The Desert of Arizona
Heavy Rain 59 Degrees 8:50 a.m.
When you’re working with a client, when exactly is it that you experience the “payoff” for all the hard work of attracting them and working with them?
Is it when you receive payment for the first project? Is it when you receive payment for the sixth project? Is it somewhere in between?
Do you know?
If you want the “payoff” (where you actually feel you’re receiving from a client value commensurate with YOUR value delivered) to be early on, that’s going to change the way you approach the relationship.
If you’re taking the long view and are willing to wait a while for the real payoff, that’s going to affect the relationship in a different way.
I’d recommend you take a third path. I’d recommend you consider never expecting a “payoff” at all, especially from the client you’re working with.
If you think that sounds crazy, just wait!
I think we’ve all been duped into thinking business is about transactions. You do X, you get Y. You repeat X, you receive Y again. You want 2Y? Then do 2X and you’ll get it.
We actually put people who are good at this transactional approach on the covers of magazines and talk about how smart they are. If that’s what you want, more power to you. But my guess is that quickly becomes boring.
Here’s another path: That’s the one where a value creator (YOU!) goes through life without the “tit for tat” approach to business. You give up the “I did X for him, now I expect Y from him” feeling.
Sure, you charge a fee, but you give up the emotional attachment to “getting YOUR piece of the pie.” That’s where the real problems come from. From your emotional attachment to this story.
It’s the deeper motivation behind your actions and thoughts that shifts.
What happens when you move through life and business ALWAYS offering more than you demand to receive?
Well, one of the first things that happens, in my experience, is you actually run the risk of experiencing happiness. You stop dwelling in the feeling of lack (which you could feel with MILLIONS in the bank) and you start seeing abundance.
And finally, you stop treating clients like transactions and start treating them like people.
And that creates a chain reaction where that “payoff” you gave up trying to get from client X gets delivered to you in great abundance…often times from sources you’d never expect.