Perfect Clients

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have an unending stream of perfect clients asking us to do the very thing we love to do, that is, to provide the very service at which we excel? Wouldn’t it be heaven to have each new case be an opportunity to burnish our reputation? And how about being paid handsomely to do what comes naturally?

Every professional wrestles with this question. All too often, each of us has concluded an engagement with a nagging sense that the client was not fully satisfied, or that they felt that they had paid too much, or left the last meeting with something of a wedge in the relationship.

All too often we find ourselves wrestling with clients throughout the engagement, redefining the desired or practical outcome, managing fantasies, and reminding the client of ethical restraints or professional boundaries. Getting paid in full, or even at all, is sometimes a dark question which constantly lurks in the shadows.

And how often do we take on a client on a referral or walk-in basis, only to discover that what they want is something outside our wheelhouse? If we accept the engagement, we need to spend an inordinate amount of time ginning up on the subject matter or techniques, and always feeling we’re walking on thin ice.

So the trick for most of us is figuring out how to avoid the dreadful, stressful “D” and “C” clients and only deal with the joyous and profitable “A” and “B” clients. Well, I’m here to tell you that this can be accomplished in real life and in real time.

It’s actually not so difficult once you understand the central principle, and the simplest way to see this is to put the shoe on the other foot: ask yourself what you want in a professional where a successful outcome is essential to you?

I don’t know about you, but if I am told I have a serious cancer, I want the doctor who has a national reputation for best results in this exact problem. If Canada Revenue Agency is calling me about a million dollar “misunderstanding”, I’m looking for the tax lawyer who is renowned for putting the fear of God into CRA on exactly the section of the Income Tax Act in question. In such cases, price is no object. I will follow the house rules to the letter, I won’t quibble about price or terms, and I will be the perfect client in every way.

Once you see the picture through the other end of the telescope, you understand what it takes for you to get the perfect client: you need to be the perfect professional for their needs.

Let me give a personal example.

Many years ago I was practising with a partner who looked after all the conveyancing (or real estate) work. I never touched the stuff. So when my partner left the practice to pursue other areas, I actually tried to pawn that work off, but had no takers.

So, in order to keep our loyal clients, I decided to retain a real estate component, but on strict terms. I took it very seriously and adopted the motto “I don’t cut corners, I don’t cut price.” If we were going to do this work, it was going to be the highest quality in town. If somebody didn’t like that, I didn’t want to work with them anyway.

I also understood that ordinary citizens who were parting with half a million dollars to buy a home came with a baggage of fears, dreams, and confusion. It was up to me to deal with those in a respectful and transparent fashion. It was up to me to ensure that not only were they fully protected, but that they felt this way.

I learned and streamlined and automated the process from end to end. We began by presenting clients with a comprehensive, yet straightforward, e-mail, tailored to their situation, which forced them to think through their choices, providing targeted hyperlinks to our website which in total provided the equivalent of a law school real property course, but in simple English. When it came time to sit down with clients to sign documents, they were well educated and therefore focused on issues that mattered to them, and they were universally grateful for the advice they received, because they understood why it mattered.

Behind all this was a veritable online university of real estate knowledge and a “programmed learning” methodology that ensured client interaction was at the highest level of problem solving. All this worked beautifully because I had acquired the best support staff in the business, who simply adored working in an environment where we avoided all the boring stuff and nailed the crucial stuff. They also got to spend their workdays doing stuff at which they excelled. Which made them happy. Which made clients happy. Which made me happy.

All of this empowered the clients. We cut through the legalese and the gobbledegook and forced them to grapple with the legal and tactical choices they had to make, but on a fully informed basis. We made them part of our team in the process of choosing options and understanding what was happening.

We also reduced a good deal of the usual time-wasting verbal question and answer to simple English reports about significant issues, presenting clients with written options, asking them to give us written decisions.

For us it was about efficiency and risk management, but that’s not how clients read it. They loved being treated like intelligent adults, and they loved how we shone light in the dark corners where their fears lay.

Here’s the funny thing: realtors began to hear that our clients felt protected, informed, respected, and served promptly. So they began sending us work. Oh yes, and part of the automated process involved keeping realtors informed as to progress, and ensuring they got their hard-earned commission cheques as quickly as possible, in most cases on the day of closing. We treated them as who they are: team members.

The flow of work grew and grew. Friends referred friends. But the really funny thing? We never competed on price, yet we had all the work we wanted. We actually turned away stuff we didn’t want to do. And to this day, long after my retirement from law, most of these conveyancing clients, and their realtors, remain constant friends.

But here’s the critical thing: this whole endeavour allowed me to live in a perfect place. I was born to deconstruct complex things and explain them in a simple and understandable fashion. In law school, one of the courses which fascinated me most was real property. Technology and process flow really got my juices flowing. So when I could put it all together, I was in heaven.

The bottom line? Do what you love to do, and do it well, and you will get good clients. Align your natural talents, your experience, and your training to make you the best professional available in your community, and you will have more great clients than you can handle.

Want to talk?