You have experience in your business, and the knowledge that the experience gives you makes you able to choose the right path for your potential clients and customers. You see what their needs are.
Maybe you did an analysis of what’s going on the business before you made your proposal, and you have a confident forecast of what results would be based on this or that path of action. That’s what you are being hired to do, after all: to understand the needs of a business from a different perspective that the person who runs it is going to have.
A business relationship presupposes that you are going to have that knowledge and that orientation. Ideally, that is. Of course that is not always the case.
Have you ever had a situation with a client that went bad? It’s one of those learning experiences that in the end give you a better understanding of your process and of your client’s needs, and you may or may not keep the client. What makes the difference between those two outcomes may be the way that the expectations were stated or managed.
It sometimes happens that a prospect comes into a discussion with an idea that is wildly unrealistic, and you know it, based on your own experience. Now, it’s time to educate that person before you find yourself in a position that sets both of you up for failure. YOU can save the relationship and the business by pointing out what it is about their idea that does not work. It can be tricky to do this if there’s a lot of emotion invested in the idea. If it’s already a “pet idea”, maybe the client won’t listen to you. Maybe they will conflate one process with another.
How do you overcome this? By being consistent in your professional approach. You can point out that there isn’t enough time for that promotion to be successful, it’s too late to launch it for this part of the season, or that the market they have chosen for it is the wrong one.
Set out the project in writing with clear goals and objectives. Timelines, deadlines, income targets…all of these make for a real and measurable outcome to be described and achieved.
Bringing your own knowledge of how processes actually work can go a long way toward smoothing out bad situations. Educating your clients is the best kind of service. It helps both you and them to set realistic expectations and goals that can be achieved in a timely manner.
My own experience tells me that with teamwork, everything gets better. I’m on a great team, working with a Google Expert and a veteran video producer to serve my clients in taking it all the way…Our team has the tools and knowledge to create projects that succeed for your marketing needs. We offer a variety of services for bringing your business to the top level, from online marketing, to content creation and video production.
