Have you ever experienced one of the following?
1. Your client doesn’t respond to an e-mail
2. A voicemail you left your client on Monday isn’t returned until Friday, if ever
3. And, of course, your client didn’t take your counsel on a specific project
There are numerous other examples you could add to this list. But while these issues can be frustrating at times (ok, all the time), sometimes we need to take a step back and think about why the client hasn’t done something we were hoping they’d do.
Could it be that the client is overwhelmed with other in-house priorities and doesn’t have enough internal help because of a hiring freeze?
Perhaps senior management preferred to stay the course on a particular initiative thus handcuffing the client contact?
Maybe there just isn’t any budget left to move forward with the ideas we (the PR team) proposed?
It’s important to remember that a client got to where he/she is because they are smart people, and if they are ignoring you or not moving forward on something, there is always a reason why. Of course they would like to do big campaigns and take your advice, that’s part of the reason they hired you. But sometimes what you want to do may just not be possible at that particular time. Believe me, this probably makes them just as frustrated as you!
So the next time you get annoyed that a client didn’t do what you wanted or didn’t respond to something as quickly to something as you would’ve liked, take a step back and think about why that might be. This is something I’ve tried to do more of over the years, and it’s helped me see the bigger picture, and I hope you have similar experiences.
