This is a guest post written by Lace Llanora from The Wholesale Forums, the UK’s leading B2B networking community & small business forums for wholesalers, distributors, importers, dropshippers and retailers. You can also follow them on Twitter and on Facebook.
When young business minds are able to fulfil a niche and at more competitive prices, it becomes a common practice for teen entrepreneurs to handle more clients than they normally can. This holds true for any business that has perfected the recipe for success. You would think this is the better problem to have compared to having zero clients – but wait until it chokes you!
Taking on more clients or bigger projects than you can handle can be disruptive to your teen success. It’s a bad habit to form and it can lead to major disappointments. Your goals should always be SMART. As in specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound. It goes without saying you should practice the same SMART philosophy in the process of delivering products and services to your clients. But what about taking risks? Well, if your hands are too full you risk losing not just one but all of your prospects. That’s exactly the reason old folks have written so many idiomatic clichés about this practice (i.e. spreading yourself too thin, too many irons in the fire, biting off more than you can chew) and note these are mostly expressions of regret.
So here are 5 preventive tips to help you manage your clients:
1. Be honest – don’t employ ghost employees and run around telling your customers that you have a robust team of 5 professionals when you’re actually a one-man band. In the same way, don’t mislead buyers you have a ship full of products when you only have a pallet.
You don’t really need to smash your face with humble pie, but telling your customers (and being realistic) about your capacity will help you work more at ease without unnecessary tension. And you know that’s the ultimate nemesis for your creativity!
2. Under promise but over deliver – don’t promise the moon to your clients but shoot for the stars when fulfilling their requirements. It’s all about managing customer expectations and with the current economic climate, customers can be unforgiving when you fall short of your promises.
If you’re a graphic designer and you think you can finish a mock-up in 3 days, tell them you can make it by after 5 days or even 6. You’ll never know what Murphy’s Law can bring to your work desk and that buffer can be your saving grace. If you indeed finished by 3 days, you would already have delighted your customers pronto.
3. Choose your clients – turning down clients is not a mortal sin, unless you do it the wrong way. Again, back to number one on being honest about your capacity. Work with clients that can fully benefit from what you have to offer. Usually, if you’re a start-up you would want to work with clients of the same size and help each other grow bigger.
Ask experienced entrepreneurs about trouble clients too, it won’t hurt to do a quick background check so you have all possible grounds covered during negotiations. Don’t be greedy to welcome all contracts coming your way when your brain is playing that ka-ching sound. Delight clients one at a time and give them all the attention they deserve.
4. Learn to say no – and no we’re not being repetitious about number 3, we’re talking about saying no to client requests that will make you bend over backwards. Once a deal is signed, clients could sweet talk you into earlier completion dates, additional items or features, etc. It’s so hard to resist because you want to make them happy but you risk meeting the worst of them when your work starts to fall through the cracks.
Again never promise what you can’t definitely deliver, you might say you will try but they shouldn’t count on it. If you simply said yes and their request is nowhere to be found, you’ve lost their trust and loyalty.
5. Manage your time, realistically – think Cinderella here. You only have 24 hours in a day and by twelve midnight, are you sure you have enough oil to burn to meet your deadlines? Always take time (apart from other resources) into consideration when negotiating and planning your roll-out plans. This holds true for scheduling client meetings, don’t count on them being on time and on the dot like your favourite pizza. Give yourself a few hours to recoup, review, and to deal with any unexpected delays.
Now you’re well on your way to converting your clients into delighted ones that will trumpet the good news that is your business! Don’t forget that your most important capital and resource is yourself, so don’t drive yourself into the ground, become your own manager and head towards business superstardom.
2 Responses
#2 is definitely the most important point in my opinion. All too often have I seen business people, young or old, promise the world and fail to deliver. Always under play what you think you can achieve and they’ll think you’re fantastic when you beat their expectations.
In my experience this had lead to many recommendations which have generated more work.
Ben Norman recently posted..Get Attention…Profit?
I agree with you more especially with number 1… Honestly is the best character everyone should have in this business. Thank you for sharing this post…