Practice: Money, Customers, & Growth
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash
Every business transaction has a least two parties involved. We are trained to see only one exchange: a service for a fee, a product for a payment, a signature at the bottom of an invoice. But when a client or customer walks through your door, opens your email, or books a call, Christ has quietly handed you a question He once answered with a story: And who is my neighbor?
The lawyer who asked Jesus that question wanted a boundary. He wanted to know how far his obligation reached so he could stop there. Many of us run our businesses the same way. We write policies to define exactly where our obligation ends. We price to protect ourselves. We treat difficult clients as risks to be managed rather than people to be served.
None of that is wrong on its own. Boundaries are healthy, and fair pricing is a form of justice. But if the transaction is the only lens we use, we will miss the most important thing happening in our work. The person across the table is not a revenue line. They are a neighbor, and the Good Samaritan never asked whether the man on the road was a profitable account.
Solidarity Happens at the Counter
The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives us a word for this: solidarity. In paragraph 1939, it describes solidarity as what earlier popes called “friendship” or “social charity,” a direct demand of human and Christian brotherhood. It is not an abstract policy position. It is a way of being toward others.
The Catechism is remarkably practical about where solidarity shows up. It names the distribution of goods and the payment for work (CCC 1940). It calls for solidarity between employers and employees, and between buyers and sellers in the broad economy (CCC 1941). In other words, solidarity lives in the ordinary places where money changes hands. It lives in your pricing sheet, your contracts, and your inbox.
Then comes paragraph 1942, which should stop every Catholic entrepreneur in their tracks. Solidarity is not only about material goods. It is also about spiritual goods. When we serve in a way that honors the dignity of the person in front of us, we are building something bigger than a business. We are helping, in a small way, to build the Kingdom.
That means the question is never only, “Did I deliver what was paid for?” It is also, “Did this person leave our work more whole than when he or she came?”
Your Refund Policy Is a Moral Document
Few things reveal a company’s heart faster than its refund policy. Read most of them and you will find language written by fear: no exceptions, all sales final, at our sole discretion. These policies are designed for the worst customer you can imagine, and then applied to every customer you actually have.
A neighbor-shaped policy starts somewhere else. It asks: What would be fair if I were on the other side of this? That is simply the Golden Rule applied to terms and conditions.
This does not mean giving every dollar back on demand. Your time has real value, and work already delivered deserves to be paid. Justice protects you, too. But consider a few questions as you write or revisit your terms:
- Is it clear? A policy the client cannot understand is not a policy. It is a trap.
- Is it proportional? Does it refund the portion of work not yet done, or does it keep everything regardless?
- Does it leave room for mercy? A clause such as “we will review special circumstances in good faith” costs you little and tells the client you see them as a person.
When a client in genuine hardship asks for help, a policy with room for mercy lets you say yes without abandoning your structure. You remain fair, and you remain free to be generous.
As an example, after two years running my law office, and examining our workflow, we found cancellations and rescheduling of appointments was a chronic problem. We had to set a boundary. Chasing appointments cost staff valuable time, left us with a constantly shifting calendar, and delayed work product – and payment. So…we included a $75 fee for rescheduling appointments.
We never charged it.
Clients stopped randomly and casually rescheduling – and the few times clients had true emergencies, we waived the fee. It was just enough boundary tempered with mercy.
The Difficult Client Is Still Your Neighbor
Every business owner has the difficult (“nightmare”) client. The client who sends emails at midnight. The one who changes the scope three times and still disputes the invoice. The one whose tone makes your stomach tighten before you even open the message.
It is tempting to file these people under “problem” and move on. But the man on the road to Jericho was not a pleasant encounter either. He was bloody, inconvenient, and costly. The priest and the Levite had perfectly good reasons to cross to the other side.
Loving a difficult client does not mean letting them walk over you. Charity is not the same as having no limits. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is to name a boundary clearly and kindly: “I want to serve you well, and to do that, we need to agree on scope before we go further.” Sometimes it is to end the engagement with honesty and a fair refund.
What neighbor-love changes is the posture. Before you respond, pause and ask what is going on beneath the behavior. Is this person afraid their business is failing? Have they been burned by another consultant? Are they carrying a weight at home you know nothing about?
You may still need to hold the line. But you will hold it as a neighbor, not an adversary, and that difference is often felt more than it is heard.
Who Receives Your Grace, and Why
If you run a business long enough, you will be asked to give your work away. A struggling parish ministry needs a website. A widow wants to publish her late husband’s memoir but cannot afford it. A young founder has a real calling and no capital.
The Catechism does not treat these moments as distractions from business. It treats them as part of the Christian life. Paragraphs 2443 through 2449 describe the Church’s love for the poor, and they leave little room for comfortable distance. Jesus Himself says, “Give to him who begs from you” (Matthew 5:42, cited in CCC 2443). St. Gregory the Great, quoted in CCC 2446, goes further: when we meet the needs of the poor, we are not being lavish with what is ours. We are paying a debt of justice.
For a business, almsgiving can take many shapes:
- Pro bono work for ministries, nonprofits, or individuals in genuine need.
- Generous terms, such as payment plans, sliding scales, or extended timelines, for clients who are stretched.
- Reduced rates for those discerning a vocation or starting a mission-driven venture.
But generosity needs discernment, or it becomes burnout. Decide in advance how much of your capacity you will give each year. Perhaps one pro bono client per quarter, or a fixed number of hours. A tithe of your time is as real an offering as a tithe of your income.
And remember why you give. St. Rose of Lima, quoted in CCC 2449, taught that when we serve the poor and the sick, we serve Jesus. Grace extended to a client is never wasted. It is given to Him.
You Cannot Love a Neighbor You Do Not Know
Here is where faith meets strategy. It is very hard to serve someone well if you do not know who they are. Love, by its nature, pays attention.
That is what good market research really is: the discipline of paying attention. It asks who your clients actually are, not who you imagined they would be. What keeps them up at night? What can they truly afford? Which words do they use to describe their struggles? Where have other businesses failed them?
Many entrepreneurs skip this step because it feels cold or corporate. But consider it differently. When you study the people you serve, you are learning how to love them more precisely. You learn which refund terms would actually help them. You learn which clients are likely to need grace and how to plan for it. You learn where your gifts meet their real needs, rather than where you assumed they would.
This is the primary reason while Inlight Arts has a pricing guide, we offer tailored packages so each client receives all he or she needs at a price point he or she can afford.
Without market knowledge, even our generosity can miss the mark. We give what we think people need, rather than what they do need. Knowing your neighbor is the first act of loving them.
If you are not sure who you are truly called to serve, a focused niche, brand, and competitor study is a wise place to begin. At Inlight Arts, we help Catholic creators and entrepreneurs do exactly that, so your mission and your market point in the same direction.
Go and Do Likewise
Jesus ended the parable of the Good Samaritan with four words: Go and do likewise. He did not hand the lawyer a policy. He handed him a way of seeing.
This week, try seeing your business that way. Reread your refund policy and ask whether a neighbor wrote it. Think of your most difficult client and pray for them by name. Decide, concretely, where you will offer grace this year and to whom. And take an honest look at whether you truly know the people you are called to serve.
You do not have to choose between running a sound business and living the Gospel. Solidarity is not a drain on your mission. It is your mission, carried out one invoice, one email, and one conversation at a time.
The customer in front of you is your neighbor. Serve them that way, and you may find that your work becomes not only more profitable, but more holy.
Ready to discover who you are truly called to serve? Book a free discovery call with Inlight Arts and let’s begin.