Dealing With Tough Clients Who Tell You What To Do— Role Play ep. 11

How do you deal with tough clients who want to tell you what to do and how to do it? How can you stop them from running all over you?
How to sell strategy to a client that just wants a logo? How to convert the unconvertable? How to move past order taking?

In this episode, Chris shows Melinda how to talk to clients that want nothing do with strategy. Learn about how to embrace their emotions and concerns then pivot to logic.

1:43 One that is, uh, one that you’re not gonna have to sit there and question whether or not this was the right decision or not. Because, truth be told, design can be fairly subjective. Often times clients will come to us and say, “I need a website, I need this.” And once we understand who their customers are, we realize the focus shouldn’t be on that, it should be on the design of the menu, or to design a better customer experience, and that the money is better spent elsewhere. Most of the clients that come to us through our process realize that there’s a deeper motivation as to why they’re doing this. And what they do is self diagnose and prescribe a solution. Now in the real world, if we went to the doctor and did that, they would look at us like we’re crazy. “And, just give me some penicillin. I have a headache.” Well, the solution may not be connected to the problem. And that’s why we do what we do.

3:16 Melinda, I’m gonna be honest and really frank with you. Probably even to enter into a conversation with me about doing logos and what I do, we’re gonna be north of 20 to 30 thousand dollars easily. From what you described to me, you could probably just hire some young graduate, or maybe go onto one of these sites that broker design services, give them a sketch, and then have them just do it for you.

5:07 So, what happens often times is clients will make something and feel like that’s the right decision without any real parameters to decide why they should do something, and then tomorrow they get a new idea. And now they’re stuck with something, and it’s–it’s not one, uh, when you, when you go through and you’re making a lot of changes like this, it doesn’t exactly send a signal of confidence to your consumers. Like, “Why are they so indecisive? Why are they changing things?” So, we get the opportunity to re-introduce ourselves every once in a while. It’s not a daily, weekly, monthly occurrence. I would just encourage you to think about that. And if you really want a fast logo, there’s lots of different things. I’m not in the “logo-building” business. I’m in the “brand-building” business. I’m in the “client/customer acquisition-building” business. That’s what I do.

7:20 So that’s the problem, you see? It’s…we’re, we’re experts for a reason. We make something and we have a very clear process that gives us very predictable results. And, it’s like you’re coming in here and you want to dictate how we make it and the results. Well I, I just–that’s not how we work. So as much as I’d like to work with you, it’s not a good fit for us.

9:11Uh-huh. That’s right. So what we’re trying to do here is, I just, I’m not here to argue with you. This is the “embrace” part.

10:16 So the “embrace” part is just to listen and to say back to them, and agree with them.

11:24 All you have to do, it’s because there’s this disconnect. There’s that “gut feeling.” It drives a lot of decisions that you make. “I trust that person! He’s a good person! That lady’s moving forward!” All those kinds of things that they say, and all you have to do is ask them, “Why do you believe that?” And it usually is enough to mess most people up. Because most people are not that thoughtful and intentional in the things that they say or do.

17:30 Cause the more you learn, the more you feel like you don’t know anything. That’s the thing. It’s only the ignorant people that I get into a debate with and they’re easy to defeat.
—
This is the Futur of Education— Disrupting the design education paradigm.

Want a deeper dive? Typography, Lettering, Sales & Marketing, Social Media and The Business of Design courses available here:
https://goo.gl/bRt5qd

—
Love the content? Become a sustaining member for $5/mo today.
https://goo.gl/uKcJ3N

Our BOOKLIST:
https://goo.gl/onrdxr

Kits & Proposals:
https://goo.gl/mSjuWQ

Visit our website:
https://www.thefutur.com

FREE resources:
https://goo.gl/Qh6gHr

Mandarin (Chinese) Subtitles on UiiUii
https://uiiiuiii.com/?s=the+futur
—

OUR AFFILIATE LINKS*
Skillshare: https://goo.gl/YCo2uT
Amazon: http://bit.ly/thefuturishere
Creative Market: https://goo.gl/g4jlTE

—
Futur Podcast on iTunes: 🎙
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-futur/id1209219220?mt=2

—
Credits:
Executive Producer– Chris Do
Host– Chris Do
Director– Erica Pead
Cinematography– Aaron Szekely, Mark Contreras
Editor– Stewart Schuster, Erica Pead
Futur Theme Music – Adam Sanborne http://www.adamsanborne.com
Annotations– Alexandru Vasile Burlui
Typefaces: Futura, Din, Helvetica Neue
Futur theme song— Adam Sanborne