Just recently I person I knew came up to me as he needed help and services to get his business going and I just happened to be able to provide it to him. Now usually the way a lot of people start off in a business is by offering their products or services to people that they know in hopes to then get the word around. Because of that, I made a comment on how there is so much opportunity for him as even his friends and family could use his services. He then mentioned that he doesn’t really want to do that and tries to avoid doing business with people he knew as people often expect something for nothing in that scenario since they know you or that they can become extremely demanding. I didn’t really know how to respond to that as ironically he was kind of doing just that to me by constantly asking for huge discounts, wanting the moon for free it seems and so fourth.
That’s always an interesting predicament as there are times where you definitely want to help the people you know professionally, but at the same time if you know that they are going to have unreasonable expectations while not really valuing your time and effort by wanting things for free then sometimes it is better to just avoid it and to direct them to someone else. An important thing that I have learned though is that should you ever choose to offer your services to the people that you know, be sure to treat it as you would to anyone else such as establishing from the beginning on what you are going to do and for how much. That way, there is no confusion or attempt to bargain midway during the process.
Fortunately for myself, for the most part I have had pretty positive experiences in doing business with people that I know. I guess what helps a lot is that most of the people I know are in one way or another a professional in a particular field who must directly deal with a clientele base or that they just happen to run their own business and so they know how troublesome it can be when others demand or believe that they are obligated to have some kind of special treatment. A lot of people tell me, which is true for myself too, that the main benefit in dealing with a person that you know is trust and confidence that they will take care of you which is way more important than trying to be a penny pincher.
Even if the intent is to save money, I personally think earning a discount through genuine trust is still the way to go. The bottom line I’d say is that if there is no trust from the other person that you are doing your best for them to not have them try to bargain with you every second for them to believe that they are getting a good deal then it is better to help them find someone else to accommodate their needs.