Winning with Difficult Clients

Common difficult situations that I hear about from my clients are:

• Customers who do not respect your time.
• Clients who want more than they are paying for and nickel and dime you to death.
• Micro managers who what to tell you how to do your work.
• Controlling types who are always checking up on you.
• Clients who constantly change the scope and specifications on a project or knit pick over every detail.
• Customers who try to intimidate you into doing things you have not agreed on.

Sometimes a difficult client is a combination of these. If you work in a corporation, your client/customer may be your boss or other department managers. If you are in business for yourself, your client/customers are generally external to your organization. In either case, many of the problems and solutions are the same.

Human beings are complex and unique so nothing that I might suggest will work all the time or with everyone, but the following suggestions will help you with many of these situations.

• Schedule Properly. To get customers & bosses to respect your time, you must first respect it yourself. In truth only about 60% of your time can be scheduled. The other 40% is taken up with interruptions, unexpected glitches and the fact that most of us underestimate how long it really takes to do tasks. What should be a simple 10 minute follow up phone call may actually take three voice mail messages and a twenty minute conversation. Schedule in time for interruptions and glitches. Give yourself wiggle room.
  
  
• Use A Day Timer Faithfully and schedule in interruption time. Let your client know that you wish to do a superior job of meeting her needs and that you also have other clients whose schedules must be considered in scheduling her work. In the case of a boss who keeps preempting priorities, ask him or her to help you reprioritize your entire workload in view of the new assignment.
  
  
• Do A Reality Check. Do an honest analysis of your last 8 to 10 projects. Compare your estimate with the actual delivery date and cost. Consider real 'billable time' on projects and the unscheduled crisis that interrupted your consistent and timely progress on them. Whatever the average percentage difference is should be added to your estimate on any future projects.
  
  
• Educate Your Client or Boss. Explain what it takes to do the job. Some people will understand best if you draw a simple work flow chart of the project for them. Others will appreciate what has to be done better from an outline of project steps. These can be incorporated into proposals or job specifications. Even bosses seldom appreciate how long it takes to execute a simple idea.
  
  
• Strategic Alliances. Do not become hostage to one or two BIG clients. Set up strategic alliances with others in your field that can take on overflow work or even whole projects for you. Be willing to refer out work that is not in your core competencies.
  
  
• Eliminate Demon Clients. Micro manager clients who want more than they are willing to pay for and intimidators are best left for someone else to deal with. The nice thing about being in business for yourself is that you can and should fire some clients.
  
  When in a corporate environment you may need to enlist the aid and support of your boss or the clients boss or other people in a more powerful position than you, to bring a voice of reason to the situation and negotiate a new workable solution.
  
  
• Controllers. People who have a high need for control are one of the easiest with which to deal. Lots of information is usually what they crave in order to feel secure. They hate surprises! By OVER informing them continuously on everything, especially in the beginning, assures them that all necessary steps are being taken in a timely manner and educates them on how you think and solve problems. This usually works best if done in writing and reviewed verbally.
  
  
• Daily, Weekly or Monthly report on progress made, problems solves, work yet to be done, who, how and when it will be done, and any potential concerns will help the controler type of person feel that the situation is under control and in time they will leave you alone. Consider this a way to write your own 'report card' and give your boss documented data to draw from when it comes time to do a performance review for you.
  
  
• A Good Offense. For most of the difficult situations listed above the best defense is a good offense. Prepare extremely well defined written and verbal communications for the client. Express exactly what you will and will not be providing. Define specifically what the client is responsible for providing and in what time frame. This can be done in proposals, project specifications, contracts and letters of agreement.
  
  
• Be Clear About Deviations from the agreed upon time frame, other changes in scope or specifications will add additional cost and time to the project. If you do not already, use some kind of a written change order form, which the client must sign off on before changes are made, I highly recommend creating one.
  
  
• Refine And Expand Your Communication Skills. This is one of the very best investments you can make in yourself. It will give you rewards for the rest of your life. Go to communication seminars and listen to the phrases highly successful people use. Hire a coach who can help you on a continuous basis to refine you skills in the moment, on the real life situations you are facing. Communication is an art and an on going process of learning and growing.