In the conversation today we discussed learning from our clients and really digging in and understanding their business. Many agencies forget this and think that they have to portray to their clients a sense of having all the answers. The problem is since they have all the answers, they often don’t take the time to really understand their clients business and end up pushing their preconceived ideas on clients. This often is not the best fit.
The bottom line is clients are people and people really want honesty and humility. The book outlines three fears that hold people back from gaining and retaining better clients.
- Fear of Losing the Business
- Fear of Being Embarrassed
- Fear of Being Inferior
Getting Naked is a great read and if you are in the consulting business or any other business for that matter. You should definitely check it out.
*Disclaimer* Click on the image to buy the book. The link to the book is an affiliate link.
Excellent post Bryan. I completely agree with everything that you said. So often these ‘advertising/marketing’ agencies are all about trying to sell their clients a certain package or set of deliverables and they do not take the time to learn, or more importantly, to listen to the client and hear what is important to them. More often than not, it’s all about what is important to the agency and what their inflated egos have told them is the correct way to do it. The attempt to understand their clients business is at the bottom of their ladder of priorities. Thanks again for writing this. I look forward to sharing this post.
Thanks for the comment Kris. Yeah, I agree and the worst thing about it is they push their ego because they are afraid to look like they don’t know what they are doing and afraid they’ll lose the client if they look that way. It’s a viscous cycle.
Exactly. Ego can be a very dangerous thing. Careless advice hurts the business that invested in their services a lot more than it does the agency. The agency will just replace the unhappy client with another client that will put their trust in them.