The Client Letter
March 18, 2013
Way North of Lake Wobegon
Overcast 9 Degrees
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It’s funny how some days things seem extremely complicated and other days they seem extremely simple.
When you’re attracting and working with clients, there are really a million things you could be thinking about at any one moment.
Spend too much time at that level, though, and you get overwhelmed. When you zoom your vision out and look at your client business from “30,000 feet,” things are much simpler.
It was just the same way with music. I spent years focused on and obsessed with the minutiae of it. I focused on the articulation between individual notes, the relationship of one phrase to another and countless other tiny details.
Some days were good doing this type of work, other days just plain sucked.
One day, the sky cleared.
All of the minutiae faded into the background and I was left with a very simple task as a musician:
My goal was to communicate a part of me to my listener through music. Period.
The complicated soon becomes very simple when you work at it.
It’s the same thing in the client business.
How do you set fees? How do you attract clients? How do you structure your projects? How do you make sure you’re charging enough?
Tons of things to think about.
But zoom out for a second.
At the very foundational level of your work with clients, you have a choice:
You can conform to the way they work, or they can conform to the way you work.
Since it’s your business, you probably don’t have guess which the more satisfying path is.
Walking this path is often easier said than done. And it’s a process, not an event, in my experience.
Choosing to build your business your way requires strength of will and vision. With that ability comes freedom and the knowing that your life will not be left to the whims of others.
In business and life, you either walk the way of your making or the way of another’s making.
Whose reality wins? That’s really the question.
Shouldn’t your reality win for your life? “Winning” doesn’t mean you’re in a battle or that someone else “loses.” Winning simply means that you have the guts to stand by your commitment to behave in a way that’s consistent with what you want.
From there, you can make adjustments as you see fit.
If you’re brave enough to embark on this journey, I made you a tool to take with you.
Use it as a source of confidence and as a reminder that what YOU want has value beyond measure.