Two Methods to Consider When Firing Hoof-Care Clients

As your shoeing career progresses, you are going to have clients who raise your blood pressure as soon as you see their name on your schedule. After working hard to build a solid business, getting rid of clients seems to fly in the face of your desire to increase your client base and income. But firing clients just might be what your business and your mental health need.

“Entrepreneurs have this horrifying sense of scarcity, that the customers they have are the only ones in the world,” says G. Richard Shell, professor of legal studies and management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “That is not true. But [firing clients] takes courage.”

Of course, you don’t want to fire a client who you cannot afford to lose. Just because you don’t like them, or they are sometimes a problem doesn’t mean that these clients need to be fired. Normal problems are just part of being in business.

A pair of hoof-care educators — Bob Smith, owner of Pacific Coast Horseshoeing School in Plymouth, Calif.; and Chris Gregory, owner of Heartland Horseshoeing School in Lamar, Mo. — advocate two different methods of handling the task.

Discharging Clients for Cause

Before deciding to part with a profitable client, make sure you can replace or survive the financial hit of the income loss. That means making up for lost revenue by redoubling efforts to bring in new business.

Don’t wait until you are mad before discharging a client. When you just absorb the abuse until you can’t take it anymore and then fire the client in an emotional outburst, you will give the client the impression that you are unfit to work with animals because you are too immature or emotionally unstable. You will also give the client an excuse for their behavior (you’re unreasonable) and your reputation as a professional will be damaged. Be proactive in dealing with issues while you are calm and professional.

Do not fire a client using passive-aggressive behavior, such as refusing to return a phone call or not showing up for the appointment. Not returning phone calls or skipping an appointment will add to a non-professional reputation for you, as well as the farrier profession in general.

Clients should be discharged for cause. If fired with cause every time, a problematic client should eventually realize that the problem does not rest with the farrier or the farrier industry.

There are certain client behaviors that require immediate action:

• Farrier safety. The client values the emotional well-being of their horse more than the farrier’s safety. These clients excuse an ill-mannered or dangerous horse’s behavior because of some actual or perceived trauma that happened to the horse years ago. Because of this event, they expect the farrier to risk injury to demonstrate that they care about the horse. When a client would rather see the farrier injured than their horse controlled, it’s time to immediately fire them for cause.
• Physically abusive. These are clients who throw and kick things when they perceive a disagreement or when they are complaining about you or your work. Or they might become aggressive, shout and challenge you in a threatening manner. Abusive people will probably calm down and apologize, but this type of behavior is ingrained in their personality and will happen again. You are much better off without them.
• Verbally abusive. This client speaks poorly about you or others. For example, they often use descriptions that are directed at gender, race, nationality, or other attributes. Comments that begin, “She/he is a good farrier for a ...” should trigger an immediate response. Continuing to work for that individual only validates their verbally abusive behavior.
• Potential for legal issues. As professional farriers, we have a legal duty to the horse. That means that anything you do to the horse must be in its best interest, not the owners, trainers, or veterinarians. Following trimming or shoeing instructions that you know may be harmful to the horse is not a defense in legal action. Protect yourself by discharging these types of clients.

Then, there are behaviors that require an open and honest dialogue with the client that, if not solved, would result in firing them. Here are several examples.

• They are never satisfied. Regardless of your efforts to provide exceptional service, these clients are never satisfied. There is always a complaint about your work, pricing, or behavior — always something.

The problem with this client is that they share their complaints with every horse person they know or meet, which damages your reputation and erodes your confidence. You need to explain the damage their complaints are having on you and your business.

If attempting to have this conversation is met with resistance or if the complaints continue after your conversation, then they should be fired, politely and professionally.

Discharge dissatisfied clients by telling them that it is obvious that they have lost confidence in your ability to service their accounts. Emphasize the importance of confidence and trust between the horse owner and the farrier. Provide them with the contact information of other farriers, and say that it has been nice working for them and you hope that they find a farrier who can provide the service they require.

• Unreasonable demands. This client likes to exploit the ambiguity in the farrier/horse-owner relationship. They know that the rules for this relationship are subjective and vary from farrier to farrier.

Decide what you will and won’t do in your client relationships and stick to these decisions. Explain to the client the boundaries of your service and ask what their expectations are of a farrier.

Once the client has articulated his or her requirements, the farrier can decide whether he or she is comfortable with providing that service. This would be the time that the farrier would explain fees for the services that the client is requesting that go beyond normal practice.

During this conversation, you might find that their expectations of a farrier exceed what you are prepared to do in your business. Explain this as you are dismissing them from your client list.

If, after this conversation, the client still makes unreasonable demands, describe how you have tried to live up to the expectation previously explained, but you feel that you and the client are not a good match.

Provide contact information for other farriers, thank the client and move on.

• Looking for freebies. This client takes advantage of everything “extra” you do for their horse or them. One act of kindness becomes the demanded norm and then they need something else. Avoid this problem by having a fee schedule for every service you provide. Strictly adhere to that fee schedule for every client, no matter who they are.

If you have blurred the line with a client who demands more and more without intent to pay for the added services, you need to gain control of the situation.

Send or give each of your customers a letter explaining a fee increase. Even a small increase will open the door for a listing of services and the fee for each of those services. Give a date that this fee schedule begins and charge every customer for the services they receive.

If the client argues and complains about the fee structure, then it’s time to move on.

• Slow to pay. Clients who don’t pay on time are more than just annoying. They consume valuable time chasing your money. Most farriers demand payment at the completion of the job. Those who habitually fail to pay immediately should be dropped from your clientele.

If you have a billing service and the client is slow in paying, either increase your fees for late-payments or drop them from your list.

• They don’t listen. This is the client who does not follow your advice and then expects you to pick up the pieces and fix things.

The best way to handle this type of client is to charge — and charge well — for anything that you have to do beyond your normal services because of their failure to follow your instructions.

An example would be a horse that a veterinarian has prescribed egg-bar shoes. You tell the client that this horse needs to have bell boots on if turned out and that the horse needs to be kept out of the pond at the end of the pasture. Explain that failure to follow these instructions will cause additional fees if you have to return to replace a lost shoe.

Then the client calls and complains that the horse has lost a shoe and wants you to come out immediately and replace it. If the horse was turned out without bell boots and/or went into the pond, there should be a charge for replacing the shoe, as well as any reconstruction that needs to be done to the foot.

Any complaint about the charges from a client is grounds for dismissal.

Firing clients is an unfortunate, yet inevitable task in our industry. Knowing when and how to do so requires professionalism, tact and the ability to communicate. These skills need to be developed by the farrier. Once you can master these skills, you will experience fewer problems in your practice

— Bob Smith, CF, APF-I

Raise Your Rates

From a purely simplistic economic view, you have to look at opportunity cost. This is a basic principle of microeconomics that means you have forgone one thing to do another, and the thing you have foregone is the “cost” of doing the thing you chose.

For instance, if reading this article to improve your business takes about as long as trimming one horse, then the cost of reading it equals the price of one trim. Generally, what is learned from studying will lead to a better business, which makes the cost worth it.

My wife Kelly and I always talk about things we want to do or buy in terms of how many trims or shoeings the item is worth. I’m sure most of you have done the same — this is the farrier’s method of determining opportunity cost.

When you are deciding about the economic merits of a customer, look at that opportunity cost. Take a scenario in which horse owner Mr. Brown pays you $100 per horse, but Mr. Jones is willing to pay $200 per horse. Assuming your expenses (materials, fuel costs, etc.) are equal per horse, the clear economic decision is that your time is better invested working for Mr. Jones.

You then drop Mr. Brown so you have time to shoe for Mr. Jones. That is until you reach a point in your business where your time is more valuable than money. At that point, the other factors of Mr. Brown’s horses, barn, social status, or other factors come into play. The intangibles will influence your decision — there are things money can’t buy.

When you reach the point at which the cost of doing business with someone outweighs the benefits, it is time to get out of that relationship. In the cases where I persevered against my better judgment and inner voice, I often became the one that was fired. Whether that was inevitable or just the result of lesser service on my part, I’ll never know.

Many years ago, Kelly and I had an account that required us to be there 2 days a week. With an account like this, you become more of an employee than a self-employed person. This client placed pressure on us in ways that a customer with two horses couldn’t — and they knew it.

As we left at the end of one particularly long day, I told Kelly that we needed to fire this customer. I’d had it with the horses, had it with what I perceived as unreasonable demands and expectations of the customer, had it with the floor in the shoeing area, had it with the lighting, had it with the flies, had it with where we had to park the rig, had it with the grooms. In other words, I’d had it.

Kelly convinced me to continue to stay the course. For context, it is important to note that Kelly does the books, and I am happily and completely in the dark about our finances. She rarely tells me I have a few dollars to spend, but more often she tells me to quit spending. At any rate, she said we had to keep shoeing for this customer.

Within two more visits, the customer informed us that we were no longer needed. Similar to being dumped by the boyfriend or girlfriend you were going to dump, it really galls you to be beaten to the punch.

As a result of that experience, and several that are almost identical, I now will follow my instinct and get out of the situation on my own terms. Farriers must recognize the signs that are readily apparent when the relationship isn’t mutually beneficial.

Through my primary method, I never directly say “no” to a customer. Rather, I say it with money. If I feel that I want to get rid of a certain client, I raise the service rate to such an extent that they either say “no thanks,” or they pay me enough that I determine they are worth retaining as clients. “Charge them until you like them” is another way to put it.

The big benefit here is that it is a winning situation for you. The main word of rejection in the English language is “no.” It doesn’t leave any room for discussion. “Maybe” isn’t implied when you hear “no.” The strategy of charging more can end the relationship without the negative implications of rejection.

However, if I tell a customer, “Sure I’ll shoe those horses, but my rates have increased $50 per horse.” If they continue to retain my services, I have gone up more than $50 per hour and my opportunity cost has been more than realized. If they say no, then the result is what I was after in the first place, and they did not have to feel rejected.

This means they may reach a point where they are willing to pay that extra $50, and I have not shut the door like the word “no” would have done. I used $50 as an arbitrary sum — pick a number that fits your business goals.

It is often said that bad horses aren’t worth doing at any price — one bad horse can ruin your career. I agree, but one good horse also can end your career too. After all, it is still a big animal with the potential to hurt you.

If bad horses are where you draw the line, you can still use pricing to say no. Charge your shoeing rate, add hazard pay and insist on a vet to administer sedation to the horse.

At the end of the day, you have to make a living, but you also have to be able to live with what you are doing to make that living. When you feel like you’ve reached a point when the business relationship with a particular customer is not mutually beneficial, make a list of the pros and cons. Then determine whether you are going to stay.

If you are leaving, try to do it in such a way that the door has not slammed permanently shut and the customer has retained some sense of dignity through the process. After all, there was a time when they were good enough for you to shoe for, and you may find yourself there again.

— Chris Gregory, CJF, FWCF, ASF