Fire These Three Clients
Hi! Welcome to this week’s training. I’m Sherri Wilson, an educator, strategist, and introverted entrepreneur that empowers other introverted entrepreneurs the art of persuasion and influence so you can communicate your message clearly and confidently.
“Negative attitude is nine times more powerful than positive attitude.”
Today’s training will be short and sweet. I want to discuss three client types you should never do business with or fire as soon as you can.
The Negativistic Client. This is the client that only notices when you’ve made a mistake and overlooks all the right things and hard work you’ve done. They are critical and inflexible. If there’s something amazing going on, they are the only ones that see only the negative or make it up if there’s no negative at all, the Negative Nancy’s and Negative Nathan’s. These type of clients will drain you and take out ALL of the fun and passion for your business.
The Perfectionist Client.These clients are the micro-managers. They constantly call, text, AND email you wanting updates, tell you what to do, and even tell you how to do your job! They consider themselves expert at everything. They are very critical of you and even themselves. They have such high standards that it’s impossible to meet them. For example, let’s say you’re in the jewelry business and a perfectionist client orders a custom-made ring. When it comes back, it’s amazing! Gorgeous. You’re so excited to show them. She gets the ring in her hand and proceeds to spend MINUTES examining every single detail and even asks to use a loop to magnify the ring. Sure enough, she comes up with 5 things that she’s not happy with. Now repeat this process by 5. I’ve seen it.
The Sadistic Client.These can be tricky. At first, they are personable, great to visit with, and excited about the product or service! But they can seem a little too gregarious. In fact, you might even have a gut feeling that something’s not right but you press ahead anyway. At first, they complement and praise you for good work. But if you make one mistake—no matter how tiny—they turn on you with surprising ferocity. For these clients, one mistake wipes out ALL of the hard work. And it’s not a normal response to a mistake. It’s an over-the-top destroying of you, your character, and your business. It’s unbalanced. And nothing will fix it because these clients actually LIKE to do this.
You can use these descriptions as clues but I’d look for the micro-expression of contempt, which is a slight lifting of one side of the mouth. Never, ever work with or date or be friends with anyone that flashes contempt because it hides hostility and/or jealousy.
“Let’s not be narrow, nasty, and negative.”
No amount of money is worth working with these client types because you’ll lose money and most importantly they’ll drive you nuts!
I don’t have any blog posts to support today’s training, unfortunately. It’s actually part of my training in my course from Module 3, Flip the Like Switch. But I highly recommend that you follow me on IG @introvertedentrepreneurs. I have lots of micro-tips, training, etc. on there. It’s a fun place to be!