the information that you need and

that, we make sure we're a good fit and.

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So that's why I wanted

to record this episode.

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So one of the things that's a deal breaker

for me is too much micromanagement.

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So going back to the first client that

I ever had, I remember I was starting

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out as a WordPress developer and, I

went to the WordPress meetup and I

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stood up and announced that, I was

looking for clients and this woman

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hustled up to me after the meeting.

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Very enthusiastic and was like,

oh my God, I have all this work.

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I have all these clients.

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I can hire you for 40 hours a week.

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And I was like, that sounds like a job.

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Which is what I just left.

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But I took her on.

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'cause first client and you just, you

say yes to whoever's game, And not

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very long into that engagement, she

asked me to take one of her clients.

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So let me be clear too, this was,

this person was a mediator, right?

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She didn't have technical expertise on

her own, but she would find the people

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who needed the work and then she would

hire freelancers to the do the work.

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So she was basically a project manager.

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So one of her clients wanted to move

from whatever web host they were on.

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To GoDaddy, and if you have been

to my site, if you've ever Googled

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GoDaddy in, conjunction with my name

or my business name, you know that

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GoDaddy is not my preferred host.

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That's a mild way of saying it, right?

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so I have this article called Why

You Shouldn't, why I Hate GoDaddy,

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and I don't even know what is the.

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Fricking name of that article.

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Hang on, let me pull up

my text Expander shortcut.

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Why I don't use GoDaddy and

you shouldn't either, right?

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And the way that article came

about is that this woman wanted

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me to do this, and I made my case.

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I gave your ever argument I can think of.

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I'm like, please don't do this.

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This is ridiculous.

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They're on a perfectly good web host.

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GoDaddy is crap.

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don't do it.

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Molly, you in danger, girl.

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And they wanted what they wanted.

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And so I ended up doing it.

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And the day that I spent five

hours doing something that would've

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taken me 15 minutes on any other

host, I was like, I am so done.

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And I already knew with this

client that I was gonna fire her

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as soon as I could afford to.

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So it wasn't like a big deal

or a revelation or anything,

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but it was just this.

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Moment where I was like, I need

to draw a line in the sand.

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And so I wrote that article and it

continues to be one of the hugest

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drivers of traffic to my website.

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And I think it's mostly other

developers going, see, don't do it.

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Don't do it.

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and so I fired that

client as soon as I could.

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and there have been

other situations where.

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This usually comes up when I don't have

a direct relationship with the client.

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So I had a subcontracting situation

where, I knew this about myself, right?

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That I.

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I like things to do things

the way I like to do 'em.

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and I checked with them ahead of time.

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I'm like, Hey, I understand that

these are your, your client's most

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important considerations, and this

is the goals that they're working on.

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And, do you have a relationship

where you're gonna stand up to

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the, like, how do you deal with the

client when they want things that

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are against the best interest of what

they say they're trying to achieve?

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And I didn't really get

a super strong answer.

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but we moved ahead anyway and sure

enough, we got to the point where

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even though I had a perfectly good

solution for what they wanted done.

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and I gave them a video showing them

like, here's how we can do this.

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You can have a dashboard,

it's gonna be great.

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And they were like, we really don't

want to use a third party tool, or we

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really don't want to do it that way.

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We really want to do this natively

using this tool, and using the

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tool that they wanted to use.

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sucked.

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Like literally the two smartest people

on the planet about that particular

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software were like, yeah, we don't

touch that with a tenfold pole.

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Like we always use a third party software.

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and so it wasn't just me being

stubborn, it was literally.

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Everybody who knows anything and who is

an expert in this area, nobody uses that.

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Nobody does it that way.

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And so I realized the point at which

clients come and try to micromanage

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how you get them the results, and

they want it done in a way that is.

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Antithetical to them actually

achieving those results or

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doing it in an efficient way.

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That's the, that is the point at

which I'm gonna bounce, and so I

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was like, cool, you want it that way?

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That's great.

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Let me just piece out and remove

myself so that you can continue

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on with what you want to do.

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I'm known for being very opinionated

about software and about lots of things.

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But I'm never gonna tell people

like, oh, you shouldn't do

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that, or, oh, you can't do that.

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It's just a matter of, am

I gonna be involved or not?

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So you can use GoDaddy if you want to.

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I'm not gonna be involved.

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You can try to dictate.

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How we do things.

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Supposedly you hired me for my

expertise, but then you wanna

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dictate how we get to the results.

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That's fine.

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I'm just not the right

person for that engagement.

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So I wanted to make this episode

to just put that out there so that

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nobody wastes their time thinking,

I remember having, I had a client

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when I was still doing, websites.

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And we were doing an exercise

to come up with a hundred.

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A hundred content topics

for their marketing.

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This was an exercise I used to do

with clients all the time where we'd

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come up with a hundred ideas in,

usually, 90 minutes to two hours.

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And so while we were doing

that, I remember she said, oh,

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I know what WordPress theme I

want to use, for the website.

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And she named some theme forest theme.

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And without really even thinking

about it, I was like, oh,

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sweetie, that's not your decision.

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And it was so condescending and we

were friendly, so she took it well

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and we ended up using, a different

WordPress theme that would actually

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work better for what she wanted.

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But, if you're gonna hire me for my

expertise, then I'm gonna tell you my

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expert opinion about how to do things.

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And yes, there is some flexibility,

but if you're gonna come at me with.

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Software or ways to do things that

are on my deal breaker, no list, then

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that is when I will politely excuse

myself and send you on your merry

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way, with a referral if possible.

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And one of the things that I particularly

worried about in one instance was when

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you want things done in a way that.

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no true expert is really

gonna wanna touch, right?

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They're not gonna agree with it.

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Then who is it?

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You're gonna get to do that.

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It's gonna be people who aren't as expert.

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It's gonna be people who just will say

yes and take your money, like whether

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or not they can actually do the thing.

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So there's other issues with

taking that approach where.

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You're like, we wanna do it this way even

though we've admitted that we don't know

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what we're doing and we're new to this.

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anyway, that's it.

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That's the episode.

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Just sharing my deal breakers and that.

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When I start working with someone, like as

soon as we start working together, I am

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on your team and I'm in it to see you win.

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And the first iteration of my, retainer

offer was called Insourced because

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we all know about outsourcing and.

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I wanted to convey that when we work

together, I consider myself a part

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of your team and I consider myself,

cheering you on and wanting you to

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win, and knowing that you wanna do

things in a way that is going to hinder

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your, progress towards your goals.

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I just, I can't do it.

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It's a no for me dog.

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Yeah, just wanted you to know that.

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And, so let's talk about this

Is the customer always right?

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If you are a service provider, if you're

a consultant, Tell me some stories.

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What have clients asked for where you've

been like, oh, that's ridiculous, or have

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you been the person asking for something

and had a professional tell you no?

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And did they explain why?

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let's talk about it.

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Hit me up on Instagram,

hit me up on LinkedIn.

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Let me know what you think about this.

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Hit me up on threads

and let's talk about it.

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So until then, don't forget to

begin, as you mean to go on,

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and I will see you next time.

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Thanks for listening to

begin as you mean to go on.

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If you like this episode, show your love

by leaving us a five star rating and

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review, share it on your favorite social

media platform or in your newsletter, or

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hit me up and let's have a conversation.

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Send me a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn

or hit me up on threads and let

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me know what you liked about this

episode and what were your takeaways.

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Until next time, don't forget

to begin as you mean to go on.

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