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Power moves to underpay (or sabotage) work

#11 · December 22, 2021, 6:46 am

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on December 22, 2021, 4:13 am
An easy Machiavellian way out:
I'm glad the work went well!
And just for your information, it was already heavily discounted compared to my usual rate :).
(optional: happy to do that for friends and family)
All the best, speak soon!
Feel free to open a new thread for that other scenario or for more on guilt-tripping.

P.S.:

And I'd personally do would make a discount for family and friends.

Family and friends expect some special treatment -and it's part of being "close"-.

Not doing it can easily frame you as "money-thirsty" or "putting money above friends and family".

And if you want to avoid being that situation in the first place, you could say:

Yeah, look, I'm happy to give you my thoughts on this as friends/family.
As for actual working on it, I generally avoid working with family and friends because I put relationships above work and don't want to mix the two.
BUT... I do have a great person who can help you with (and then make the intro).

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#12 · December 22, 2021, 11:15 am

Quote from B on December 22, 2021, 11:15 am
Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on December 22, 2021, 4:13 am
“Considering you worked for a shorter time than foreseen, I am sad that you didn’t give me a discount on this, not even in consideration of our friendship/our being relatives”.
Yeah, you said it, guilt-tripping it was.
An easy Machiavellian way out:
"I'm glad the work went well!
And just for your information, it was already heavily discounted compared to my usual rate :).
(optional: happy to do that for friends and family)
All the best, speak soon!"
That's genius. Thank you, I would never have thought about it, and it's very effective.
Would it make sense to answer this now considering I received the guilt-tripping e-mail last September, and I never spoke to him again?
Probably not, I think. If I answered it now, I would appear manipulative.
Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on December 22, 2021, 6:46 am
And I'd personally do would make a discount for family and friends.
Family and friends expect some special treatment -and it's part of being "close"-.
Not doing it can easily frame you as "money-thirsty" or "putting money above friends and family".
Thank you Lucio. This is very helpful, because while I always tried to accommodate friends and family, I never though about this consciously.
I also want to clarify that in cases I mentioned working with family, I always did either discount fees, or (many times) not ask for payment at all.
But I became inflexible eventually when, last year, I found out some relatives were manipulating me into further lowering my fees or into waiving the fees already agreed upon. They displayed many of the above behaviors and even more: they never explicitly asked for discounts or waivers: they just implied they wanted them, or behaved in ways that compelled me to not ask for payment, or used the implicit request power move.
I had started studying manipulation, because I always felt I was doing something wrong with them. And when I finally realized what they were doing, I was enraged.
That led me to demand payment (at the agreed-upon discounted rate, even though I knew they had manipulated me into that) for what they had still deliberately deferred paying so far, and then to cutting them off.
I felt betrayed, I trusted them. And I didn't cut them off for this reason only, but also because they were abusive in many other respects.
[SLIGHTLY OFF TOPIC: the person who played the "I'm sad no discount even though we're family" power move used to suggest we go on holiday together. He had a family of 4, we were 2: invariably he would come up with accomodation proposals where our room for 2 always cost more than their room for 4. I fell for this once or twice, then stopped going with them. Of note is also the fact that many of the places he proposed we stay were clients of his private practice; of further note was that when I proposed a place, they would always go back to their proposal saying that my proposal was not ok since they had children. I'm not joking.]
So the problem here was not about whether I was treating them well: the problem was that my unawareness of power moves and of being manipulated still led them to frame me as money-thirsty, even while I valued the family connection and the friendship above all.
And, of course, the higher-level problem was that, unfortunately, these were not exactly good amenable people.
In the end, with one of them, I started doing exactly what you suggest in the last post, i.e. introducing him to a fellow lawyer. He refused, and insisted he wanted to work with me, and when I still refused, he complained and went to another (more distant) lawyer family member. Who, in the end, tried to introduce him to a colleague of his. This person then came back to me, but thankfully I had already stopped picking up his calls.
Unfortunately these people were deliberately playing the "family" bond against me.
On the other hand I never had problems with other family members who behaved politely (eg thanked me, told me they wanted to pay me, and so on): I was usually the one to suggest they need not pay me, or also lowered my fees, in these cases. With the added benefit that the relationship is still going on.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on December 22, 2021, 4:13 am
“Considering you worked for a shorter time than foreseen, I am sad that you didn’t give me a discount on this, not even in consideration of our friendship/our being relatives”.
Yeah, you said it, guilt-tripping it was.
An easy Machiavellian way out:
"I'm glad the work went well!
And just for your information, it was already heavily discounted compared to my usual rate :).
(optional: happy to do that for friends and family)
All the best, speak soon!"

That's genius. Thank you, I would never have thought about it, and it's very effective.

Would it make sense to answer this now considering I received the guilt-tripping e-mail last September, and I never spoke to him again?

Probably not, I think. If I answered it now, I would appear manipulative.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on December 22, 2021, 6:46 am
And I'd personally do would make a discount for family and friends.
Family and friends expect some special treatment -and it's part of being "close"-.
Not doing it can easily frame you as "money-thirsty" or "putting money above friends and family".

Thank you Lucio. This is very helpful, because while I always tried to accommodate friends and family, I never though about this consciously.

I also want to clarify that in cases I mentioned working with family, I always did either discount fees, or (many times) not ask for payment at all.

But I became inflexible eventually when, last year, I found out some relatives were manipulating me into further lowering my fees or into waiving the fees already agreed upon. They displayed many of the above behaviors and even more: they never explicitly asked for discounts or waivers: they just implied they wanted them, or behaved in ways that compelled me to not ask for payment, or used the implicit request power move.

I had started studying manipulation, because I always felt I was doing something wrong with them. And when I finally realized what they were doing, I was enraged.

That led me to demand payment (at the agreed-upon discounted rate, even though I knew they had manipulated me into that) for what they had still deliberately deferred paying so far, and then to cutting them off.

I felt betrayed, I trusted them. And I didn't cut them off for this reason only, but also because they were abusive in many other respects.

[SLIGHTLY OFF TOPIC: the person who played the "I'm sad no discount even though we're family" power move used to suggest we go on holiday together. He had a family of 4, we were 2: invariably he would come up with accomodation proposals where our room for 2 always cost more than their room for 4. I fell for this once or twice, then stopped going with them. Of note is also the fact that many of the places he proposed we stay were clients of his private practice; of further note was that when I proposed a place, they would always go back to their proposal saying that my proposal was not ok since they had children. I'm not joking.]

So the problem here was not about whether I was treating them well: the problem was that my unawareness of power moves and of being manipulated still led them to frame me as money-thirsty, even while I valued the family connection and the friendship above all.

And, of course, the higher-level problem was that, unfortunately, these were not exactly good amenable people.

In the end, with one of them, I started doing exactly what you suggest in the last post, i.e. introducing him to a fellow lawyer. He refused, and insisted he wanted to work with me, and when I still refused, he complained and went to another (more distant) lawyer family member. Who, in the end, tried to introduce him to a colleague of his. This person then came back to me, but thankfully I had already stopped picking up his calls.

Unfortunately these people were deliberately playing the "family" bond against me.

On the other hand I never had problems with other family members who behaved politely (eg thanked me, told me they wanted to pay me, and so on): I was usually the one to suggest they need not pay me, or also lowered my fees, in these cases. With the added benefit that the relationship is still going on.

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#13 · December 22, 2021, 3:00 pm

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on December 22, 2021, 3:00 pm
Quote from Bel on December 22, 2021, 11:15 am
Thank you Lucio. This is very helpful, because while I always tried to accommodate friends and family, I never though about this consciously.
I also want to clarify that in cases I mentioned working with family, I always did either discount fees, or (many times) not ask for payment at all.
But I became inflexible eventually when, last year, I found out some relatives were manipulating me into further lowering my fees or into waiving the fees already agreed upon. They displayed many of the above behaviors and even more: they never explicitly asked for discounts or waivers: they just implied they wanted them, or behaved in ways that compelled me to not ask for payment, or used the implicit request power move.
I had started studying manipulation, because I always felt I was doing something wrong with them. And when I finally realized what they were doing, I was enraged.
That led me to demand payment (at the agreed-upon discounted rate, even though I knew they had manipulated me into that) for what they had still deliberately deferred paying so far, and then to cutting them off.
I felt betrayed, I trusted them. And I didn't cut them off for this reason only, but also because they were abusive in many other respects.
So the problem here was not about whether I was treating them well: the problem was that my unawareness of power moves and of being manipulated still led them to frame me as money-thirsty, even while I valued the family connection and the friendship above all.
And, of course, the higher-level problem was that, unfortunately, these were not exactly good amenable people.
Got it, got it, great.
As usual, my advice is from an outsider who doesn't know all the details, so you know what works best and what doesn't, and how to adapt it to fit the situation.
Maybe the only thing you might want to look into in this specific case is if you advertised that discount/free service as loud as possible.
If people come back to you that "they expected a friendly price", you may want to consider if it wasn't advertised strongly enough.
And when it was free, to make sure people know about the value they were getting ("fair value marketing").
But, again, you know better.
And it seemed like in this case it was more about manipulation from manipulators, so it's awesome that you started seeing those dynamics now.
A new Bel has emerged, he ain't taking shit from anybody anymore :).

Quote from Bel on December 22, 2021, 11:15 am
Thank you Lucio. This is very helpful, because while I always tried to accommodate friends and family, I never though about this consciously.
I also want to clarify that in cases I mentioned working with family, I always did either discount fees, or (many times) not ask for payment at all.
But I became inflexible eventually when, last year, I found out some relatives were manipulating me into further lowering my fees or into waiving the fees already agreed upon. They displayed many of the above behaviors and even more: they never explicitly asked for discounts or waivers: they just implied they wanted them, or behaved in ways that compelled me to not ask for payment, or used the implicit request power move.
I had started studying manipulation, because I always felt I was doing something wrong with them. And when I finally realized what they were doing, I was enraged.
That led me to demand payment (at the agreed-upon discounted rate, even though I knew they had manipulated me into that) for what they had still deliberately deferred paying so far, and then to cutting them off.
I felt betrayed, I trusted them. And I didn't cut them off for this reason only, but also because they were abusive in many other respects.
So the problem here was not about whether I was treating them well: the problem was that my unawareness of power moves and of being manipulated still led them to frame me as money-thirsty, even while I valued the family connection and the friendship above all.
And, of course, the higher-level problem was that, unfortunately, these were not exactly good amenable people.

Got it, got it, great.

As usual, my advice is from an outsider who doesn't know all the details, so you know what works best and what doesn't, and how to adapt it to fit the situation.

Maybe the only thing you might want to look into in this specific case is if you advertised that discount/free service as loud as possible.
If people come back to you that "they expected a friendly price", you may want to consider if it wasn't advertised strongly enough.
And when it was free, to make sure people know about the value they were getting ("fair value marketing").
But, again, you know better.

And it seemed like in this case it was more about manipulation from manipulators, so it's awesome that you started seeing those dynamics now.

A new Bel has emerged, he ain't taking shit from anybody anymore :).

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#14 · December 22, 2021, 3:04 pm

You're absolutely right that I didn't advertise the value I provided enough. I thought behaving well was enough. Heck, all my life, until I started to understand these dynamics, I always thought actions spoke for themselves.

Your help is invaluable and much appreciated, and my message was not meant to refuse your suggestions in any way. If I had known then what you teach, I could have probably compelled them to respect me more, and in any case could have exited in a better way.

It was more a venting on my part. Not knowing this stuff led me to lose on all fronts with these people. It's imperative to understand these dynamics to not fall prey to people like these.

More than anything else, the physical and emotional suffering inherent in being manipulated is just intolerable.

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#15 · December 22, 2021, 3:10 pm

Quote from Bel on December 22, 2021, 11:15 am
That's genius. Thank you, I would never have thought about it, and it's very effective.
Would it make sense to answer this now considering I received the guilt-tripping e-mail last September, and I never spoke to him again?
Probably not, I think. If I answered it now, I would appear manipulative.

Yeah, you said, probably too late now to answer that email.

BUT... You can still send that message as "by the way" the next time you're in touch.

Like:

Oh, by the way, when you said you expected a discount for family, actually, you're totally right.
Sorry I was too busy to reply, but I feel the exact same way.
So just to clarify that: it was already discounted.
Yeah, no biggies, just to let you know that.

Then "yeah yeah" to whatever he says, and continue on whatever topic was on, or end it soon after if there wasn't anything else to add.

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#16 · December 22, 2021, 10:33 pm

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on December 22, 2021, 3:10 pm
Oh, by the way, when you said you expected a discount for family, actually, you're totally right.
Sorry I was too busy to reply, but I feel the exact same way.
So just to clarify that: it was already discounted.
Yeah, no biggies, just to let you know that.

Lucio that’s so powerful! Thank you, will definitely use it if the occasion arises.

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#17 · February 7, 2022, 5:56 pm

I am posting again in this thread to share something I was missing, that I picked up from your answer here:

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on December 19, 2021, 3:05 am
On the call, you could say something like:
"for small things that take one minute, no need to invoice. But if you think they can become part of a recurring pattern, then we can do this: you contact me for any issue, and if it adds up to more than a few minutes, then I invoice you at the end of the month. Sounds good?"
When you suggest the written agreement on the email, that feels like a big task to tackle on his side.

Past belief

I had the subconscious belief that, while physical persons of course would appreciate my availability to give discounts/do work at a reduced rate or, in particular circumstances, for free, no such need existed for companies. Especially in the case of big companies, my belief was something like "well, what changes for the director if I invoice for every small thing or not".

What I got from your answer: people working in/for companies think of company money as their money

After thinking about your answer, I now realize people working in, or for, companies probably think of the company's money as their money, and showing the willingness on my side to compromise on small things even for companies makes it more likely they will keep me as their lawyer for small and big things.

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#18 · February 7, 2022, 9:56 pm

Yeah, that's an interesting thread.

Some people certainly do treat company money as their money in negotiations, and it's a good mindset to do well in corporates.

Some others are more selfish and think more in terms of how they can take more of that company's money for themselves.

However, when they're dealing with external folks, they might still revert to thinking it's "their money" because the dynamics shift from in-group, part of the company, to out-group and external to the company.

I think that even more important than giving them a great price is to make them feel like they won though.
Or to allow them to show internally that they got a big discount or win with you thanks to their skills and caring for the company.

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#19 · February 8, 2022, 10:22 pm

Quote from B on February 8, 2022, 10:22 pm
I was going through my past e-mails with some of my clients these days, and I just realized the full impact of one additional power move from clients to which I was particularly susceptible:
Please help me solve this legal problem... how do we do it? Ah, that is the way? Gosh, I just changed my mind and prefer to stop here but thank you for the support!
The title says it all, but the longer plot is the following: someone contacts me to help them with their problem, I share the legal solution with them, maybe even work for free for some time with the promise they will go ahead with me... then suddenly, this someone changes his mind!
He has decided it is better to not go ahead, even if he is incurring a significant loss! But he thanks me for the support!
Of course, in reality what this someone is doing is going ahead without me. Either my work has already obtained him the result, or he directly uses what I told him to obtain what he wanted.
Strangely, I will never hear from him again in the future.
The clues
The clues that a client is playing this game are the following:
the client expresses doubts about whether to do something to defend his rights or not (in reality, he is planning to defect as soon as he receives my legal advice, and is keeping the option open to justify his defection by saying "after all I had doubts!")
the client prefers oral advice to written advice (no written trace, no risk he may need to pay), though this is not always the case
there is either a condescending tone in the written communications of the client, or an opposite and equally strange "too warm and deferential tone" (warmth without intention is the hallmark of betrayal)
the client would like for me to start working immediately (no time for an agreement!)
the client does not call me to communicate his decision to not go ahead, but only writes (he fears his voice may betray his lie)
there is a sudden and unexplainable mismatch between me providing useful advice to go ahead and the client deciding to stop immediately after I have provided this advice
there is a reluctance of the client to inform me of any good result my work may have provided to him
there is a strange reluctance of the client to involve me in future legal work and/or to return my calls after the above (in essence, the client fears I may understand and in his mind protects against "retaliation")
Countermeasures
The ways to counter it, some of which I had started to deploy unconsciously even before full realization:
require payment for any letter written and signed by me as a lawyer (this is the first defense mechanism I started to deploy years ago);
expressly state that the first phase of work is for free (that way at least the client incurs social debt, I am doing him a favor and in the future may ask him a return on the favor); or
ask for a formal retainer to provide even informal advice after the initial consultation, with a 50% advance payment (this actually came to my mind after I saw another lawyer doing it for the first time today)
accept the possibility that a certain number of clients will always defect, and that's good: after all, I only lost a little time, in exchange for a lifetime of being free from these people!
now, being able to better "see" which clients are likely to defect
sometimes, some of these people come back: I then always ask market fees for whatever they want and require advance payment.
Usefulness of this realization
My sticking point was often that I was unsure whether to charge clients for informal advice. I had the feeling that doing so may lead them to not involve me, with a potential loss of future bigger business. Now I realize that some clients have no intention of paying any lawyer: they just hop from one to the other taking whatever scrap of work they can get.
Being able to see and/or better predict which clients are likely to defect, I think, will allow me to ask for retainers from those who are likely to defect, and to selectively give some work for free to those who are likely to repay the favor and/or come back for more serious issuess. It will also allow me to select better clients in the long run.
I am also starting to realize that some clients only want informal advice from a lawyer. And, not asking for payment from these clients probably makes it more unlikely that they will come back for other informal advice, because when they are good persons they actually feel bad about taking without repaying. So in some cases a small retainer for informal advice may make sense even for good clients.

I was going through my past e-mails with some of my clients these days, and I just realized the full impact of one additional power move from clients to which I was particularly susceptible:

Please help me solve this legal problem... how do we do it? Ah, that is the way? Gosh, I just changed my mind and prefer to stop here but thank you for the support!

The title says it all, but the longer plot is the following: someone contacts me to help them with their problem, I share the legal solution with them, maybe even work for free for some time with the promise they will go ahead with me... then suddenly, this someone changes his mind!

He has decided it is better to not go ahead, even if he is incurring a significant loss! But he thanks me for the support!

Of course, in reality what this someone is doing is going ahead without me. Either my work has already obtained him the result, or he directly uses what I told him to obtain what he wanted.

Strangely, I will never hear from him again in the future.

The clues

The clues that a client is playing this game are the following:

the client expresses doubts about whether to do something to defend his rights or not (in reality, he is planning to defect as soon as he receives my legal advice, and is keeping the option open to justify his defection by saying "after all I had doubts!")
the client prefers oral advice to written advice (no written trace, no risk he may need to pay), though this is not always the case
there is either a condescending tone in the written communications of the client, or an opposite and equally strange "too warm and deferential tone" (warmth without intention is the hallmark of betrayal)
the client would like for me to start working immediately (no time for an agreement!)
the client does not call me to communicate his decision to not go ahead, but only writes (he fears his voice may betray his lie)
there is a sudden and unexplainable mismatch between me providing useful advice to go ahead and the client deciding to stop immediately after I have provided this advice
there is a reluctance of the client to inform me of any good result my work may have provided to him
there is a strange reluctance of the client to involve me in future legal work and/or to return my calls after the above (in essence, the client fears I may understand and in his mind protects against "retaliation")

Countermeasures

The ways to counter it, some of which I had started to deploy unconsciously even before full realization:

require payment for any letter written and signed by me as a lawyer (this is the first defense mechanism I started to deploy years ago);
expressly state that the first phase of work is for free (that way at least the client incurs social debt, I am doing him a favor and in the future may ask him a return on the favor); or
ask for a formal retainer to provide even informal advice after the initial consultation, with a 50% advance payment (this actually came to my mind after I saw another lawyer doing it for the first time today)
accept the possibility that a certain number of clients will always defect, and that's good: after all, I only lost a little time, in exchange for a lifetime of being free from these people!
now, being able to better "see" which clients are likely to defect
sometimes, some of these people come back: I then always ask market fees for whatever they want and require advance payment.

Usefulness of this realization

My sticking point was often that I was unsure whether to charge clients for informal advice. I had the feeling that doing so may lead them to not involve me, with a potential loss of future bigger business. Now I realize that some clients have no intention of paying any lawyer: they just hop from one to the other taking whatever scrap of work they can get.

Being able to see and/or better predict which clients are likely to defect, I think, will allow me to ask for retainers from those who are likely to defect, and to selectively give some work for free to those who are likely to repay the favor and/or come back for more serious issuess. It will also allow me to select better clients in the long run.

I am also starting to realize that some clients only want informal advice from a lawyer. And, not asking for payment from these clients probably makes it more unlikely that they will come back for other informal advice, because when they are good persons they actually feel bad about taking without repaying. So in some cases a small retainer for informal advice may make sense even for good clients.

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#20 · February 8, 2022, 11:18 pm

This is great Bel, thank you for sharing.

Another option:

Give little and frame it in a way that begs for more

If they have a possible win, reply with one-liners with 20% of the advice and 80% of what they can gain and/or what you can do for them.

Let them come back to you for more.

When they come back, it's fee time.

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