Treat the Client, as if it were You

It has always happened to me that, in any activity, whether it’s personal life, work or relaxation, that there is a time and place when I can see myself from the sidelines. It happens that I can feel myself in a crowd of people or in discussion, or simply just walking down the road, I start hearing my own words and almost feel outside my body, as if inside me there’s another person in charge.

These moments can be very useful, e.g. they enable me to see and hear what is frequently concealed by the succession of events that follow one after the other throughout the day. They enable me to step aside from the habitual style of work developed over the years, stop at some moment and say to yourself: ”Stop! Now you can do it a different way.”
One would ask how is this connected to management and working with clients?
In particular, this helped me to make a number of useful observations.

Treat the Client, as if it were You

The first observation is that my level of communication, the efforts I apply to completing a business task, my haste in solving problems, completely reflects my internal state and relation to myself. I cannot be more than the person I am at that moment. The people I work with can definitely sense this. This can be put into a simple formula: Treat the Client as if it were You.. If you just use this like a teaching formula nothing will happen, what matters is personal engagement and interest in the process. In my opinion in this case interest is some sort of intuitive emotional experience which is experienced from genuine contact with someone else. It’s intuitive because I absolutely know exactly that I am behaving correctly, but emotion is like food - a shot of energy. It doesn’t matter if I write someone a letter, have a chat with him or talk on the phone. I offer him the same solution, product or service that I would use myself, and I’m not indifferent how the client takes it, which impressions and emotions cause the result.

The Client is Always Right

The second observation is how I relate to someone’s reaction to an event. If I’m not interested in something I usually don’t pay it any attention, but it could work both ways. Meaning this: if I’ve paid attention, it could be interesting. Interest assumes engagement in a situation, problem, search for a solution – whatever. I take enormous pleasure, for example, when I can offer the person I’m talking to what they need. There is even more pleasure when I can see several steps ahead and can work out the situation in my head, and when I try to think about it I feel as if I wasn’t capable of this. Its about the chance to listen and personal experience to the past. Then the expression “The Client is always Right” acquires a very precise and clear meaning. The Client is actually always right because he’s expressing his opinion, his vision, his perception even if it doesn’t agree with mine, but at this moment in time presents his view of the world. It’s very important. In this situation I have an opportunity to offer the Client what he needs if I listen to him thoroughly. If I don’t hear the client and only listen to myself then nothing will happen. Paying attention is the key to this. It should be paid in two directions – to the other person and your inner self.

Cards on the Table

Today the third observation I want to write about is openness. Nothing else quite forces someone to extricate themselves from difficult circumstances in the future than often unfounded attempts to avoid some proposed problems in the past. The most correct decisions are often concealed in simple things. The source of a problem at the end of a project can be traced back to something that was done at the planning stage. This is all “Common Sense” about which much has already been written about and said. It seems something else is important here. An open approach is equally important, as is the sense to say no when necessary and agree at that very moment when you feel that it’s right to advise the Client, to advise of issues when they arise, and offer a solution when inside you’re saying “Yes, yes, this is the moment! Go on, do it!” Yet another essential thing is being able to recognise mistakes. This is also directly linked with openness and sincerity. A mistake, in essence, is a simple event, like success or right choice. If I recognise success I also have a chance to recognise a mistake. There’s no difference between these two things.

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