Two Good Clients and Two Bad Clients

In our quest to become better professionals we encounter four types of clients. One is ideal, another is a good client, a third is probably a good client for somebody else, just not for you, and the fourth is just all around bad news. Let’s examine these folks in the light of the Alignment Doctrine.

The Alignment Doctrine states that mutually optimum outcomes occur when a professional’s giftings are perfectly aligned with a client’s needs. Clearly, the tighter the alignment, the better, and the further you fall out of alignment, the “less better”, ultimately to the point of danger.

From the client’s perspective, the ideal professional is the one who has exactly the personal skills, experience, and training needed to nail the problem. The more unique the problem, the more unique the needed qualifications. When your oil wells are burning out of control, you don’t want Norm Bowley, you want Boots and Coots. When you have a 10% chance of surviving a quadruple bypass operation, you want the cardiologist renowned for pulling rabbits out of a hat on these tough cases.

In this primary class of client needs, the only thing that matters is professional aptitude. Bedside manners don’t even enter the picture. But for most of us in our everyday practices, such cases are the exception, not the rule.

Most clients arrive at our doorstep with a bagful of issues, hopes, fears, dreams, plans, and wishes, all jumbled together and not well understood, at least from a professional perspective. They just know they need something done, and you’re supposed to be the guy to do it.

Sure, they need the precise skill set for which we enjoy a high reputation, but their problem is rarely standalone. Attached to the primary issue is a cluster of related needs, or perhaps better called “wants”. By and large, these wants are entirely valid and inextricably linked to the primary issue, but they are not the actual problem that you understand, and for which you are both skilled and credentialed.

There are two important things we need to do for these clients, for their benefit and for our own. First, we need to zero in on their professional problem, the one for which we are credentialed. They need to understand and acknowledge (in writing) what that is, and what we are going to do about it, and how, and for how much.

But second, and just as important, we need to understand and deal with all the secondary issues which are not strictly within our bailiwick, but are still urgent and pressing on the client. Some of these may be in the wheelhouse of other professionals, and this the client needs to be made to understand and acknowledge. It may turn out that we will find ourselves as part of some kind of collaborative group working toward the best result, but at least the client needs to understand what we are engaged to do, and what we’re not engaged to do.

Much of this baggage, though, is emotional– dreams, anger, aspirations, frustration, or fear. You can’t farm these out, really, but they will weigh heavily on your ability to solve the client’s issues in a reasonably expeditious and cost-effective way. Our skill in managing these emotional needs will go far toward ensuring the professional relationship is positive and that our reputation is enhanced, not trashed.

Those were the good guys. Let’s now look at two clients to avoid, the first of whom is an innocent enough soul who simply wants you to take on work for which you may be credentialed, but which is entirely outside your personal giftings.

Maybe work is slow, maybe you’re doing a “favour” for a friend or good client, or maybe you just don’t know how to say, “No”. But before you know it, you are professionally, economically, and emotionally roped into the middle of a mess you have no idea how to execute and from which you have no idea how to extricate. It’s like one of those horrible university exam nightmares we all have, and you may as well put your insurer and your ethics committee on notice that a trainwreck is coming.

But there’s an even worse case– the client who comes to you with malevolent needs. They may be on a revenge binge, they may be looking for advice on how to cover up a fraud, or get away with inferior work and materials on a job. Whatever, they want to use you, your credentials, and your reputation to further some immoral, unreasonable, or criminal endeavour. The worst thing about these people is that if you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile, and when they’re done with you, they will watch your career crash and burn, snicker, and move on to the next sucker.

So, there you have it– the perfect client, the pretty good client, the good client for somebody else, and the good for nobody client.