What personality trait in people raises a red flag with you?

In a previous life, I was a commercial banker. I would actively pursue a company and offer them bank accounts, lending facilities, treasury services, investments….well, you get the picture.

The people who were proud of their business, their employees and tell you the story of how it started – those were good clients. Clients who were, for the most part, good people.

The people who bragged on what they accomplished, bragged on their successes with that company and how previous companies were closed down because the employees didn’t have the vision. Now the client has people who are willing to work and go the extra mile, because there are times where they work late or overnight sometimes to get contracts met. It was all red flags for them. Those were the clients I would avoid if at all possible.

Those were the business owners who would not give anyone access to anything but then blame the employees if the taxes weren’t paid on time. I could only imagine their home life.

I was invited to meet a prospective client for lunch at the Four Seasons in Austin, TX. I met my client and his possible new business partner in the restaurant. As it was summer in Texas, it would tend to get a little warm. This is important. The prospective client, talked down to the server because she had an accent. Then he asked for a dark napkin as he had on black slacks. The server informed him that during lunch, they used white linens but she would see what she could do. The man flew off the handle over a white napkin and totally humiliated her to the point of tears and ran from the table. My cell phone “magically” got an urgent call and I had to step away to take it. I quickly called my friend who also worked for the same bank. I told her what was happening and she said, “Oh my gosh, Susan, you better get back home as soon as possible, there seems to be an amergency with your family!”

I tracked down the manger, apologized for the bad behavior and gave him a cash tip for the humiliated server, gave him my business card and asked him to email me the receipt for dinner. He swiped my card to approved more and said he would edit it from their end for the true dollar amount.

I returned to the table and shared my sad story of a family emergency and my client smiled and thanked me and that he would call later. His guest looked up at me and said so are you still paying?

So my first red flags are, excessive bragging, but failures are always someone else’s fault, humiliating those they believe are beneath them, and expecting the best because they believe they are the only ones deserving.