Do you qualify your offline clients?

If youre just marketing for them then its down to the client to do the checking (though any testimonials will help) , as long as youre not actually recommending them then theres no comeback on you if their service is poor .

From my own point of view I pre qualify prospects to check they can afford me upfront, they are forward thinking enough to take things further so theyre longer term clients and they have a certain level of turnover/ profits in place already to build on

ABSOLUTELY.

When I first started, I generated business for a lawyer... lots of business... as time went on, I found out that he was a total sham.

I felt horrible, as I had sold people like my step uncle, and several of my friends and friends family into his practice - all of which ended up losing their money and several of which lost their homes (myself included) into this guys racket.

He's received several BAR complaints, FTC complaints, etc. and I even set up a review site specifically for him where he's received over 70 negative reviews from people telling similar stories... but he's slimy enough that he has been able to tie everything up in court and it has proven quite difficult to actually prosecute him. When I stopped working for him he had taken in just shy of 3 million dollars and hadn't performed on any of the contracts that he had established.

Short answer, ABSOLUTELY qualify your clients.

As you can imagine, in my case, MY reputation was just as much on the line as the person I was helping and it DID do damage to my ability to be credible.

I don't "background check" them--if that's what you mean--but in the course of my initial analysis of their business, I would definitely notice red flags.

Thanks to technology these days, a business that makes a habit of screwing people is pretty easy to pick up on.

Lack of testimonials, negative feedback online in various places, etc.

But throughout my life, I've found that I have a great ability to just "read" people, and I can usually tell (even in a first meeting) whether I get a "bad vibe" from someone.

Cheers,

~Dexx

I think it's quite necessary to pre-qualify your potential clients. You should have them fill out a long list of pre-qualification questions before you even get started with someone. It's almost like having them apply for a job, but the end result is a client without alot of hassle and bull.

I do a fair amount of checking on the internet for reviews, bad press etc and I never take on a client without talking to them and preferably meeting them.

That way by having a fairly lengthy conversation with them you can usually determine what there motives are and whether they have integrity etc.

One of the nice things about living in a relatively small area (180K or so with about 85K in the city) is the ability to qualify by asking your network. Almost all of my business is word of mouth, so customers come prequalified so to speak.

The only time I got burned for about $18K was when I used someone from out of town on the recommendation of a friend. Expensive lesson, but I did learn!

Marvin