Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
EP 24: Tips on How to Manage Client Expectations
80 Plays10 months ago
This week, Lindsay and Betsy are providing a few tips on how to work through managing client expectations as a freelancer and service provider.
As two self-proclaimed people pleasers, you'll hear us share anecdotes on what has worked (or not worked) for us as we have navigated managing clients' expectations in our respective businesses. We also walk through solutions for how to keep the misalignment of expectations at a minimum and ways you can communicate with your clients to help reassure your authority as their hired marketing expert.
This episode is excellent for anyone experiencing a rough patch with an existing client, unsure about how to set expectations on future planning with a potential client, or if you are looking for insight on how to have a direct conversation about goals to limit confusion in the process for the business owner.
Follow The Business Playdate online & come say hi!
- The Business Playdate Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebusinessplaydate/
- Lindsay White's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lindsaywhite.co/
- Betsy Moorehead's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/betsymoorehead.biz/
- Learn more about Lindsay's marketing program here: https://lindsaywhite.co/
- Learn more about Betsy's marketing services here: https://betsymoorehead.com/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Background
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Business Playdate, a podcast hosted by Lindsay White and Betsy Moorehead, two internet strangers turned business besties. We're two marketing professionals living across the country, raising our kiddos while running our own individual businesses. We built these businesses based on our experiences working in corporate management roles with the end goal to be able to show up for our families first. And we did it. We're so happy you're here with us. Now let's get into this week's episode.
Casual Chat and Brainstorming
00:00:30
Speaker
Hey, guys. Welcome back to the Business Playdate. We are so excited for another episode. We are. Betsy and I just spent, what, like an hour just sitting here chatting. We did. Part therapy, part fun. It was nothing that needed to be recorded, but it needed to be set. Exactly. Exactly.
00:00:52
Speaker
We made a little, a little progress on our brainstorm for the future of the business play date. So I mean, that was productive. Yeah, I think we did. That was really good. Um, it is so funny though, cause the whole time I was thinking like, Oh, we should start recording. We should start recording. We should start recording. And I was like, Nope, Nope. We're not, we're not recording this conversations, but we're here now and we have a really good topic we're going to talk about today. Yeah, I know. But before we jump in, I know we just caught up for an hour, but like, you know, anything else?
Anecdotes and Humor
00:01:22
Speaker
What's going on? What's going on? So for Lila's birthday, my, my best friend is very, like, she's an outdoor person. She, like, loves to garden and she loves, like, that kind of stuff. So she always gets the kids, like, outdoor things for gifts. She got Lila a butterfly garden for, or like a butterfly hatching. Yes. Which I've done. I've done one before I did it when Asher was like about two. And so we have this butterfly garden and when I got it, I, it came with like these little,
00:01:51
Speaker
Tupperwares of caterpillars, catacore food in them. And last time I did this, I bought milkweed plants and it came with caterpillars on it. So this was like really little caterpillars and we- The way you say caterpillars is, I don't know if it's just I'm not used to hearing that word, but it's really cute. Is it? Yes. That's so funny. I can't say it again now. I can't. Caterpillars. That's how I say it. Okay, keep going.
00:02:16
Speaker
the caterpillar. We had like 10 of them. And they've I've been waiting for them to hatch into butterflies, right? And so they finally started hatching into butterflies like two or three days ago. And I've been waiting to let them go because I'm sick of these damn caterpillars. And they've I when I when we got them, I didn't know what to do with it. It was like in the middle of opening all of Lila's gifts. And so I just took them and there's only really like one place in our house that's kind of
00:02:42
Speaker
bright and sunny where I could place them on a table and it would be a good spot for them. And that was my office. So I just placed them on my desk and then I'm like, oh, well now this is their habitat. And I've been sharing my desk with these caterpillars for so long. And I'm like, I need them to hatch. I need them out. I can't have these caterpillars anymore. So they finally have turned into butterflies. And yesterday I was still waiting on two more to hatch
00:03:05
Speaker
And we finally have all 10 butterflies out today. I'm so excited because we're going to go let them out into the wild. Oh, she's going to love that. It's going to be so fun. And I'm very excited. They won't eat any of the food that I made for them. It's like a mesh little thing that they come in, right? Because they're caterpillars. They come as caterpillars and then they make their chrysalis. Oh my gosh. We're going to have to put the split up.
00:03:31
Speaker
Look at all those. Are they monarchs? What kind of butterflies are? No, those are monarchs. Are they? I don't know. I couldn't tell you. We need a butterfly expert. Well, I think the box of painted ladies, but when they open their wings, they look like straight up monarchs. Yeah. So they came as caterpillars, then they make their chrysalis. And then they, gosh, what is it? A beautiful butterfly. What is that? I don't know. What is that movie? Oh, my gosh.
00:03:58
Speaker
It's a bug's life when he was like, oh, I'm a beautiful butterfly. Maybe I should watch that with the kids tonight. That could be fun. That would be really cute. Yes, because the big fat caterpillar becomes a beautiful butterfly. I know I've now said that so many times, but I think it's a bug's life. Yeah, I think it's a bug's life. I'll report back. I'll report back. So fun. Yeah, I've been raising some butterflies. It's fine. I'm a zoologist now.
00:04:23
Speaker
I'm excited about releasing these butterflies. I know. I made them some little sugar water flower food and they're not eating any of it. They're much like my own children. They don't eat anything that I make for them. Assholes. Is it a me thing? It must be a me thing at this point. Did you put enough sugar in the water? Did it come out of a wrapper? Is it a carb?
00:04:51
Speaker
Oh my gosh, that's so fun. I'm like the little butterflies have probably brought you some joy. And besides like, just, you know, I will say like they are, they're nice to have here, but like I'll do client calls and all of a sudden like a butterfly will flutter and I'm like, Oh, what's going on? Actually, when we were catching up earlier, I noticed you kind of looking off to the side a little bit. I thought you were looking out the window. I could have been looking out the window or I could have been looking at the butterflies. You just never know. How funny. I love that. Lila's going to be so excited.
00:05:19
Speaker
She will. She's going to love it. It's going to be so fun. Ashra might love it more than her, but we'll see. Of course. Yeah. Yeah.
Managing Client Expectations
00:05:26
Speaker
Well, so fun. Well, what are we talking about today? This is a fun one. We are talking about client expectations and managing them. That's a doozy. That's a big one. This is a topic that could be a couple episodes at some point. It could.
00:05:44
Speaker
I think that we all have a lot of, I mean, in any service provider business, you're managing a lot of client expectations. Like I constantly feel like that's, I mean, really that's the main part of my job, especially because I pull in team members to do deliverable work, but I'm constantly managing client expectations. And I think at this point, that's actually one of my strongest skill sets is managing people.
00:06:12
Speaker
But there's a lot of intricacies that go into it and it can be really difficult at times. Yeah. Especially like I sometimes have a hard time managing other sex or not managing other people's expectations, but like not being a people pleaser when I'm like, no, I'm the authority here. Like I know I do know what I'm talking about, but like,
00:06:35
Speaker
you know, getting that, relaying that to a client who they, their bottom line is what they care about, you know, their business and making, not spending money where they don't need to be, or, you know, not making money and all that stuff. So, um, no, this is a great topic. I think we both probably have some anecdotes and like situations that we've been in. Um, you know, I'm sure anyone listening, if like,
00:06:56
Speaker
you work with a client. You have to be a people person to some extent and you have to know how to manage people. And I think being a leader and coming from the corporate world like we did, I was not only managing a team of people because I was a director and I had like a whole department I was managing. So I was managing people, but then I was also managing like
00:07:17
Speaker
managing up a little bit, because sometimes you have to like manage expectations with your boss or manage. And that's kind of how I think about client expectations is like managing up a little bit, like, okay, like you've hired me to come do a job. Let me like, let me do it. Let me do it. But let me like help set the table to make sure we're both comfortable here a little bit more. Yeah. And I think too, I mean, he,
00:07:42
Speaker
I love the way you said like trying not to be a people pleaser. I think that's one of the things that's been the hardest for me in this category is learning how to overcome my people pleaser personality. If you figure that out, please let me know. I definitely have gotten a lot better at it. And I think a lot of it comes down to like being comfortable stepping into this authority type of space and also being comfortable
00:08:09
Speaker
being like, Hey, I'm the expert you hired. This is what I recommend. This is what I see work time and time again for my clients. This is what I would recommend you move forward with. Yeah. This is just, you know, this is a topic that comes up. It's a scenario that happens, especially like when you're working with business owners who, again, this is their livelihood and they they're bringing us in as the experts. So, um, speaking of that, you know, one thing that I've dealt with recently is like really making sure
00:08:39
Speaker
that my clients know that I'm the authority and what they've brought me in to do. And, you know, in this instance, right? It's like, you've brought me in to kind of help manage all of your ads, your paid media. And, you know, I have had an example with a client before where they're maybe seeing organic stuff and like vanity metrics when it comes to their competition and the people that like they want
00:09:07
Speaker
they're questioning why is X, Y, and Z's stuff getting all these likes and shares and comments and our stuff isn't. It's really hard to try to explain the dynamic of
00:09:27
Speaker
how the organic world works versus all the metrics behind the scene and what the KPIs are for the paid world. And you know, when we set a strategy and we talk through it and we decide together, here are the KPIs. These are the things that we are going to be tracking on a monthly, daily, weekly, whatever basis.
00:09:48
Speaker
To make sure that we're heading to reach these goals that we've set out in your marketing strategy. This is your business goal to get this business goal. We're going to do this marketing. We're going to reach this marketing goal with these tactics, with this full strategy in place. And part of that being paid media, you know, to get people to your website, not necessarily to like, like, and comment and engage with all of your stuff.
00:10:14
Speaker
That's an organic strategy, right? That should be, yeah, that's great. That's something we want to aim for. We want to try to put out content that's engaging. We want to get it in front of the right people. And we're doing that with pay, but we're optimizing it in a certain way. So one of the things that I try to do is when I notice these
00:10:34
Speaker
shiny object syndrome moments come up, I'm like, okay, let's just step back for a minute. Let's look at what our goals have been. Let's look at where we're trying to reach. What are the things that we talked about three months ago that we've decided this is our focus for the quarter? Let's step back. Let's make sure, okay, is this still what we want to be doing?
Refocusing on Core Goals
00:10:55
Speaker
Is this still what makes the most sense to reach your in-business goal?
00:10:58
Speaker
And if the answer is no, then we will adjust the strategy. But we don't, we, what the last thing we need to do is blame the agreed upon direction. Yeah. With, you know, what is maybe not happening right now. And so it's always good to just like take a pause, step back and like walk your client through the process again and say, here's what we talked about. Are these still the things that you want to have happen?
00:11:28
Speaker
I think that this makes the most sense as the marketing expert that you've hired to bring in, to help reach X, Y, and Z goal. But if that's not what you feel like is necessary right now at this time of year, you know, your business best, you know, your industry best, then let's reevaluate. Let's, let's look at the strategy. Let's look at everything again, but.
00:11:52
Speaker
I know we've had a whole episode about vanity metrics. I was just pulling up to see that's episode number nine. If this is resonating with you and you're like, oh my gosh, I need to know more about vanity metrics and what that means and what that is, go listen to episode number nine. Yes. I run into that often with some of my clients, especially because what we're doing is on social media with them. We're running paid social media ads.
00:12:20
Speaker
You know, I even see sponsored ads and posts and stuff and I'm like, damn, how are they getting like this? Like, how is this getting all this engagement, all this stuff? And I'm thinking, this is a little boutique, like, you know, or this is a little brand, but then- You also don't know how long that ad has been running, the money that's been put into it. You don't know. And so- And I think that that's one of those things with clients, especially when they
00:12:45
Speaker
clients do really tend to cling to vanity metrics, especially if they're in a spot of like, they're not hitting their numbers, right? They're not where they want to be at this point in the year. They're trying to find the problem. They're trying to find the problem. Yes. And they are going to cling to vanity metrics. And I mean, that's why I think it's so important, like having a strategy in place for whatever you're doing for them as a service writer, whether it's social media, or it's marketing as a whole, or it's advertising, or it's
00:13:11
Speaker
website, like I don't care what you are doing. It's blog posting, like just writing blog posts. Like you should have some sort of intensive first strategy in place with them where you've created a strategy with them, or they have had a strategy created that you are helping implement so that you can go back to like when they're like, Hey, like, why am I not getting the kind of likes that this competitor is getting? Go back to their strategy and say, Hey, this is what we have written down. This is what we're following. Is this accurate? Yeah.
00:13:40
Speaker
Does this still make sense for you? Ground them. You got to ground the client, bring them back to earth because it's so easy. They're business owners. Our businesses are our lifeline. They're our livelihood. They're a baby. And so it's easy to get heightened.
00:13:58
Speaker
Yeah. How easy it was to get heightened when you had new boards. I know, you know, they're overstimulated. They're like, that's the, that's the, they're looking for what could be the cause. What could be the reason, you know, I've had another client come to me and say, Hey, we had like a really off day in sales yesterday.
00:14:17
Speaker
It's what I get it. One day of bad sales could just make you want to burn it down. And I want to be like, okay, but let's, let's take a step back. Let's look at your quarter as a whole, your month as a whole, you know, like your week to date as a whole, like that one day sucked.
00:14:34
Speaker
But it may, it can't, it may not derail your entire month, your entire year,
Addressing Client Concerns
00:14:39
Speaker
your entire season. So we can't just change our whole strategy for one bad day of sales. And when I kind of have sat down and said, Hey, okay, let's ground the situation. Let's look at where we're at.
00:14:54
Speaker
Uh, you know, I usually will get met with that's right. Like, I know you know what you're doing. It's just, we need to fit, you know, like, I know you know what you're doing. I brought you in for a reason. Thank you for like walking me through this. Let's keep going down the path we are and maybe make a few tweaks here and there over the next couple of weeks. And so there's always, it always like kind of brings us back down to earth a little bit on like.
00:15:17
Speaker
We're going to be fine, but if we need to make some changes, we can. Let's just not derail the entire thing we've been working on for. Right. Exactly. Do you see me dodging the sun over here? I do, poor. I really need to get one of my treatments in my office. Being able to be confident in that authority that they hired you to be. I think that's oftentimes too, it's such a delicate balance of
00:15:47
Speaker
giving the client what they want, but also giving them what they need to say that all the time. And I love that. I mean, that's the whole thing with managing client relationships is like they came to you for a reason. They know they need an expert. They know they need, they know they need advertising. They, that's what's going to help get them to that next level in their business. So they came to you. You need to give them advertising because that's what they hired you to do.
00:16:17
Speaker
but you also know that they need organic reach or papers. You know what the strategy needs to be. And so you can deliver them on a platter, you know, everything that they need. Yeah. Yeah.
00:16:30
Speaker
That's why I think the Intensive First just makes the most sense. I know we talk about it all the time, but if you're jumping in with the client and they need one piece of the puzzle and they don't have a strategy in place, which I'm very guilty of working with people like this and I need to
00:16:48
Speaker
pull back and say, and I find myself wanting to get involved in all these other areas of their marketing. I'm like, but they're just paying me to run their ads. I need to keep my mouth shut. And that's really hard, right? It's hard. It's so hard. And I think too, I mean, that also comes to they might need other areas of marketing and they don't necessarily want that.
00:17:07
Speaker
But you know, as their expert, like, Hey, this is a good area to jump into. I like to do the quarterly like strategy review meetings. And so funny because I think that we're going to talk about kind of like misalignment, right? When it comes to clients and how sometimes there can be a misalignment. And I can always tell when things like when it's not going to be a good relationship, when clients are not prioritizing that quarterly review meeting.
00:17:36
Speaker
Yeah. Because it's like this show of they don't value you as the authority. Their wants are beating out the needs that they actually have. Right. And there's just going to be a huge misalignment between whoever they hire, not just you, but whoever they hire in that role because
00:18:00
Speaker
their wants are beating out what they actually need to be doing to hit that next level of whatever their goals might be. Yeah. No, I totally agree. And that's such a struggle. Oh, it's such a struggle. I mean, have you had situations where you've been unaligned with a client from that perspective? Yes, but not to the point where it's like
00:18:23
Speaker
led to us no longer working together. I've definitely broken up with clients for reasons like that. I've had a couple of clients and I do think that a lot of times, especially with the way that I work with clients is
00:18:45
Speaker
we have a strategy in place and we do the strategy and we hit these goals. And it's like the more success they see, they kind of feel like they're in a good spot. And so they're like, oh, we can back that a little bit. Like we don't need to be focusing so much on marketing because it's costing us money and it's costing us money. And so I feel like we should just pump the brakes a little bit. Like we've gotten into really good, but we have a email strategy in place. We have a social strategy in place. We have,
00:19:12
Speaker
like a conference strategy or whatever. And then it's like, oh, we can pause. We're in a good feng shui. And it's like, okay, let's see how the pause goes. And every time they come back, they come back because they realize that it doesn't, you have to keep actively working on it. It's like a marriage. You have to constantly be working on it. You have to constantly be giving effort into it.
00:19:38
Speaker
Um, and so oftentimes, I mean, there's definitely times where I've had a misalignment with a client.
Ending Client Relationships
00:19:43
Speaker
I'm like, Hey, I, you know, I think that it might be best if we part ways because, and it always comes down to like, Hey, you're, you're overpaying me for what you want me to be doing. You know, if I are, my agency's value is so much, we can do so much. And when you're paying to work with us, like you should be using all of our strategies. You should be.
00:20:05
Speaker
using us as your thought leader. And when things start to drop off and clients are like, Oh no, I just want the shiny objects. It's like, Hey, we don't work like that. Yes. I know that's so hard. It's so hard. And it's like, I don't want, but I can't
00:20:21
Speaker
faithfully accept someone's money if I'm going to be doing something that I know is not going to hit their goals. Yeah. It's so funny because I haven't had that situation, but I have had situations where they're paying me and I'm doing the work, but I kind of am like, they don't really care about this much detail. They just are like, cool, if the money's coming in, keep this train rolling. Sometimes I feel like I give some clients like,
00:20:50
Speaker
too much information where they're like, I don't know what you're talking about. Like if it's working, cool, you know, go for it. And it's also part of managing their expectations though. You know, it's like knowing what they want to see and what they don't want to see. Like, yeah. Yeah. So I've started with some of those clients just like passing along dashboards and being like, if you want to look at this, here's what's going on. You know, once a month, I'll walk through it with you and you know that, but
00:21:16
Speaker
Those kinds of relationships I enjoy, but sometimes it's kind of like, I'm like, can you, can you give me a little more? Like, what do you, what do you think? Like all this work that I did and they're just like, cool. Like, okay. Oh, like, oh, so it's so funny because that's where I find a lot of like these, like I broke up with a client recently and they were constantly like, Hey, we, we need.
00:21:39
Speaker
an email strategy. We need our emails in inboxes. We're not hitting inboxes. What do we need to be doing to hit inboxes? And so we put together this huge mass of strategy that we actually had put together two years ago. And so all I did was take the strategy I put together two years ago that they did not want to implement at that time. Took it and I updated it for, you know, 2023, 2024 and brought it back up to date. And I was like, Hey, here it is. And I sent a loom over and I love loom because you can tell if someone watches it.
00:22:06
Speaker
Yes, I know I love that. And I walked through it, you know, they had canceled the meeting to walk through the strategy together. And so I was like, whatever, I'll just make a loom. That's fine. So I made a loom and I sent it over. And they never watched it, but I was getting emails, not like emails every week.
00:22:23
Speaker
about like, hey, we really need to be getting our emails and inboxes. What do we need to be doing? I'm like, I sent you this video. I walked you through a whole strategy that we put together. This is what we need to be doing. You need to go watch that video. In reality, what they're trying to say is, what are you going to do for us to make this happen? Yeah. I'm like, this is what I'm going to do for you. This is it. I can't go into your inbox and send an email. It's a two-way street here.
00:22:52
Speaker
It's a two-way street. I know. And so it's like that shiny object where it's like, I am the authority here on your email marketing, but we need to be cohesively working together in order to make that happen. Yeah. It's just definitely a struggle learning how to manage not only expectations, but just like the day-to-day relationship or like
00:23:19
Speaker
the communication style client to client. It's an interesting world, but I think when you really nail down the mutual understanding of what the goal is that you're working towards and how together you can do that as long as everyone's on the same page. On the same page. They know what their roles and responsibilities are.
00:23:46
Speaker
Then things can be smooth sailing. Yeah, but every every now and then some shit's gonna hit the fan somehow for sure and there's gonna be a panic and there's gonna be a
00:23:57
Speaker
Oh gosh, like we need to 180 the strategy. Why are we doing this? We need, you know, and it's like, Hey guys, like we really don't, let's just talk about it. Let's like, have a full one bad sales day. Yeah. So like one thing that like a solution that came out of a recent client client conversation I've had about like, you know, shiny object syndrome, like kind of like wanting to maybe 180 the strategy was, Hey, like.
00:24:19
Speaker
Why don't we, because we weren't doing this before, mostly because it wasn't really a necessity in the past, but now we're having, going to be having a quarterly strategy meeting to, to look at everything. And we're going to be doing like what you were talking about, like the quarterly strategy review. Okay. Here's what we're doing on the ad side, because with this client, I have like two different hats that I wear. I'm like their marketing consultant, but I'm also like, I run all their paid ads. So.
00:24:48
Speaker
It's like, okay, here's what we're doing, paid side to side. Here's what the full scope picture is of everything that we're doing together for the betterment of the business. I think that'll help a lot. That's a solution that we've put in place now to hopefully ease some of those concerns because this time of year for this industry that they're in,
00:25:12
Speaker
It's either hot or it's not, you know? It's like, you just kind of don't really know what it's going to be like. So when it's not, it's like, oh shit, like we got to pull back what we're spending. Cool. I get that. Let's, let's pull back what we're spending. Let's let, let's like lower the cap, like the cash going out or whatever. But it's also like, let's not totally just get rid of marketing in general. Yeah. Well, and I think too, like the quarterly strategy meeting is a great way to overcome these.
00:25:40
Speaker
kind of like mismatch in client expectations.
Strategy Reviews and Communication
00:25:44
Speaker
And like I said earlier, I think that when
00:25:47
Speaker
If you notice a client is not open to those kind of like quarterly review of like, Hey, let's stay to the union. Where are we at? Where are we going? Let's make sure all of our objectives are still actually objectives. Let's make sure our goals are still goals. Let's see where we're at on the goals. Like everything's so relevant. Yeah. Or like, has your world blown up and now you don't even offer those products anymore. Um, I think that that's so important. And if a client's not willing to do that, then that's great.
00:26:13
Speaker
I also find that a lot of potential clients, I think marketing is the catch-all. Do you notice that? Yes. I'll get asked to do really silly things, and I'm like, hey, this is actually not marketing. This is an admin type of task. Will you collect the email addresses from this networking event and put them into the email marketing server? It's like, yeah, I can, but that's not the best use of my time. Right.
00:26:43
Speaker
do quarterly reviews with you to just take a step back, look at the State of the Union, then they probably aren't on the same page as you on what marketing needs to be happening and how it plays into their business and what the role actually is. Right. Yeah.
00:27:01
Speaker
It's interesting. And that might be a sign that it's time to step away. It might be. Well, so a couple of ways to overcome setting client expectations. I think in managing client expectations, I love what you said about figuring out their communication style. I think that that's so important. And I always, in a lot of things that I do, including writing proposals, managing clients, I try to emulate whatever their communication style is, so whether it's more pointed or whether it's more fluffy.
00:27:31
Speaker
I think that that's so important to know what their communication style is so that you can help them understand things. I also like to figure out what medium of communication they like to use, what is most comfortable for them, what's comfortable for me, how often I'm communicating with a client can help with the
00:27:53
Speaker
realigning or ways to overcome the like mismatched or whatever expectations. Um, cause I have some clients who like are like, cool once a week, I'll hear from you. Or like, I have some, but I have some clients who like every other day I'm talking to or every day I'm talking to. Yeah. And they just need that reassurance. And I don't mind doing that. Like if I was like,
00:28:14
Speaker
Because I know some people in their business are very structured with the communication in their time. And I even remember in my corporate life, an old head of a department basically told everyone they could send her one email a day. Oh my gosh. And if they had a lot of questions, they needed to
00:28:31
Speaker
keep all their questions in an email and then hit send at the end of the day. That's so funny. Oh my God. When you're there for 40 years, I guess you can determine that. That's so funny. But I do kind of love it at the same time. I do too. Her inbox is immaculate, I'm sure. Right? I bet. Yeah, best mode of communication. I think that's so important. The quarterly reviews.
00:28:57
Speaker
having some sort, it doesn't have to be quarterly. It doesn't have to be, you know, having some sort of review process to just make sure everyone's on the same page, establishing what successes to them. Yes. That's one of the first things that I do with a client. Yeah. I'm, I'm struggling on that with a one client, like nailing that down with them.
00:29:14
Speaker
What is your overall goal? What is that? If that changes, great. We'll just, but establishing that upfront, but also checking in periodically. Are we still in this direction? What's going on? Because their businesses have ebbs and flows and their lives have, most of my clients are
00:29:36
Speaker
moms or have like a busy life outside of being a business owner. And so I can't expect them to drop everything to get me something that I need. Just like they don't expect me to drop everything. It's like that mutual respect and understanding. That's another way of like,
00:29:55
Speaker
That's why I think why the whole partnership versus like being a partner with your client and their business is huge, like building that trust and that foundation up front. Yeah, absolutely. Rather than just being like a, you know, it's the word I'm looking for, like a tactical. A transactional. Yeah, transactional. There we go. Yeah, like piece of the puzzle. We're both a little
00:30:25
Speaker
There is something else I wanted to mention. I can't remember what it was. I don't know. This is why we should write stuff down. I know. We did have some notes. We did have some notes. But yeah, I mean, I'm sure everyone listening has either been here or will be here at some point in time with like having to either have tough conversations or
00:30:49
Speaker
have direct conversations that are going to only help you grow as a business person, as an expert in what you're doing, but help the relationship between your client grow, help their business at the end of the day, get the results that you're hoping for for them, and just overall succeed.
Concluding Thoughts and Listener Engagement
00:31:11
Speaker
Yeah, and also don't be afraid to
00:31:13
Speaker
break up with a client. I think a lot of people are terrified of breaking up with a client because they don't think they'll be able to get another client. It's like every client that you work with is an opportunity cost to you. Yeah, they're bringing you income, but there's still an opportunity cost. There's always going to be someone else out there who might pay more money or their vision might align with your vision a little bit more. If there is a misalignment, it's okay to say, hey, let's
00:31:40
Speaker
Let's take a pause for a second. Let's think about what this relationship looks like. It might not make the most sense for everyone. Yeah. And the client isn't the only one that has the right to break up with somebody. No. You have the right to say, hey, this just isn't a fit anymore. Yes. This just doesn't make sense. I need to take a step back. Or maybe you're taking your business in a whole new direction. Right.
00:32:02
Speaker
You either want to ride the ship with me client and we go through this process together or it's time to move on. Oftentimes those clients, they're there to support you too. They'll see it and they'll know that you guys are both doing what's best for everyone. I thought this was a good, timely, relevant, I know we've both been in those situations in the past and maybe in the current too. I'm glad that we were able to
00:32:31
Speaker
work through some of those things. It's a good reminder to, to me just to take a step back, take a step back too. And like, what are my strategies? What are my goals? Like, what are my expectations? Yeah.
00:32:45
Speaker
I agree. Well, this was great. It was great seeing you. It was great seeing you. And your butterflies. Yeah. I'll take a picture of them flying the coop. Yes. I can't wait. And thanks for listening, guys. Yeah. Make sure you leave us a review. I know we say it every time, but please leave us a review. We would so appreciate that. It would be wonderful. It would. It would be so wonderful. And we will see you all next time. Yeah. We'll see you soon. Bye, guys.
00:33:21
Speaker
you