The Client Letter
November 1, 2013
The Desert of Arizona
Cloudy 32 Degrees
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You know those times when you feel pressured into doing something for a client? Maybe it’s to rearrange your schedule (pissing off your significant other) to accomodate a last minute meeting, or maybe it’s giving up your weekend to finish a project when “the deadline gets moved up.”
The pressure from these kinds of situations can be pretty intense. You don’t want to lose the client, you don’t want to piss them off.
So you “cave” and put yourself out because of the fear.
Some could call this extreme service right? That’s just your willingness to go “above and beyond” and do what’s best for your client.
I don’t think serving someone is supposed to make you feel the way this does. This is a feeling of obligation fueled by the fear of a huge stick (getting fired) coming out of the darkness and whacking you on the head.
You feel that you “have” to do it or…
This is a fake choice. This is something setup by your mind and your programming. Those two things trick you into believing you’re stuck in a no win situation where the only way out is to suffer.
Have you ever said “NO” to someone with confidence? You know what happens when you deliver that word and it’s clear that you mean it?
What happens is that they accept it.
What happens after that is that they often develop a greater level of respect for you than they have for all of the “Yes” men and women around them. But it really doesn’t matter. Because if you’re looking for respect from someone OTHER than yourself, then you’ve already lost. You don’t need that. You can’t need that.
When you’re out looking for business, you don’t want to walk around with a feeling of “needing” the business, right? You lose that way, every single time.
Well that doesn’t stop when you get the business. That’s not the point at which you flip on the “need machine” and hang onto that client for dear life.
Injecting need into an active client relationship is deadly.
If you do not need, then you cannot lose. And if you cannot lose, then you’ll start to see some of the fake choices I mention above for what they really are… only a symptom of your fear of losing the client.
Do you really need that? Aren’t you already carrying around enough crap? How about you drop this piece of baggage and move on to something that will actually help you have a better life?
Today seems like a great day to start.
Need nothing, get everything. It’s crazy how that works.