You might not even notice you’re doing it — the way you talk about yourself with the last company. The small disclaimers. The apologies for choices you made with your own money.
An antenna installer told us about his previous web company and two things came out that he probably didn’t think twice about. The first: “As an aside, I chose the cheapest plan they offered.” Said like a confession — as if picking the cheapest plan was some sort of negative, something that should bring you down. The second: “I didn’t take any of the add-ons they tried to get me to do.” Same energy. Same quiet defensiveness.
Those aren’t complaints. Those are tells. It was clear he’d been treated as a customer based on how he spoke about his role in everything — like a second class citizen explaining why he didn’t spend more.
That’s what being a customer sounds like. Not angry. Not wronged. Just… small.
The Word We Correct Every Time
If anyone at Yeet says “customer,” they’re immediately corrected. Internally, every time. Not because it’s a branding exercise — because the word changes the relationship.
Customer implies going to Walmart and buying some hair products. You walk in, you grab something off the shelf, you leave. No one remembers you were there.
Client implies going to Nordstrom and buying a matching leather belt to go with your suit and shoes that match the belt. It’s the level of care that Nordstrom’s rep takes — they’re not watching you browse. They’re building something with you and that transparency is important.
Client matters to us. That word. It’s critical in everything that we do.
The antenna installer didn’t know the difference until the call shifted. We described our pricing and said the one thing his last company never did:
It doesn’t matter what you choose — we want what’s best for you.
Not what’s best for the invoice. Not what upsells the most. What’s best for you.
That’s when the tone changed. Not because we gave a speech about it. Because the word was already in the room and he could feel it.
Some People Want to Be Customers
Some people want to be customers of web companies. They don’t want to be clients of companies like us. That’s a real thing — certain people just want transactions in their life. They don’t want any additional relationships because they’re a closed-off kind of person.
That’s fine. We’d help someone like that. The relationship would be different — we wouldn’t say “hey buddy” or anything like that, we’d keep it very formal. No problem with that. It’s just interesting that someone would want that kind of relationship. And we’d respect it.
But this post isn’t for that person. This post is for the one who read that antenna installer’s story and recognized the feeling — the small disclaimers, the quiet apologies for spending decisions that were yours to make. If that sounded familiar, it’s because you’ve been a customer somewhere that should have made you a client. It’s the difference between fear based and confidence based selling.
Good companies are finite. If you look at restaurants, you know the good ones, you know the mediocre ones, and you know the bad ones. All the fast food joints are the bad ones — we don’t care, even In-N-Out. Everyone in California is going to be upset we said that. But it’s still fast food. It’s not a home cooked meal.
Good companies are finite. We put ourselves in that finite category. And in that category, the word is client.