Sunday, November 06, 2011

The Unprofessional Businessman

I'm still looking for ways to talk about money with people I like without it being awkward. In my experience, money is the biggest enemy to any kind of relationship, because relationships are built on trust, and somehow the emblem of trust in our world is money. If you can trust someone with your money, you can trust him on anything.

When a family member borrows money from you and you need to know when they can pay you back, it can get very delicate. You don't want to come across as insistent and pesky, but at the same time you need to know that you're going to get that money back. And you don't want this money thing to make things awkward because after all, these are the people you've known for a long time and probably will keep on bumping into for the rest of your life.

It's funny how the very mention of money can turn everything sticky.

I have a friend who asked me to translate his website from English to French for a fee, and he asked me to name my price. I've done translating jobs before, so the translating part is not a problem. But it's the first time I'm doing it for a friend and I have never established any 'friends and family' rates. Of course, I can keep it strictly professional and just name my normal price, but then I'm afraid that the moment money is being factored into a friendship, it's forever ruined.

It is definitely very naive of me to think so, but I owe it to the child inside me who still thinks that a real friend is someone who would help you out unconditionally without expecting anything in return. It's a dog eat dog world out there, and I'm not going to get far with this kind of naivete. But somehow I wish I wouldn't change.

So my question of the day is: How do you negotiate business deals with friends or family?

1 comment:

R'ain said...

Since he's already asking, i think no harm will be done if you name your price. Like, "I usually take bla bla bla for bla bla bla. Is that ok for you?".

Ah well, that comes from someone who never said that. Luckily, my friends are kind enough to pay me with whatever they have. Good enough for me.

Good luck. ^^