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Wow! This is more true than you know. I’ve been thinking about my clients recently and this thought really struck me. I really do tend to do my best work for my best clients.
The ones who nag me with phone calls and emails and complain, or who don’t know what they want, but what I did wasn’t it, or the ones who micro-manages the entire project, or the ones who never quite get around to giving me responses, they are not getting my best work. I don’t mean it that way. It just seems to work out that way.
The Art Of Being A Great Client
If you hire service vendors or partners, being a great client is money-in-the-bank. Why? There is a psychological law that comes into play here, I call it the Secret for business relationships: The Law of Reciprocity.
Simply put, people will reciprocate when they are treated well. This is not just golden rule talk, it is based on a mountain of research into our society’s norm of reciprocity. In most cases, though, we focus efforts on treating customers or clients well so they’ll reciprocate by being loyal and sampling product extensions. My point is that you should flip this around and think about the service providers you rely on to make your business sing.
If you maximize your service provider’s engagement with your business needs, good things come from it. Your expectations are met and often exceeded. You have a smooth experience. You get more than you paid for. Traditionally, we don’t trust service providers like employees, and we attempt to manage our service partners through intimidation instead of love. In my experience, when you are your service providers best client, they are your best service provider too.
Read the entire article at:
http://sanderssays.typepad.com/sanders_says/2009/08/the-art-of-being-a-great-client.html