Do You Hold Your Clients Up to High Standards
Posted by Liz Strauss · 10 Comments
If you’re an entrepreneur, working with clients, it’s easy to think that a client who shows up with work, knows what he or she wants, and pays on time is great to have. But is that enough?
What are the characteristics of clients and colleagues that get you jazzed about what you’re doing?
What are the traits that they have that bring you down in the dumps?
Do you do your best work when a client is boring?
How do you feel about clients who constantly interrupt?
Are there clients who waste your time with insignificant detials or inappropriate gossip?
Think of the impact the traits of your clients are having on the quality of the work you do.
When the job is over, it’s the work that lasts. The work that you did becomes your reputation. The work that you’re doing affects your attitude which affects the other clients you have.
Choose your clients wisely, the way you would choose the folks that you hire. The best clients will bring out the best work you can do which will attract more of the best clients.
Liz Strauss
Behind every Successful business there is an Outstanding manager. – Perfect Virtual Manager
I’m finally starting to realize that holding my clients to a high standard, just as they hold me to a high standard, is something I need to be doing more of.
I haven’t been working for my self very long, so up to this point, I have been happy just to see work coming my way. This weekend, I turned down my first project. It just didn’t “feel” right to me. Whether this feeling was correct or not, it was empowering.
I’ve currently got another project I’m working on that I wish I had turned down. The client is constantly asking for more, and sending me messages about inconsequential details. Now that I’ve found my new power, I’ll be able to better deal with clients like this in the future.
Hi Brandon!
That’s it exactly. We often don’t realize our own value, especially when we first start. I’m not talking about pumping ourselves up. I’m talking about thinking ourselves down.
If we’re focused and know what we’re doing, we have a right to expect good behavior. That’s good buisness and brings out our best traits!
YEA!! for you. I think that clients will feel more comfortable with a guy who knows what he wants in a client.
Hi Liz, Brandon
I feel most happy with my customers (clients? what’s the difference, is there a difference? side-line: our parking spot is sign-posted: customer parking; our neighbours’ client-parking, he’s an accountant) who start or re-act on ‘the conversation’: getting to known each other and each others needs – ‘benefits’.
But do agree that you must be able (must feel able) to ’sack’ customers. And sorry to link to my onw blog again where in October last year I quoted Dr Denis Waitley on this subject:
http://www.thekissbusiness.co.uk/2006/10/chasing_money_o.html
Says it all and I can’t put it into words as well as that anyway
Good morning, Karin!
Customers? Clients? Stakeholders? Shareholders? I like all those words as long as they recognize a person is at the at the other end of them.
What a great link you left! I don’t blame you for not wanting to rewrite it. There’s no point in restating what someone has said well.
Bad customers make for bad business. I’m with you on that.
Chemistry is everything. What’s weird, I can’t articulate how or why I connect with certain clients and not others. (No different with friends, for that matter.) I work with all kinds of folks–younger, older, the detail-obsessed, big picture types, whatever. It’s very mysterious.
I am often hired by individuals to critique large writing projects — a series of smaller pieces, or chapters of a book delivered weekly, or some such. The parameters of these arrangements are defined as individual editing sessions…when you send me work and I sit down to critique and/or edit it, I turn on the clock. When I’m done, I turn off the clock.
What sometimes happens is that I get daily e-mails that are essentially appeals for emotional reassurance and hand-holding. In the worst cases, the e-mails are an attempt to initiate some kind of quasi-therapy session. This is off the clock, of course, and I know these people would be upset if I said that I needed to start billing them for the time because I’m spending 1 to 2 hours a day responding just to their e-mails. I do the best I can to deflect: I refer them to sites or books that they can read daily for that sustenance and reassurance they’re seeking. But the deflections don’t always work, and I wind up drained by either giving them what they’re looking for or trying to find a way to diplomatically keep things in check.
For these kinds of projects alone, I’ve taken to doing tightly defined trial periods. It’s been effective at determining whether a prospect is going to be easy to work with, or is going to be demanding and draining. It’s also a good way to find out if there’s simple chemistry between me and a prospect, or if we just don’t connect.
Hi Brad,
I bet they all have the same sense of what makes work work and play play as you do.
Hi Whitmey,
Some folks need an occasional hand holding, Some folks need a hand for a bit at every session. Some folks are outright needy. The last bunch are the ones who I have a problem with. They wear and take my energy. I end up with nothing left to give them. The first two groups brighten up and give back. Not the last one.
Liz, you’ve categorized the groups nicely. I’m happy to provide occasional handholding — everyone needs it once in a while, especially when they’re venturing into new territory. Some need some extra encouragement at the beginning of a meeting in order to settle in and fully participate in the conversation. And you are right — they do in time contribute their own invigorating, creative energy. These groups are the majority that I’ve worked with.
The handful (literally) of outright needy folks were enough to teach me some valuable business lessons. Especially when I realized that I was not only being drained of energy to give THEM but that I was also being drained of energy to give my OTHER clients. I have the names of several counterparts who are willing to work with the outright needy — they’re good at it and they give their clients exactly what they’re needing. I also have a long list of excellent workshops, conferences, and online courses that I recommend, because I’m reasonably certain that these clients will find in those learning experiences the confidence that they’re wanting to find. At least I can walk away knowing that I’m not leaving the client empty-handed.