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Never say "no", but rarely say "yes"  

Great article and advice from Jason Cohen, about what to do if presented with the option to work with a customer who you don't believe is a great fit. Others might suggest sending those customers away, but Jason believes that you should set the price tag on "yes" high enough that you will gain some strong, very tangible benefit from serving this customer.

So the principle is easy: Set the conditions of "yes" such that:

  1. If they say "yes," you're happy because the terms or money are so good, it more than compensates for the distraction, possibly even funding the thing you really want to do.
  2. If they say "no," you're happy because it wasn't a great fit anyway, so it's not worthwhile for a small return on your time and effort.

In other words, make sure you get enough of a financial benefit out of those customers to be able to serve them, and then some.

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