The Day I Told a Client Not to Buy My Services

Had a scoping call a while back with an owner who was ready to sign for a full diagnostic — sales, HR, IT, the works.

Twenty minutes in, I told him to hold off.

His actual problem wasn't systemic. It was one bad hire in a key role, and everything downstream from that looked like “process chaos” but was really just one person not doing their job. No diagnostic was going to fix that — a hard conversation with HR would.

I've never once regretted telling someone “you don't need me yet.” I've regretted the opposite plenty in other parts of life, but not that.

Trust gets built by being honest about what you actually need, not by closing every deal that walks in the door. That's the whole philosophy behind how I run CityVU (cityvu.com if you want to poke around).

Has anyone ever talked you out of buying something from them? How'd that change how you felt about working with them later?