Dear Client
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First, thank you for trusting us with your company’s most valuable assets…your reputation and your budget to manage said reputation. You should know we’re humbled by that honor. We probably don’t say enough, but nothing is more important to our work life than making you successful.
Corny sounding isn’t it? We love increasing your bottom line and popularity. Our hope is that will also make you happy. But can we be honest? If we only wanted to make you happy instead of successful, the work could be lackluster. Maybe we’re wrong but we believe you’d rather be successful. So to be fair, we probably will not agree with everything you say or only implement your orders. We believe you pay us to do a lot more. And, we owe it to you.
We also believe ideas are powerful weapons against complacency. So we’re going to ask you, “What impact do you hope to have?” Together if we can make your answer stronger, we’ll probably ask you several more times. Because you believe in making a difference, we believe in you. With our hearts, brains and spines. See, we could be shilling insignificant products but, like you, we want to make a difference. That makes us work harder. So, thanks for understanding us.
Love, Todd.
Comments
Right on, Todd.
At some point people must trust professionals to do their jobs. We don't tell plumbers how to do their job, nor do we tell lawyers how to write legal documents. They are professionals and so are art directors, designers, copywriters and account executives.
At the end of the day, we want to make the client happy but they pay us to make them money and successful. If they just want to be happy, a ticket to Disney world is much cheaper.
"What impact do you hope to have" <-- Great question to ask!
When you're meeting with a prospective client, what questions do you ask to assess whether they're likely to value your advice?
That's a really good question, Karl.
I'm not sure you can simply ask a question. I think we have to earn the right to be trusted. So, we're always working towards knowing clients' business environment and objectives well.
We can always be better at that. However, if you do know the client's business and they ignore your advice, we should ask why? If we work with each other intelligently we shouldn't worry that a client will be upset at a recommendation.
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