No really, love em. Love them like you love your wife/husband/girlfriend/whatever.
A real client should be a relationship with as much background, history, and built up trust as any truly loving relationship. Let me set the scene for you and tell me if this helps:
Your eyes meet from across the room, and suddenly you can’t take your eyes off her, she looks perfect even if you don’t know how to describe why. A few awkward sentences is all you can string together at first, but at least you were able to score her number. After a few aborted attempts at calling, you finally work up the nerve to stay on the line after she picks up and you somehow are able to convince her to go on a real date with you. Dinner is nice, the movie is lame, but she laughed at your jokes and you both can feel something special here. A few more dates later and the awkwardness is gone, and you two feel so comfortable around each other that you don’t even need to finish your sentences around each other. Sure you still bicker from time to time but you both know that you can’t be happier without the other one than with.
Now for the same thing but as a client/salesman:
You see their inquiry into your product and you just know that you are going to be perfect for their needs, even before you can know why. You scramble together a few awkward sentences in an email response but something at least gets them to give you some more information. After a few aborted attempts at calling, you finally work up the nerve to just make your pitch and run with it – somehow you convince them to meet you in person. The meeting is nice, you’re not on your A-game, but things seem to click a little and they laughed at your jokes and want to start moving forward with your product. A few more meetings and you both can tell that this is going to be a good fit and can start to see exactly where your mutual goals align well. Sure you still hit a few snags here and there, but you both know that neither one of you would be happier with someone else on the other end.
Overblown metaphors or not, if you aren’t spending as much time and effort into building the relationship with your clients that you would with a potential love interest, you’ll never get the ultimate reward. Go the extra mile, buy the metaphorical equivalent to flowers and a bottle of wine, make sure that your client knows that you are the only one that can really make them happy.
Just keep your pants on in this case, as that kind of rejection is the wrong one for this situation.
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- Love note (Tyler Hurst)
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