# A filter for long-term trust

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# A filter for long-term trust

Restored from Instagram stories · 24 August 2026

dfren is one of z’s vendor. good people tbh.

and this is a great filter to work with people with whom you can built long term trust.

the issue with getting any customer is, that you’ll actually spend on acquisition and it’s called a customer acquisition cost? the difficulty with most service businesses is - you’ll only calculate the costs that are associated with business outreach but not necessarily the costs of engagement.

engagement costs are hidden and unless you’re doing white glove high end consulting, it’s difficult to bill that.

so, this will allow you to calculate engagement costs.

the com with the idea is that there are a lot of freeloaders. so how will you filter them from noise and only funnel the people who’ve the capacity to work with?

the first month is free? good.

but make it a minimum three month commitment. they pay for month 2 and 3 upfront when they start the engagement with you.

if they don’t like it in the first 30 days, you refund the payment for 2 and 3. no questions asked.

if all good, at the end of three months, they commit to an annual contract either billed monthly or yearly.

filters out bad clientele, keeps you hooked so that you give the best service. derisks it for the client too since they can get a refund at the end of the first month.

but this works when your payable for month 2 and 3 (the total amount for the three months engagement minus the first month) is less than the monthly payroll of what they’d pay for a junior hire of similar competence on payroll.

let’s assume you charge 25k/mo, your total costs for three months is 50k/mo which is less than any one monthly payroll of single/multiple person(s) they’d hire to do that same job.

they’ll view it as a derisked bet they’re willing to put on - which even if you don’t refund is easy for them to write-off

business always fear risks and are willing to bet on. they’re always willing to bet on.

just make it easy for them to gulp it down and the damage easy to absorb if you fail (even though you should be optimistic you won’t be)

and you’ll always have business to do with people.

i forgot to address the engagement costs. now that you know the engagement costs, you know what you’re true cost to acquire a client.

this is the hard part.

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