Difficult Clients

The Impact on Your Time

Difficult clients can be a drain on your valuable time. Eg: I invited someone to a networking event and the reply came back "I'm sorry, I am unable to come due to work commitments".

Until consultants realize that networking and working the room IS work and is as important as finalizing the deal, then networking will be seen as a waste of time. When consultants stand back and assess some of their difficult clients, realizing how unprofitable they really are, they begin to think laterally:

"If I get rid of these difficult clients who...

Pay late
Never refer others
I don't really like or trust
Are BMW's
(bitchers, moaners and whiners)

Difficult Clients stop you from finding better clients

"Are you prepare to 'sack' difficult clients?", asks Will Kintish

"...then I'll have more time to go networking for new ones where there is mutual benefit."

In my latter years in accountancy, I sacked one of my biggest but most difficult clients, who fulfilled all of the above criteria. In the following year, my portfolio increased by 20% simply because I had created the space to hunt for new business relationships. Networking doesn't work when professionals spend too long working with problematic customers, leaving no time to seek out people who will treat them better.

Consider your own approach:

If you have problematic customers who take a lot of your time for little return, do you:

Try to keep them at all costs?

Recognise the value of your own time, sack the customer and start building new business relationships?

If you are prepared to make time and space in your diary for developing relationships with business people who will treat you with respect, then I'll show you how to make contact with them:

making new contacts