Derryn Hinch – An Australian Journalist who made his living exposing BAD people and helping GOOD people. One of my childhood heroes and love this guy! (Thank you to the Sydney Morning Herald for the image use).
Yes, I sad it. I used a label and tons of extreme “Positive Thinkers” out there always try and correct me when I speak in these terms. Fortunately most people are awesome, but make no mistake – there are BAD people in this world and if you aren’t careful – you can lose your business or even worse.
If you are from Australia, you will certainly know this man by the name of Derryn Hinch. He is more or less retired now and is a Political Commentator, Investigative Journalist and Radio “Shock Jock”. My mother couldn’t stand him when I was growing up, but I loved this guy. I wasn’t adult enough to understand the themes, but he would get up there and label con artists, rip off merchants, sex offenders and say his classic “SHAME, SHAME, SHAME”. If you are from North America he is basically the Australian “Chris Hansen” (formerly of Dateline NBC with all his famous “To Catch a Predator” shows).
Derryn Hinch always impressed me in that he would expose BAD people on national television and give them the exposure they deserve! Basically, the courts can’t do everything and as a borderline vigilante – Derryn would step in and look after the little guy, using his Journalism and reputation as his Hammer of Justice.
Being inspired by Derryn and going back to my whole point of “Bad People” – A few people here and there have tried debating me on this point saying “Oh no Ed, you are just negative and you suck. People aren’t bad and everyone has good in them. Just trust everyone and things are great.”
Now I am the first one to have a positive mindset, but not a stupid mindset! If you have been in some bad situations in life, worked in the Military, Health, Law Enforcement or Street Charities – you would have seen pure evil in work. Purely evil people once killed my partner and left me for dead.
Talking less extreme situations and more business, you need to be really careful to protect yourself from BAD people. In fact, on the spot I have made up an acronym for BAD people:
B – Brilliant
A – At
D – Deception
Not bad huh? That is so true in my book. Talking more Small Business Management and Marketing – BAD people can cause you lots of damage in your business. It can range from the simple to the most extreme:
– Wasting your time and using you for free advice without any gratitude.
– Using your time and not paying your bills.
– Ripping you off, debating you and not paying you what you deserve.
– Back-stabbing at attacking you – then being nice to your face.
– Taking non-stop referrals and giving you nothing back.
– Complaining, sucking your life away.
You get the drift. In business, BAD people can do lots of damage to your operation and you have to be careful at times. It’s only about 2 weeks into 2014 as I write this article and I have already fended off about 3 BAD people trying to do bad things to me.
The good news is that I may be Born Again, but I wasn’t Born Yesterday! I have been able to push them back and defend myself against their attacks. What I have learnt only recently in business is to be direct and defend yourself with “Direct Professionalism” when BAD people try to harm you. I used to get upset and angry, whereas now I just play straight down the line and very professionally protect myself and my business against them. Even though they hardly deserve it, I always myself and recommend that:
– You always take the higher road and deal with them the right way!
To me this is quite powerful as at the end of the day, they are going to go around town attacking you anyway and you want to give them as little evidence as possible.
The good news? Most people are totally awesome! So if you are in business, BAD people will try and get you – so get rid of them fast, repel them and know the warning signs for next time. The more good news to add to this, is that BAD people in business (these days especially) don’t often make it. Or if they do, they are rarely top (or medium performers) and quite often I see them struggling to get by. People know they cannot be trusted and avoid them based on the negative feedback and reports they are hearing. The awesome people out there know how to do the right thing, protect themselves the right way and build “Firm but Fair” reputations that serve them well!
My advice, is that keep being awesome, helping people, do more of it – and defend yourself rationally and professionally when the time comes of a BAD person trying to harm you.
And of course, if you love my above logic and want to learn more, I can assure you that the Awesome Marketing Vault – Full of Brilliant Sales & Marketing Strategies is GOOD! LOL (Do you love how I always get in my call to action to my fine Online Product? Yay!)
Thank you for taking the time to read this article and God Bless and only awesome GOOD people read articles like this one!
Edward Zia – Marketing Mentor, Author of “The Edward Files” who loves GOOD People like you!
3 Responses
Hi Ed,
I hear what you say. As a mediator may I suggest that there are a couple of points that can help prevent these things from happening in the first place. You do such fine work that it is awful that you become a victim.
1. Always set clear expectations and be honest with your business undertakings. Whilst we may believe we are honest, over delivering can be as bad as under delivering – especially if you have over delivered and then invoice for those services not agreed. No matter how awesome people are, they will not want to pay, and things will become difficult because you have different expectations. You will feel they have tried to suck the life out of you when things do go wrong and it is very tempting to judge people as bad and blame them, and they may well feel cheated.
2. A well written contract or Memorandum of Understanding is a good idea. Prevents misunderstandings and protects both parties.
If you have had 3 situations already this year, then perhaps you need to look at your business model – As small business operators, we all go the extra mile, often with many hours of unpaid work to ensure our clients are happy and to get future business. The question we all need to ask ourselves -in our enthusiasm do we set ourselves up for problems and even spoil great relationships?
That is a great point Naomi and many thanks. I have been quite keen on that and I am talking situations that can be very much out of the box and can also be very hard to protect for regardless of what one has in writing. You are spot on, some situations I think can be resolved in writing – however, the situations I am more giving commentary on could not really have been prevented in writing. One was a situation where we both had clear expectations, but it came down too myself doing all the work and one person more just taking and “Benefiting” from the business I was sending them and assisting them with.
We ironically did have an understanding and over time the person just wasn’t reciprocating and really falling into the “Taker Category”. I think that can happen to anyone regardless of what one has in writing and in that case, I certainly label them as a BAD person. That can be a massive problem in business I find especially when you have joint projects – if one person loves “Taking”, that is always a slippery slope.
Problems like this don’t happen to me much anymore which is great as things have picked up, but always keep learning. I never do think that enthusiasm can set up problems – or at least, it creates more “Benefit” than “Problem” leaving one ahead. Great insight though – I certainly have gathered that (especially in Strategic Partnerships), very important to be upfront – so if it does go South, you at least have something to refer too.
Thank you for the great comment and very insightful!
Also a note from Edward Zia too – I have had so much positive feedback about this article. I think a touched a nerve out there, so more articles will be coming on this fine topic!