As a creative, How to work with difficult clients?
Looking to make money as a Creative?
In any business you're going to come across obstacles and perhaps difficult clients. Let’s talk about ways to identify and overcome these experiences?
1. Build your Brand & Value
Companies & corporations don’t chase clients. They build their brand and value to attract a target audience. The same should go for you, Don’t chase the bag, attract the bag. As a creative or small business this should be the first focal point.
Attract the kind of consumer you WANT instead of chasing the kind of customer you think you NEED.
Build yourself, get great at what you're doing, and market yourself to your target audience. Everything else will fall into place.
2. Realize that People Spend $ on What They Value
Do you have the friend that saved up money for that designer belt or designer purse? but they don’t have life insurance?
Yea we all know that person. You might be that person, No judgement here. Point is…
Everyone has money, some type of money. we all have to eat, travel to work everyday, we all have to have a place to live. Everyone has some type of money. It’s just how we prioritize our money. When a person is hesitate about spending money for your service or product they simply don't see 100% value in your product or service yet.
We go to Walgreens and Starbucks everyday and give strangers our debit cards without hesitation. We trust banks full of strangers with our hard earn money with no hesitation. But then when it comes to you they don't want to pay that invoice? They don’t want to swipe their card on your card reader? Why is that?… Value. We see the value in these different companies. But going back to building your brand, when you build your brand it raises your value. Attracting the customers that have faith in you. These are the customers that we want to sustain a relationship with.
3. Don't Enable Difficult Clients
The last thing you want to do is make a bad situation worst.
This would be an example of enabling a person. Let’s say we have a customer inquiring, but is still hesitant about your rate. Then you turn around and offer that person a discount to conclude the sale. You allowed the client to dictate the narrative and you enable them for future business. I know we hear the phase "The customer is always right" but is the customer always right? Don’t operate out of a sense of desperation, even if you are in a desperate state. Operate from a place of abundance. Ultimately you’ll end up making better decisions.
Taking on the 1 or 2 clients that was a pleasure to work with is better than the 5 or 6 clients that were a headache.
In Conclusion
At the end of the day you just have to ask yourself who are you ? And who are you looking to become?
Step 1 for me is so important. It sets a smoother stream flow for everything else. Ultimately bringing your business or service the clientele you deserve.
