Commercial Make-Up Sex
Friday, April 3rd, 2009Engaging with your clients can be hazardous to your bank balance.
First, your new client’s expectation of the value you are going to deliver that may be at odds with reality.
You can avoid this pitfall by resiting the temptation to over-hype your product proposition. I sat in on a tele-seminar beamed out of California last week. Despite their “personal guarantee” to add “incredible value” what I witnessed was the audio equivalent to two peacocks (the presenters) engaged in an excited and franzied one hour sales dance. The complete lack of failure to deliver on the promise was beyond disappointing, it was disgusting.
They over-promised and under-delivered. Better to do the opposite.
The second way you can avoid disappointed clients and a shrinking bank balance is this: when you make a mistake and a client is good enough to complain please consider the following steps:
1. Admit the mistake
2. Let them know that what happened falls well below your normal service/quality standards
3. Give them the commercial equivalent of make-up sex. That is, send them away with a smile on their face feeling that the pain of the mess-up was far outweighed by the pleasure of the make-up.
Saying sorry is not enough. Stamp your integrity onto every client complaint by more than making it up to them.