The Tale of My Demon Client

(And what I did to repel this energy, even though everyone -including my mom- thought I was crazy…)

A few years into my consulting business, which was focused on marketing and branding strategy in the veterinary industry, I was deeply unhappy with some of my clients.

I had the very professional facade, "candid" photos and all, and I was starting to charge enough to live in Orange County. As a millennial who grew up in New England watching Laguna Beach, I had "made it" on paper.

But some of these clients - ugh. I felt like I had to be "on" around them... like just unable to be my full self or even give them my honest opinion. It was draining.

A lot of them would pay well, but that wasn't as fulfilling as I thought it would be.

Enter: The ultimate demon

But I had this one client, a medium-sized group of veterinary hospitals, like maybe 10 locations. They hired me to create a plan to attract talent to work for them.

I traveled out to see them in person, and quickly I realized... Shit! I'm in danger.

First and foremost, some of the clinics needed updating. They felt stuck in the 70s, and I was like... I can't imagine a young vet being excited to work in this space.

But there was also just a vibe... like... I'd walk into the various locations and no one was particularly friendly. Again, I can't imagine someone wanting to work there if that's the culture.

Then I met the owner. He was older, I think close to his 80s, and very clearly worked his ass off. I respect the hell out of that, but I got the feeling that he expected everyone who worked for him to do the exact same thing. And that's just not really how today's team members think.

The last straw was when I went to a location and asked what the clients were like. A team member told me "Well we have a trailer park nearby, so we have to accommodate a lot of restricted budgets. But then there's a gated community up the hill, and they'll literally drop off flatscreen TVs for their dogs when they're boarding with us."

“DANGER!”... I thought to myself.

When you don’t know who your business is and isn’t for, you’re torturing your team.

There's nothing wrong with serving either type of client, but trying to serve both... I felt exhausted for their team members who had to navigate that day in and day out. They must feel like Jekyl and Hyde switching back and forth between uber-wealthy clients and those who need a little more financial flexibility. That's a recipe for unhappy clients, and unhappy clients mean stressed-out staff.

So I'm like... ok some of these locations are outdated, the culture seems meh, the owner doesn't seem understanding of today's workforce realities, and the lack of direction with who their client is is probably stressing everyone out.

No wonder they can't hire. I spoke with a few colleagues in the space that had worked for this group of hospitals, and they confirmed that it did - in fact - suck to work there. You were expected to be a workaholic, the customer was always right, and other was very little mentorship.

This is when I realized I was screwed.

Sure - they had paid me like $40k for a marketing plan, but to recruit people to work here.. we'd have to market total BS because the reality sucked.

Sure - Marketing BS would work to get new team members in the door, but they'd run right out when they saw that the marketing promises didn't match the reality. Marketing BS is a short-term play, and I realized during this contract that I'm a long-term girlie.

I told the leadership team my concerns, and immediately realized the owner of the group was the roadblock. There was nothing I could do. So I made them a plan the best I could, took my consulting fee, and moved on. I felt like shit. Sure, it was good money... but I knew that plan was useless with the owner blocking change. And that's not the type of consultant I wanted to be.

I knew I had to change how I attracted and filtered my clients.

I had to call out their bluffs. At this point, I had a pretty big audience... over 15k followers on Instagram, a Facebook group with around 7k people, and an email list of around the same amount.

The veterinary industry knew me as a great marketer and brand builder, but the truth was I couldn't be those things if my clients totally sucked behind the scenes. And that was going to affect my reputation long-term. People would blame me saying my marketing plans didn't work, when really their businesses were a hot mess and - like I said - marketing BS only works for the short term.

So I started speaking out on the BS in the veterinary industry, a lot of which will sound familiar to you, even if you're not in the veterinary space.

I started talking about the low wages team members were paid, despite some hospital groups being owned by literal billionaires like the Mars family.

I talked about the racial discrimination and microaggressions non-white veterinary team members faced. A disproportionate number of vets are white, and it leads to a lot of situations where Black, Latino, and Asian veterinary professionals do not feel particularly seen and supported.

And - because I struggle with a chronic illness that has left my brain a little spicy at times - I would talk about how a culture of ableism is also pervasive in the space.

People thought I was crazy for doing this, including my mom. I got hate messages and lost followers.

But I doubled down and literally called out the hater comments I'd get because I knew that those people would be demon clients.

If you're mad about me saying you need to pay a living wage, I do not want to be hired to market your job openings, thanks!

But I also got an overwhelming amount of support, way more than the hate I got. I realized a ton of people were thinking these things, but didn't want to say them... especially not publicly.

Founders started to tell me they chose to work with me because they wanted to create a business that was authentic so we wouldn't have to market BS.

I became known for helping founders figure out their core values, how they'd back them up, and how that would ultimately become a solid, non-negotiable brand promise that would guide their business decisions.

The risk of repelling demon clients paid off, and that’s why I teach it