What happens when you stop treating clients like transactions.

A lot of vendor relationships are built around deliverables. A client asks for something, the vendor completes it, an invoice goes out, and everyone moves on. That can work, but it rarely creates the kind of trust needed to actually grow a business on a collaborative basis. 

When you don’t take time to get to know your client as a person, their tendencies, preferences, you will always be limited in how far you can help. Sure, they can tell you what to do for every little thing, but we both know that doesn’t work for a constantly moving business owner. This also doesn’t allow for you to notice small things that, without a trusting relationship, you wouldn’t have the platform to bring up. Things that can actually make an impact, things you may notice that nobody realized. 

When there is trust, you can tell a client when something is not working. You can push back on a weak idea. You can suggest a better direction. You can actually have real conversations instead of just trying to keep the account happy. When we finally broke through that wall for the first time, the workload with that account no longer felt like work, it was easier to communicate. Us and the client were happier with the relationship than we were before. 

I will say though, this does not mean I am telling you to overgive or ignore scope. Boundaries are extremely important, and treating your clients personally does not mean you should remove them. It means you should take the time to understand not only the business, but the owner as well, and all their evolving needs and concerns on an intuitive level. 

This is, in part, why BrandScales has had success with their clients. We aren’t just trying to make posts, websites, graphics, or campaigns in isolation. The goal is to understand the business, the owner, the audience, and identify the opportunities to grow. Without this, the relationship would be no more than a transaction, and that doesn’t help sustained success.