Episode #21 - Difficult Customers and Hard Conversations
Episode 22 is all about what's actually working in early 2026. Coby breaks down the bullshit offer strategy that's booking out his wedding calendar, and Dale explains the half-hour weekly call model that's driving the Sequoia Project's growth. A practical, no-fluff look at real tactics delivering real results.
Hello and welcome to the Sequoia Project podcast. Episode 21. We're going to be talking about some difficult situations in business. There's always going to be a mixed bunch when it comes to the people that you deal with.
Coby: When I was doing the marketing, was one specific customer that was just a pain in the ass. We went in there explaining how everything was going to work. Obviously anyone who's done marketing or anything like that knows that things take time, things have to learn, everything. But they wanted that kind of spend a little bit of money, get quick fix sort of situation. The first thing he did, which was a red flag, was straight up ask for a discount and for us to price match. And I wasn't allowed to get the new camera, but I mean — the big problem with the discount is once you negotiate on your price, what they feel like they can do is go, I now control how some of this works. And that's exactly what that customer did.
Dale: What I've found is is if someone comes to you and says, I want your service, but I need it for a lower price and you negotiate on that — they feel like they can control things. Because they've told you to drop your price and you've dropped it. Now they're going to tell you how to do the service. I actually, you know, early days as well, I had customers that were just like, I've got quotes at this price. So give me a lower number. And I'd be like, shit, like they need a lower number. Now when I actually run the numbers, there wasn't much margin at all with that. If it's this, if it's an opportunity cost — what is the cost of doing one thing? Because if I'm doing that one thing, I can't do another. That's the easiest way to describe opportunity cost.
Coby: I literally just told him, I was like, look, it's not going to work. That's not how it works, this won't work. And he goes, we'll just shut it off then. And I haven't heard from him since. So it literally took putting the foot down and being like, I'm not doing that, I'm not going to waste your money and we're gonna waste my time on something that I know isn't going to work.
Dale: The three things — if you have anything that comes up: clear, calm, and well-informed. If you know what you're talking about, if someone questioned you and you can answer them calmly and logically, and you can explain everything clearly, you're clear, calm and well informed, you're gonna nail it every single time. Well-informed is more like — understand the details. Know what dates you sent things on. Know what the due dates are. Know what the reporting dates are. Know all that stuff. So someone says to you, hey, I didn't get my report — you can be like, actually, I've got a screenshot here for 1:40 on Friday sent that says it's received. Can you check if you deleted it? When you start saying I sent this at this time on this day, people start to go, oh shit, he's more informed than I am. And they start to back off.