Don’t Apologize by Brian Buck
Recently, we worked with a client who was struggling because a customer wanted to back out of a contract. The contract clearly outlined the implications of the customer doing so. Both parties agreed to the cancellation terms, but when it came time to enforce them, our client was reluctant to do so. Our client, it turned out, was concerned about how the customer would react. They were worried that the customer would find them to be “mean” or “uncaring” for holding them accountable to the contract, which would negatively impact their relationship — even though the customer was cancelling the agreement! They wanted to “leave a door open,” just in case the customer chose to come back or do more work with them in the future.
This incident exposed several contractual terms that they never fully enforced, such as late payments and how changes were managed. They were afraid that if they started enforcing cancellation terms, they would go against the precedent they’d set by not enforcing other terms. In addition, they failed to
realize that every time they didn’t enforce the contract, they set a precedent: The contract didn’t matter.
We see this situation play out time and again. Some instances are more problematic than others, but they all have one thing in common: fear.
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