I will admit that I have a habit of using curse words. I am not proud of this nor am I ashamed of it, to me “it is what it is.” Is this a bad thing, sure it could be. My clients do not want them cursing at them, nor do the kids. Strangely enough, I have found that when I am not so stuffy and formal when talking to people, they tend to feel more comfortable with me.
I have a neighbor who says that I am a straight shooter with no chaser and if you do not know what that means, it straight shot of liquor with no water to chase after it, meaning I can be blunt. I like to say what I mean and that way people do not misunderstand me and prefer that people say what they mean. I do not want to have to guess at what you are talking about, just tell me what you want me to know, before I lose interest in what you are talking about.
Are you straight with your prospects and clients? Do you tell them what they want to hear or what they need to hear? Do you beat around the bush and leave them unsure of what you are trying to say?
Like I tell me kids, if I ask you about your socks, do not start by telling me about your shirt. Yeah the shirt may have something to do with the answer, but I did not ask you about the shirt I asked about the socks, so start with the socks. Don’t say well I wanted to wear this shirt and blah, blah, blah, say the socks match the shirt and that’s why I chose the socks.
If a client asks me if they should be on twitter, I do not say well twitter has a zillion people and you could possibly reach some of them if you tweet often enough and the tweets are responded to and retweeted, you make gain some additional customers. If I really believe that, they should not spend their time on twitter. What I say is, nope, you really do not have time to twitter and I am not going to do it for you, it is not a service that I offer; now let’s see how we can effectively reach your audience in other ways. The reason being, I do not want to waste their time or mines. If they insist that they want to be on twitter then I am honest with them and say you are welcome to find someone who will agree with you and get mad at them when it does not work. I am not saying that you have to be this blunt, but I am close to being this blunt. I do not want the misunderstood what I am saying and know that I really do have their best interest at heart. I am not willing to take your money and spend my time, when I know that it will be a waste. Why not put your money and my time to activities that will work and make us both happy.
I not only want the client to be happy about the job I am doing, I want to be happy that I am doing the job for them and it will make doing the job easier and enjoyable for me. This is where I am selfish; I do not want to be miserable working with my clients. I can work a 9-5 and be miserable.
Are you agreeing with your clients knowing that it is not in their best interest? Do you really believe that you are giving your clients valuable service when you are not honest with them?
