Do You Want to Serve Clients—or Build a Business?

This week, in episode 267, David C. Barnett, Kate Morgan, and Sarah Segal tackle a challenge every owner who sells services eventually faces: Clients want to hire you, but you want them to understand they’ll mostly be working with your team. How do you make that clear without scaring them off? For some, it’s a delicate balancing act. For Kate, it’s simple: if a client insists on her personal time, she charges, in her words, “a boatload of cash.” Plus: we dive into another tricky owner decision: how to structure bonus plans that truly drive retention. David is weighing a deferred bonus approach, where payouts happen over several years. It’s a proven way to keep people around, but he wonders: Do you really want employees who’d otherwise leave to stay just for the money? Also, when valued employees get an offer, do you counter-offer? And if they leave, do you tell them they can always come back?