This year saw Sumac maintain last year’s performance in testing economic times. Generally there have been a few sticky moments and the first consequence of recession related stress seems to be lack of communication – emails ignored, phone calls not returned – which can really damage relationships.
Unfortunately some of our clients seem to have used the recession as an excuse for some very bad behaviour. One client went under owing us money having stalled and stalled on settling invoices for many months only to resurface doing business under the same name, with the same clients as if nothing had happened. I rather naively agreed to carry on working with them in the belief it was the best way to recoup our losses. However, at the first opportunity they delayed payment on an invoice and it was game-over.
Another claimed the recession in the property sector was the cause of their non-payment. It later materialised that they had made a business decision not to pay us because the website wasn’t bringing them the revenue they had hoped. This was after they had completely neglected their site, adding no content and refusing to allow us to review the site after launch. We offered a 25% discount and said farewell.
Despite these lessons we are determined to keep doing business the way we feel it should be done.