Client Horror Stories

Running a business often means putting out fires—but some fires should never have been lit in the first place. In today’s client horror story, Melinda Spaulding, Author of "Finding Insight", shares a frustrating tale from her early years that highlights just how chaotic procurement can get.

Everything had been going smoothly with one client—contracts were signed, terms agreed upon, and work was underway. But out of nowhere, a representative from the company called Melinda's business line one evening with alarming news: they were canceling the contract because "we shouldn't have agreed on the billing terms in the first place."

With everyone else aligned and the original agreement in place, Melinda was blindsided. Panic set in. What would happen next? Days of uncertainty followed until a new contract arrived—only for her to realize that the purchase order reflected the original billing terms all along.

So what was the point of this wild goose chase? What did it teach her about corporate miscommunication, emotional resilience, and trusting your gut?

Listen to the episode to hear how Melinda turned this chaos into clarity—and what you can learn from the fire that never should've started.

Morgan Friedman

Melinda's Website

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In this episode, Sheila Butler, Founder & Chief Marketing Officer of Butler Marketing Group, FL LLC, tells us about the time when she forged a partnership to launch 20,000 hotel rooms. What was once thought to be a huge and successful project turned out to be underwhelming and disappointing for everyone involved.

Due to tech issues, overwriting part of their database did not go as planned. Instead of advertising each room as a luxury stay, they were shown as regular rooms—boring, right? Likewise, it didn’t help that the moment they launched their product, COVID happened and the lockdown started.

While they banked on the fact that things would pick up soon and they could leverage coupons and such, they failed to see that their chosen payment platform didn’t cater to all the countries they were targeting.

Tune in to know more about Sheila's experience!

Morgan Friedman

Sheila's Website

Sheila's LinkedIn

Sheila's Instagram

Imagine being your own bubbly self and getting so much hate from someone who projected their insecurities on you. This is what happened to the author and creator of Confused Girl in the City, Giovanna Silvestre.

At 25, fresh out of college, Giovanna had the opportunity to become the second assistant to a big-time director of a big-time movie at a big-time studio. As someone fresh in the industry, she assumed she worked directly under the director. Anyhow, that was cleared up as the first assistant clearly hated her guts and gave her a lot of random tasks which backfired.

When Giovanna was asked to help the director’s wife in arranging his birthday, she formed a deep relationship with the wife and immediately became everybody’s favorite—she even ended up dating their friend! The first assistant was so pissed and thought to sabotage everything by making up stories about her and eventually firing her.

There’s so much more to learn, so listen in and join the adventure!

Morgan Friedman

Giovanna's Website

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Giovanna's Instagram

There’s something quite profound about doing honest work for 23 years and losing it to an uncontrollable housing bust. Today, we are pleased to speak with Matthew (Matt) Stafford, CEO of Build Grow Scale, who is tasked to share his client's horror story for our 59th episode.

Straight out of college, Matt established a brick-and-mortar commercial concrete business which exponentially grew over the years. They’ve managed to build many Lowe’s, Costcos, and other buildings for big-name companies all over the country, traveling 200 days per year to complete every order and work on every demand for their capabilities.

Between 2007 and 2010, America was faced with a multinational financial mortgage crisis, which led to a severe economic recession, with millions losing their jobs and many businesses going bankrupt. Sadly, in 2009, what once was a bustling business turned into a blazing horror show for Matt. Large contractors came into big developments, and Matt and his company were never paid for their work. To top it all off, they got sued by their subcontractor who did their curb work.

Things immediately started to pile up, and despite a long 10-year battle of settling all of their accounts, Matt ended up losing half a million dollars as well as his love for the job. Horror upon horror, this story is going to teach you a lot of lessons, so tune in and get ready for an episode full of knowledge and guidance.

Morgan Friedman

Matt's Company Website

Matt's LinkedIn

Matt's Facebook

Are you ready for another client horror story? Today might just be your lucky day! We’re going into an in-depth and hair-raising conversation with Matthew Fornaro, a respected business lawyer.

Over four years ago, Matthew made a decision to take on a real estate litigation with a family consisting of two elders and a daughter who had authoritarian control over her parents. They rented a home in a beautiful gated community in Naples, Florida, and made a deal with the neighbor across the street. What was the deal? Well, they asked him to take over his house, perform the upkeep, and eventually purchase the home for a lower market value upon the end of their lease term on their house across the street. First red flag? There wasn’t any written contract but a term sheet which contained under 20 words scribbled all over the page.

The homeowner’s son visited him and learned about the deal and was obviously unhappy about it. There was a lot of hullabaloo and in the end, the renting family went to a title agent and got all the work done to get ready for the sale and said the homeowner agreed to it. The son then steps in and everyone sues everybody.

Fast forward, everyone is now in court, where a jury trial was demanded by the daughter. They came to an agreement and settled on a good deal, but little did everyone know that the roller coaster was about to happen.  

If you’d like to know how the story ended, watch the episode now! Trust me, you won’t regret it!

Morgan Friedman

Matthew's Website

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Matthew's Facebook

In today’s episode with Mickie Kennedy, President of eReleases, we will hear about a harrowing client horror story that happened when he was just 4 meager years into his business.

Mickie has a press release distribution business he has been running for more than 25 years now. At such an early start, he was approached by a client from a music conservatory for a press release. After negotiations and a lot of discussion, the project was initiated. Eventually, he received a check from FedEx for the client’s payment. He cashed it in and was then informed by the bank that the checks were—surprise, surprise—fakes!

He then went to file a report to the police, who only told him they weren’t going to do much to help since the amount was only less than a thousand dollars. Mickie was advised to take the matter to small claims court. His client was also informed and got a bit scared and asked him if he could pay via credit card. He trusted his client and 2 months later, he received a charge-back on his account.

What a roller coaster! The PR world is full of these stories, so dive right into the episode to learn more about it.

Morgan Friedman

Mickie's Website

Mickie's LinkedIn

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Mickie's Facebook

In the latest episode of Client Horror Stories, David Bates, an Executive Coach at Paravelle, LLC, shares a harrowing experience from his days as a consultant. David recalls being assigned to check on a major pharmaceutical project in town, a task given to him simply because he was the only team member residing in the area. What seemed like a routine check quickly spiraled into a nightmare.

Upon arriving at the training session, David faced an unexpected crisis. The project sponsor abruptly canceled the training during the first break, declaring the content unnecessary. Determined to salvage the situation, David tried to work things out with a particular team member. However, the situation deteriorated further when the big pharma stakeholders invited him to lunch. What started as a seemingly cordial meeting turned into a coordinated attack, with the stakeholders confronting him about the project's shortcomings and ultimate failure.

David's story is a gripping reminder of the unpredictable challenges consultants can face, even in seemingly straightforward situations.

If you'd like to hear more about how David navigated this complex situation and the lessons he learned, be sure to check out the full episode of Client Horror Stories.

Morgan Friedman

David's Website

David's LinkedIn

In this episode, we are joined by John C. Morley, Serial Entrepreneur Engineer, Marketing Specialist, Talk Show Host, and First Responder, for our exciting new episode of Client Horror Stories. John doesn’t only talk about a single client horror story, but three! However, we’re here to give you a quick look into the conversation.

We’re going to start with John’s two-decade-long client who decided to let him go after telling him that John was just squeezing him out for money. After so much back and forth, their relationship ended and the lawyer hired a different person. What sucked is that the new hire pretended to be John while calling a firewall manufacturer just to get through.

If you think that’s a nut case, wait until you hear the rest of what John has to say. Today’s episode is not just a recall; it’s an episode filled with new learnings and realizations to give you a new perspective on how things should be handled.

Morgan Friedman

John's Website

John's LinkedIn

John's Facebook

John's Instagram

In today’s episode of Client Horror Stories, we welcome Mark Michael, CEO and co-Founder of DevHub. While Michael has had a lot of ups and downs in the customer side of things, one experience always stands out.

We all know the NFL, and luckily enough, Mark was given an opportunity to work with a high-profile player. The idea was to create a custom CRM built for all NFL players to make their daily lives manageable. All went well until the client refused to provide a card on file to pay for subscriptions and hostings, and it all stretched out until he wouldn’t even pay for anything else despite 50% of the work being finished.

Just like everyone else, Mark reached his tipping point and put the client in his right place. If you want to know what happens next, check out this episode!

Morgan Friedman

Mark's Website

Mark's Company

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Have you ever been yelled at by a client before or threatened to be sued? Today, we are joined by the Founder & CEO of Blue Goat Cyber, Christian Espinosa, to share more about his client horror story with a healthcare facility in Louisiana.

Christian is an expert in ethical hacking and wishes only to expose company vulnerabilities in order to find avenues for improvement, but when they infected most of the hospital with the secret file they planted, the CEO went nuts. It even went as far as a security guard pulling a gun on one of Christian’s employees!

Dive into this episode to learn more about the story and open your mind to new business tactics and strategies.
Morgan Friedman

Christian's Website

Christian's LinkedIn

Christian's Facebook

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