# How to work with customers as an entrepreneur

In most other career domains, [customer service](people-customerservice.md) is two things: 

1. The art of taking their [abuse](hardship-abuse.md) with a smile.
2. The art of delegating everything else to management.

In entrepreneurship, you are responsible for everything.

- This means you can't delegate authority to anyone else.

## Plan ahead for conflict

Your ability to clearly and articulately clarify the [terms of the contract](people-contracts.md), preferably [in writing](language-writing.md), gives you room to push back [in a conflict](people-conflicts.md).

Every business owner will end up developing an intuition over whether a client may become a problem later on.

- Unfortunately, most owners have to develop this skill with a few bad experiences, but the [trauma](hardship-ptsd.md) will teach them anyway.

Be careful with price-sensitive clients.

- Many times, cheaper people have impossible expectations that don't respect the time or energy you'll have to spend.
- Setting a low price or giving discounts almost guarantees the customer will later cause more issues.

The indicators are all yellow flags, but come together as a gut instinct:

- They state they had a bad experience with their last company.
- They're "shopping around", but seem to be too eager to get started.
- They say they're easy to work with as soon as they see apprehension.
- They state that they expect consistent communication, which will mean you'll constantly be on the phone with them.
- They're asking too many questions too early in the process.
- They begin [negotiating](people-conflicts-negotiation.md) before they've even heard the entire project.
- They'll say they're very detail-oriented when they get pushback on their questions.
- They'll say they're a big-picture person when they get pushback on their negotiation.

## Be prepared for high-conflict people

Some people are absolutely impossible to work with.

- Some people [completely lack empathy](mind-neurodivergence-clusterb.md) and need constant maintenance to avoid a larger altercation.

At the same time, you can't stop everything, and should definitely [have a lawyer on retainer](legal-safety.md).