We’ve all had those moments with clients or even prospects, where they push boundaries, or want an exception made for them, and want you to accommodate their personal life circumstances in some way.
It can be a really tricky line to walk. They’re a client, and let’s face it, without happy clients, You don’t have a business!
In my business, we are committed to ensuring everyone who interacts with us, whether they are a client or not, feels appreciated and celebrated. And one of our core brand values is “Exploring Possibility”. So when appropriate if a client or a prospect has a need, we will look for a creative solution in order to empower them to move forward, or to navigate a challenging life circumstance.
However, there is a line between empowering your client and enabling your client. It is very easy to cross that line, especially if you are in a helping profession, and your work with clients to transform an area of their lives where they are stuck. And the very accommodation they are asking you to make is exactly where they are stuck in their life, and now it is showing up in their relationship with you.
What is the client really asking?
In these cases what the client is truly looking for is permission to stay exactly where they are and not have the breakthrough they hired you for.
Here are some examples of what may show up:
- They enter an agreement with your business and want to cancel it when they feel they can no longer afford it
- They are past due on their account and still want service while they catch up
- They miss a session without canceling or cancel at the last minute, and ask you to reschedule so they don’t forfeit.
- Someone who is not a client keeps asking for advice because “one day they will enroll but they just can’t afford it right now, but need help with just one question”
- Want access to services that are not part of their current program
- They offer you what they “can” pay instead of the program investment.
- You offer a time-sensitive incentive, such as an early bird or fast action savings and they want it extended beyond the deadlines. Or perhaps they had a sales conversation with you many many months ago, and you have had a price increase and they want the old price.
This list could be much longer, and recently in sessions with my clients, these are some of the challenges they have been facing with THEIR clients, and since it’s a theme that seems to have shown up, I thought it was time to write about it!
You have a business to run!
Before we go any further, I want to emphasize that you are running a business, not a charity! And while I do feel that at times there are opportunities for you to work with clients on co-creating a creative solution, first and foremost you cannot jeopardize your business and if accommodating a client is going to put you in a financial bind, then you aren’t helping them, you are rescuing them at your expense.
But what about when you CAN accommodate without too much interruption to your business.
How They Do Money Is How They Do Everything
The other core value of my business is Personal Power. And when a client has a “circumstance” that they allow to be bigger than them, then the last thing I want to do is enable them to allow that belief to keep impacting their behavior and results. The question I always ask myself, and I challenge you to ask yourself as well, is this:
“Will accommodating the client help them to move forward, or am I giving them permission to stay stuck? Will I help or hinder their progress?”
It’s always really interesting to me as a coach to look at what goes on outside of the coaching session, because that lets me know if there’s more work to be done or if that client needs more support.
Clients will sometimes tell their coach what they think they want to hear, and these requests to me are really insightful because it lets me know what’s truly going on, and if this issue is showing up with their program with me, it’s most definitely showing up elsewhere.
It applies even if you think it doesn’t apply
And if your work is a softer skill such as energy work, wellness work, life coaching etc – while it may not seem like an administrative issue with your business is connected to what they are working on with you, trust me it is.
If they are letting themselves be taken out by a business issue with you, and wanting you to “understand” their circumstances, you can be sure they are letting themselves be taken out in other areas. How they do one thing is how they do everything, and especially how they do money, the patterns they show, will show up in the work they are doing with you.
So how do you handle it?
Using the example above of a potential client just offering you what they can pay, and instead of investing in your program ask you to see what they “can get for that” – if you give in, then you’re saying, “It’s okay to stay stuck. It’s okay to stay where you are. It’s okay not to make progress.”
If even after challenging them on it to hold them powerful, they still don’t believe they can do it, you can simply tell them “Listen, you don’t seem ready right now, you are welcome to come back when you are ready to take this step and we can explore what programs I have at that time”
This boundary will require them to either stretch their comfort zone so they can move forward, or they can decide to stay exactly where they are. But what needs to be made clear to them is that it’s THEIR CHOICE.
So what’s the difference between a creative empowering solution & enabling?
Let me give you a couple examples of how that could look.
A promotion or incentive
Maybe you are running a promotion with an incentive that “If you enroll by midnight tonight, there’s a savings or a bonus “. Your client or prospect at the time isn’t ready to move forward, perhaps it’s fear, perhaps it’s not wanting it at the time, it could be any reason really. The point is that they CHOSE either by action or inaction, not to move forward.
Then if they decide later they want it, and come to you and say “I’d like to move forward, can I please still have the incentive” and they give you all the reasons why it should still apply to them. I understand how uncomfortable that can be, however, to give in for an incentive that other clients had to meet the requirements is not only enabling this client to not break through their blocks, it’s completely out of integrity to those who honored the requirements.
Now, where that might not be enabling is let’s just say it’s a really good client of yours that you’ve had for years, and they went on an unplugged vacation and during that time you ran a promotion. You thought of mentioning it to them before they went away, but you didn’t want to seem pushy so you just left it. They come back, found out, and are a bit put out and ask you, “Why didn’t you tell me about it? I would have signed up and paid before I left.”
Payments
If a client is consistently late, asking you to hold off on processing their credit card, and each month you know “here we go again” -wondering when you are going to get paid. If you simply keep the conversation about the timing and receipt of the payment, and not having a courageous conversation about their choices and this pattern – even if you are withholding services – is enabling the client to stay stuck in a pattern that doesn’t serve them, with you or anywhere else – and you can be sure it shows up in other places.
This is very different than if say you and your client enter an agreement on the 18th of the month and so your auto payment is set to charge them on the 18th and they ask if instead it can be on the 21st each month as they get all THEIR payments on the 20th. In this situation it really simply IS an administrative timing difference.
The latter of both these situations becomes an opportunity for you to make an empowering and creative accommodation for a client, versus the former where you would be giving into someone who didn’t feel the guidelines apply to them.
Questions to consider:
As I said at the outset of this article, we believe in making our clients feel special and celebrated, and so if we can accommodate them in a way that keeps them whole, then we will do it. These are things that are really important in your business as a business owner, especially if you’re in a helping profession, to think about when you’re working with your clients.
- Are you empowering them?
- Are you giving them a different way to work with you?
- Are you giving them a way to make them feel whole and healthy and take responsibility for their decisions?
- Is this truly an administrative issue that we can make work for both of us?
OR
- Are you telling them that it’s okay?
- Are they using victim language?
- Are they not wanting to play by the rules?
- Is this a pattern that keeps showing up?
- Is there an element of entitlement showing up?
If you find that the decision answers the latter questions, it’s important to remember that will carry forward for them in so many other parts of their life.
Our focus in a helping and healing profession is helping people get through these blocks and helping people take that next step and helping people to move past the things that hold them back. And that includes blocks in how they show up in business transactions, including their transaction with you.
Sure they may be upset at you in the moment, and you need to be prepared that some may even go into blame and trying to assign fault. Don’t let that take you out, it’s not personal, it’s simply evidence that what they are asking of you is definitely not administrative issue but rather their pattern that is holding them back.
Remember by staying committed to the client/potential client’s highest good, then allowing them to experience the consequence of their choice can be a pivotal moment for them in their growth and empowerment and to break out of the pattern that keeps them stuck.
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