As a rule, gorillas and apes typically take a peaceful approach to life, but as the trailers for the Aug. 5 “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” have demonstrated, certain events can trigger the beast, exposing the aggressive nature of the animal.

Business executives need to be prepared to deal with the occasional 900-pound gorilla, the client who likes to puff out their chest and threaten a lawsuit or other form of legal action. These hairy confrontations can be unsettling and I often hear from my clients after the distressing encounter. However, with a little legal planning and business preparation, any executive can diffuse the situation.

As the buzz for this version of the Charleton Heston classic peaks our interests, here are some things that every business owner should be pondering and discussing with their legal team:

1) How can my contracts protect me in a dispute? Your attorney will help to strengthen the language of any contract and find loopholes that could cause legal issues. Many business owners are tempted to use contracts available from online web sites. While these websites are a great resource, an attorney needs to finalize any document and ensure compliance with the specific state statutes. This is the first line of defense to keeping disputes at bay.

2) How am I documenting disputes with clients? Every business should have procedures in place for dealing with customer disputes. I have often told clients to establish a customer service policy that allows employees to quickly resolve these conflicts. Most importantly, employees should document all encounters with clients to protect themselves as well as the company. If possible, have a supervisor or colleague sign off as a witness to any encounters with upset clients. Proper documentation of client interactions can be the difference between having a long, drawn out legal battle and resolving the dispute in a timely manner.

3) When should my attorney contact clients? When clients continue to bare their teeth and not listen to reason, it is probably time to bring in the legal team. By having a customer service policy and established procedures in place, a business owner can determine when to have their lawyer contact the upset customers. In many cases, an attorney will have a standard letter prepared which addresses the legal aspects of an agreement and outlines the steps necessary to settle the dispute.

Having a client friendly customer service policy in place will easily resolve most issues with the 900-pound gorillas. Additionally, legal planning and an understanding of how your attorney can play a role in disputes will help calm down the more aggressive apes. For those clients that continue to beat their chest and bare their teeth, the problem may not lie with your company. Business owners should run a cost/benefit analysis for the time and resource investment into that customer. They should then weigh the options and consider the possibility that it may just be time to let that client go.

Jim Montgomery is the president of Montgomery and Associates, a San Antonio-based law firm.

Seth Godin repeats and reinforces the theme "content is king"

Viral growth trumps lots of faux followers

Many brands and idea promoters are in a hurry to rack up as many Facebook fans and Twitter followers as they possibly can. Hundreds of thousands if possible.

A lot of these fans and followers are faux. Sunny day friends. In one experiment I did, 200,000 followers led to 25 clickthroughs. Ouch.

Check out the graph on the left. The curves represent different ideas and different starting points. If you start with 10,000 fans and have an idea that on average nets .8 new people per generation, that means that 10,000 people will pass it on to 8000 people, and then 6400 people, etc. That's yellow on the graph. Pretty soon, it dies out.

On the other hand, if you start with 100 people (99% less!) and the idea is twice as good (1.5 net passalong) it doesn't take long before you overtake the other plan.  (the green). That's not even including the compounding of new people getting you people.

But wait! If your idea is just a little more viral, a 1.7 passalong, wow, huge results. Infinity, here we come. That's the purple (of course.)

A slightly better idea defeats a much bigger but disconnected user base every time.

The lesson: spend your time coming up with better ideas, not with more (faux) followers.

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Posted by Seth Godin on February 15, 2010 | Permalink

Just a reminder, the M3 is in just a few HOURS!!!

850+ RSVPs

Parking will be available in several different ways:
@ the old (closed) YMCA across the lot (free)
@ the church across the river (free)
@ any available parking meter (free after 6pm -- should not cost more than $.50 if before)
@ valet
@ self park within hotel (nominal fee)

GET THERE EARLY!!!!

With almost 400 RSVPs on Facebook & another 450+ plus through our extensive mailing list, we're expecting a large crowd, you don't want to get there late!

El Tropicano Hotel (Lexington & St. Mary's -- also called the Holiday Inn)
5:30p (you may arrive earlier)
Business Professional Attire

This is the business mixer you can't afford to miss!

Networking is big in San Antonio. We are a real people to people business community. Here is a calendar to keep you up to date on opportunities every single day.