The world is a dangerous place. It is not only bad instances of The Client Experience. There was a period of time when friends would not travel internationally with me. Why? Well, I was in Maracaibo, Venezuela when the junta took over. Then there was the time I was in Greece when the government fell there in the late 1960s, and the time I was trapped in the international zone of the airport in Athens when there was an assassination attempt on the prime minister. Oh, I almost forgot about the time I was on a flight in Europe when we were brought down in Zagreb, Yugoslavia due to having a terrorist on the plane. That was two weeks before Yugoslavia collapsed into civil war…
Yes, the world is a dangerous place, but not just politically. People have been burned by scam artists, con men, and even by legitimate businesses repeatedly in their lives. I walked away from helping large corporations in 1990 after the third time of succeeding in a project only to be stiffed out of a significant portion of my fees. Suing a large company with a collection of full time lawyers? Individually, we are not wealthy enough…
On the “everyday living” side, I abandoned buying automobiles made by US manufacturers in the 1980s. Why? Well, beyond the string of horrid experiences from 1978 to 1983 with a variety of GM products, my Buick Electra Park Avenue had its engine heads warp at 50,322 miles. General Motors would not do anything about it: the warranty was for 50,000 miles.
Then there was the Ford Aerostar minivan, purchased for transporting our brood of three children and three dogs about the community. It’s repair list filled up a stack of papers 36 inches tall by the time we had put 14,000 miles on it. Considered suing them on the Lemon Law Statute but couldn’t get to first base under those same the lemon laws; All of the auto manufacturers has so avoided ANY lemon law claims there were no legal precedents a court could hang their hat on. Finally got Ford to purchase it back by suing them under the Uniform Commercial Code, but the ultimate insult occurred when returning the car to Ford. Three large men accompanied me to the vehicle to confirm that I had NOT punched out the gas intake hole so that I could use leaded gasoline…
Bad experiences may not last forever. In the 2000’s I expanded our fleet beyond Audis and more BMWs than I care to admit, to include two Fords and a Chevy truck, but the memory of what I went through never goes away. I also returned to helping large corporations in 2004, but under different terms. How long does the taste of a bad experience last? Forever.
What is it that makes our first reaction one filled with suspicion? Even after we move ahead in a relationship, why do we remain very cautious?
The World Is A Dangerous Place
Most of us learned to mistrust as children. Children, if they are not repeatedly abused from the time they are born, start out as a trusting lot. It is only after the bully goes unpunished, or we get falsely blamed and punished for a sibling’s actions that the skepticism grows exponentially. Most people find out that as they get older, a skeptical attitude does not “play” well in the world, and so we learn: “Be ever vigilant, ever cautious, and always very careful, but: be good to everyone and look like you haven’t a care in the world.”
Where I live, this is called “Minnesota Nice”. Most communities have their own versions of it, but it really is less cultural, and more tied to coping with the realties of life in the real world. What does this mean in most business-to-business relationships? Usually they are very cordial on the surface. Usually all the parties are both appreciative of the relationship and to a certain degree, see the value of the other partner. The challenge underlying all of this is the lack of trust lingering just below the surface.
Think about what your clients that own businesses are entrusting to you. It is their “hidden information”, their means of survival and protection in the world – knowledge about their money. If you are a CPA or a tax advisor, and you are skilled at what you do, it is a good decision on their part; at least as it relates to tax and audit; maybe even estate planning. The difficult part of this is clearly understanding what really is their money…
Whether I was helping a large corporation or a startup looking for early stage funding, the most important step on my side, and what I really learned when I was young, was what really is their “money”. The more I could get them to see that I clearly understood their “money”, the more effective I became in helping their businesses. Always, and in a gracious way, showing how to more safely and efficiently grow their “money”, the more everyone prospered.
So, what really is your client’s “money”?
ANYTHING that leads them to feel safer in this dangerous place we call “the world”.
So what does this include?
- Cash
- Accounts Receivable
- Assets, especially liquid and semi-liquid ones
- Strong cash flow
- A great corporate culture
- Lifetime relationships with clients
- Buffers, including cash reserves, reasonable work hours, vacations, benefits, etc.
- A clearer sense of knowing what is going on the company
- Pro-active management strategies and tactics that work
- Risk management that includes cash flow and contingency plans
- Some to TALK TO about all of the above…
I found out quickly that talking about all these elements of a business was tapping into a very deep and private place with the managing executives among my clients. It is perhaps the most intimate place you can venture with an owner for a simple reason: This is the place of their survival…
This is why The Client Experience is so critical. A bad experience with you might be forgiven, and if repaired over time, might actually result in them trusting you later, but fundamentally, the Client Experience outweighs everything else in professional relationships. This is why wire house brokers so nurture the “personal” relationship with their large investor clients. Tickets to Broadway shows, the Yankees, dinner at an exclusive nightclub, all used to be the norm until the SEC set limits on what brokers can spend on individual client “marketing” events. Explanations of why the investment went south, or what “really caused” the loss are smoothly delivered. For many investors, the relationship with their brokers continued long after the violation of their investments had occurred.
The auto industry is another example of “fixing” a bad experience and time eventually healing the wounds. Most cars in the 1980s had 3 to 5 visits to the dealership in the first year to “fix” issues under the warranty. By the time Lexus came about and got scores under 100 instances a year in 100 cars, new benchmarks were hit. Today the top ten vehicles are all under 87 instances in 100 vehicles, and the worst of the lot are under 200 instances per 100 vehicles. This is why GM and Ford are recovering: they are building better products and accompanying it with a better Client Experience.
Even so, think how long it took GM and Ford to get me back: Rebuilding trust takes a while, especially after the violation of it.
What about relationships that haven’t had “the black dog” show up? How long does it take to manage a business relationship to get to the point of TALKING about their “money” in that deep and private place? My own experience, and that of many of my service driven clients with their customers is fairly consistent:
- They will trust you enough to give you a “try” on advanced services after one month.
- They will actually start implementing some of the conclusions you help them realize in the third month of your services.
- They will see the hard results (but only if you graciously remind them of “what was before”) in six to nine months.
- They will trust you to discuss the deeper elements somewhere between twelve and eighteen months of the professional relationship on advanced services.
- They will send you referrals after 2 years.
So, THAT is what they are afraid of, and, yes, it really TAKES THAT LONG!
Protect the Client Experience, feed the White Dog, and be patient!
Next: What are effective ways of creating TOMA (Top Of Mind Awareness)?