Yesterday I had one of those difficult clients that comes around a few times a summer. Hard to work out the arrangements, difficult to please and they assume at every moment that they are being taken. After a huge struggle to work out the details of the trip, “I don’t want to fish on a pond, my wife gets seasick, can you pick me up at the hotel?, no I’ll meet you, no pick me up” at the last minute. Between a cell phone that barely worked and not being listed as a guest at the hotel it was a challenge.
Needless to say after all of that I finally get the couple and their young daughter on the river. I teach them to cast a lure and after awhile they even have the hang of it. The fish do not cooperate; I don’t mean slow fishing I mean not a fish anywhere. Of course I did at one point see birds working but it was far to rough to fish in that open spot with those clients. Not only might they get sea sick but they might just fall overboard. So I head way up above the harbor and proceed to fill out the hot fishless afternoon.
So on the way back to the hotel they are grim, thinking that they have been taken again. But I have the upper hand and when the moment comes and the credit card is offered I simply tell them that all I want for payment is for them to take their daughter fishing again, not with me just fishing again. I stunned em!! They were speechless and did not know what to say or do. I thanked them and headed off to pick up my son at work. Not the first time I have done it ; maybe it happens once a summer. No I can’t make any money that way for sure but it felt great to truly give someone a completely unexpected surprise ending to their trip that has not gone as well as I think it should. I’m pretty sure I won’t see them again as clients but what a great feeling to deliver the unexpected.
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