Stop Treating Clients Like This

If there is one thing that I consistently see killing agency owners’ productivity, it would be client headaches.

But 9 times out of 10 the reason the client headaches show up, is actually because of how you treat the client in the first place:

• Begging for their business

• Agreeing with everything they say

• Apologising profusely if something goes wrong

• Replying within 10 seconds whenever they message you

• Being open to negotiating on price and getting paid late all the time

The reason all of these things kill you is because it makes the client look down on you, and it sets the expectation that you will do anything just to keep them as a client (which looks desperate).

When that expectation is set your client will see you as ‘lower status’ which means they’ll pay you when they feel like it and churn whenever makes sense for them.

Basically - they will push you around.

Even worse, you will have a very short ‘leash’ to make mistakes, meaning if you mess up, you are definitely screwed and you will get a bad review.

This happened to me as a beginner, and I didn’t realise what I was doing until a client got annoyed at me for not replying to a text on a Saturday.

I was thinking:

“Piss off, it’s a Saturday and you messaged me at 10pm.”

But then I realised they were only annoyed because I would usually reply to them whenever they messaged me (even if it was a bad time).

→ It was my fault, because I set the expectation that they could treat me that way.

I had set the expectation that I would do pretty much anything for their business.

To be fair, it was a 5 figure per month retainer, but it was a dreadful experience.

That doesn’t mean you should try and be completely nonchalant or focus purely on status games (which is cringe) but you definitely have to avoid pedestalizing the client, even on accident.

There is a very fine balance between great service and just being your client’s b*tch.

But if you ask me, the worst thing you could do is be beholden to your client’s every word, or feel like if you don’t do XYZ thing right now then you’ll lose their business.

That is a terrible and low leverage position to be put in. You should be so focused on growing your business and have such a fat pipeline that if the client left, it wouldn’t matter.

If you make a mistake:

DON’T:

→ Apologise profusely and act like you are sorry you even exist

DO:

→ Briefly apologise, tell them it won’t happen again, and give them a plan on how you’ll fix it.

It is really simple, just don’t act like you are craving validation from them (which is what most agency owners do).

That is the real problem.

You should treat your clients as if they are one person of many who are in your book of business.

Yes they are valued, but they are also expendable, and it is not worth your time and mental bandwidth to be ‘putting out fires’ all day.

If they are a headache client, get rid of them. Trust me it’s not worth the 3k.

To finish up, the best client management guide I have ever seen was made by Jim Donovan, the Managing Partner of Goldman Sachs.

You should check it out and share it with your team (link).

If you ever have questions about how to treat a client, just act like Jim Donovan.

→ Ask yourself “what would Jim Donovan do?”

Then do that.

It’s likely that Jim Donovan would be very accomodating to a reasonable client who is being respectful. But it’s also likely that he would remove any dickhead clients from the company immediately.

Hope that helps.

Arriverderci.