Although not every day is Halloween, in the business industry we always encounter “Trick or Treat” situations.

Trick or Treat situations occur on both sides – the service provider and the service consumer.
a Trick or Treat situation would be a situation where both the source and the outcome of information is a bit vague – it can either be a treat, both you and the service provider/consumer benefits or it may be a trick – a situation where you don’t benefit at all, and of course at the worst case scenario – harm you.

First, we will take a look at a “Trick or Treat” situation from the view of a service provider:

You have set up your business website, posted your email address so people can contact you and you start getting emails from possible clients, only problem is – how do you know they are reliable?
The client wrote you a short email about how is eager to make one of his app ideas come to life – seems like it is just the right job for you!
So you signed an agreement which you both agreed on and you’re good to go – the development process has begun. After a month of so of work you show your client who you have been up to, and you are expected get paid for your work so far (lets say it was written in the agreement) – but shockingly enough, the client doesn’t respond anymore – he has ghosted! You got tricked!
These kinds of situation are unpleasant, but they do happen, and you will be surprised with how frequent they happen.

So, what do you do? How do you get a treat instead of a trick?

Well there are few basic rules you can follow to make sure your client is reliable:

1. Meet Your Client – first and for most, meet the person you are about to do business with. Meeting your client makes the whole deal even more “real” than before. Plus, in my opinion, it is always better to be in good touch with your clients. Good communication leads to satisfaction, leads to good reviews, leads to more clients! Try to meet your client in a neutral place.
2. Background Check – Make a background check about your client. Who is he? Where is from? Is this his first project working with another party? Learning these things can help you form a better picture of who your client is. You can always try to ask other companies to work with your client to ensure their quality of business.
3. Advance Payment – In the agreement, mention that before you start working on the project the client must pay some sort of an advance payment (which will be equivalent, more or less, to the amount of work you will be doing until the first check point). This way, even if your client decides to “trick” you still got your treat!

Now let’s take a look on the other side – the client side, the service consumer!

So you came to point where you think you hold the greatest idea ever thought of. Of course you will need a third party to help you at some point with your business – Finances, Graphics, Software Development (which hey, if software development is that you are looking for – that is our specialty, you are welcome to contact us!) or really any other kind of service you can think of.
You go on into Google and type “I need this service” and you to the first result that pops-up. You look at what appears to be a very professional site but wait, how can you know if this business is trustworthy?

Imagine you start working with this company, but they deliver very poor results – What a shame! Now you have washed tons of money down the drain, but most importantly you lost time. Money and time are just two example of things you can lose while working with the wrong company. Sometimes you can find yourself losing your rights to a patent or even just the “head start” you had on your competitors.

Getting tricked as a service consumer is never easy, so how can you avoid it?

1. Meet Your Service Provider – just as I mentioned in the “service provider side” – it is important to meet the person you are about to do business with. Meeting your service provider can lead into a sense of security and gives you the ability to judge rather a decent person is sitting in front of you. Try to meet your client in a neutral place.
2. Background Check – Make a background check about your service provider. Who are they? Who have they worked with? Reaching to other clients can assure you the quality of people you are about to work with. If they tell you they can’t refer you to any other clients this might be a point to negotiate and try and lower down their prices.
3. Watch the Budget – Make sure you have enough money in your budget to recover from the worst-case scenario when working with this third party, so even if you did get tricked, you can still keep your idea up and running.

All these tips are sure to make you get a treat instead of a trick in this “business-Halloween” world. Also, be sure to not trick other people!

Happy Halloween!