Type and hit ENTER

  • Home
  • Articles
  • About
  • The Book
  • Media
  • Speaking
  • Subscribe Free
  • Advisory
  • Contact
GET CONNECTED

 

"Witty, clever and extremely relevant in these godforsaken Zoom times." Zoë Foster Blake

Book on sale now from Penguin Random House.

  • Home
  • Articles
  • About
  • The Book
  • Media
  • Speaking
  • Subscribe Free
  • Advisory
  • Contact
You Get The Clients You Deserve
Share
You Get The Clients You Deserve by Ian Whitworth
Articles

You Get The Clients You Deserve

February 25, 2019
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth
Audio Version 6 mins

Winning With Winston

 

Let’s talk about leadership and learn from Sir Winston Churchill, who said some inspirational stuff about beach fighting.

More importantly he drank a bottle of champagne with lunch every day and liked to quote Napoleon’s champagne motto:  “In victory, I deserve it. In defeat, I need it!”

Pol Roger was Winston’s preferred brand, and after he died they named their top-of-the-range product after him. Winston is the best champagne there is, and if you feel otherwise: you are wrong. By comparison, Dom Perignon is a nightclub posing prop. And Krug has a weird masculine edge like a guy with lots of after-shave standing too near you on a hot day.

(Side note – people who call champagne “shampoo”: no trial, straight to the stocks in the town square to be pelted with manure.)

We don’t hit it to the same level as ol’ Winston, as the government isn’t paying for our champagne, but we bought a bottle of his stuff last week because we’re in a very good mood after a couple of major tender wins. Both were over a year’s work.

One is a new project, the other a re-contracting of a long-term client. Both are large, for our industry, and each will employ 6-8 of our staff for contracts that last at least five years.

That is really great, but by far the best thing is that both clients are really good, honorable outfits to do business with.

 

Truth: Some Clients Are Better Than Others

 

I think it’s important to analyse what makes good clients good. Each day LinkedIn delivers a terabyte of hot tips on how to win new clients. You never read about the importance of winning good clients.

New clients just make your business bigger. Good clients make your business better. And they make your life better long-term.

Here’s a quick list of what makes a good client.

  1. They actually care about doing a good job for their clients, not just extracting cash at whatever cost. As a supplier, if you’re being held to lofty standards so a client can deliver something great, that’s not a problem. It’s motivating for everyone involved.
  2. They put a priority on doing things rather than talking about them.
  3. They give you, the supplier, swift feedback on all the good and bad things. So you always know where you are. If you’re not doing a great job in a certain area – and that will certainly happen – you can’t fix it if you’re waiting for a quarterly review meeting. And speaking of bad things:
  4. They own errors on their side. When things go off the rails, they don’t just use you as a convenient scapegoat. We’ve all been there.
  5. Your interests are aligned. If they make money, you make money. It’s not a zero-sum game where they’re just trying to squeeze you like the final remnants in the toothpaste tube.
  6. You genuinely like them personally. Don’t discount this as some weak, soft-skills viewpoint. I’ve recently had three discussions with unrelated people, all with first-hand experience with a business person who is all over the news lately, and not in a good way. That client is an absolute pig to work with, and they inspire nobody to do their best work.
  7. They don’t have a hundred layers of management. Information moves around quickly. There are solid relationships at all levels, and the people at the top on both sides will pick up the phone when it’s needed rather than sending long tedious emails that waste everyone’s time.

It’s an actions thing, not words.

Our new client is a young family-owned company, refreshingly free of the usual Vice-Presidents of this and that. They’ve built an entire new city precinct. Above the construction budget, they spent a lot on sustainability and creating something that will be of lasting benefit to their city. Most clients just develop a policy document to hand around in meetings, which achieves not much other than ticking a box.

When they actually reach into their own pocket to support those ideals: good client.

 

How To Attract Good Clients

 

The best way to attract that sort of client is: take a look in the mirror. Are you the things on that list? Like attracts like.

A lot of managers just seem really cranky and paranoid. If you think all your staff are lazy and all your suppliers are ripping you off, that mindset runs right through your business. You bring down more and more process, regulation, suspicion and passive-aggressive emails to keep everyone operating in a tight straightjacket.

Service gets doled out in teaspoons, and you attract customers who are just like you. Bad-tempered bargain hunters.

If you support your own staff and suppliers, it shows. And there are plenty of good clients out there.

We have competitors doing a great job. When we call up their clients to ask if we can pitch for their work, and they say: “no thanks, we’ve been working with Competitor X for years and we have a great relationship”, it makes us happy in a strange kind of way to hear that loyalty, rather than the clients who leapfrog from one supplier to another. Long-term, what’s good for our industry is good for us.

 

The Happy Ending

 

Something that you don’t see written about much in the business books is the deep enjoyment you get from looking after your staff long-term. In giving them meaningful careers that help them buy houses, raise families and generally feel good about themselves.

I think the reason you don’t read about it much because there is no objective measuring unit for that feeling. It can’t be graphed. So it doesn’t cut much ice with the “if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it” crowd. Fuck those people.

The client we re-contracted was in a smaller city and without them, our business there would be a borderline commercial proposition. Let me assure you, when we broke the news to our staff, and they realised their long period of living under a cloud was over, the vibe was a deeply wonderful thing, like the feel-good scene at the end of a movie. They’re pumped to get a bunch of stuff done. It reminded us why you start businesses in the first place.

 

 


If you liked this, you might enjoy Conversation Is Not Poker: 3 Essential Charm Tips.

And if you don’t already, why not subscribe? It’s free, there’s a new story each Tuesday morning, and I will never email you hustling self-improvement courses or that sort of annoyance. Promise.

 

February 25, 2019

Related News

Other posts that you should not miss.
Spread Your Hero Net Wider by Ian Whitworth
Articles

Hey Business People: Cast Your Hero Net Wider

July 22, 2019
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth

Escape the endless content recycling bin that is LinkedIn and business advice in general. You'll get skills and ideas others will never find.

Read More
July 22, 2019
Posted by Ian Whitworth
Scene Change Virtual Studio For School Events
Articles

Behind The Scenes As We Launch Our Pivot

August 24, 2020
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth

Lessons learned as we attempt to pivot a business shut down by COVID laws

Read More
August 24, 2020
Posted by Ian Whitworth
Covid Cleanup
Articles

What Now? Covid Business Survivor 2

March 23, 2020
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth

Week 2 of the Covid business hellscape. All the rules are changing. More tips on cash flow, negotiation and government stimulus deals.

Read More
March 23, 2020
Posted by Ian Whitworth
← PREVIOUS POST
Happyland Or Nong Factory: Where Is Your Business Going?
NEXT POST →
Lies Businesses Tell: One Stop Shop Syndrome

2 Comments

on You Get The Clients You Deserve.
  1. Christophorous
    February 27, 2019 @ 6:38 am
    -

    Always a great read. Sorry but Bollinger grande annee IS better. Further OM not required.

  2. Ian Whitworth
    February 27, 2019 @ 6:46 am
    -

    Look at you with your Bollinger you are the Mayor of Wrongtown ?

FREE E-BOOK

SUBSCRIBE
MOST POPULAR
  • Last-minute grocery businesses are a massive bag of dicks
    June 27, 2022

    It’s a business model that seems to have cherry-picked all the worst, hardest, most expensive elements of running a business.

  • Scotty Marketing
    3 post-Scotty lessons: good marketing is not like that
    May 30, 2022

    Don't be a product that people only buy once. How to make marketing a force for honesty and profitability in your business instead.

  • Undisruptable South Korea deal
    Undisruptable’s first international publishing deal
    January 31, 2022

    Undisruptable will see its first international release later this year and it's not in a country you'd expect.

  • “An Australian business classic.” Reviews of Undisruptable
    July 12, 2021

    The reviews are in and they are very good.

ABOUT IAN WHITWORTH

Ian Whitworth is a reformed advertising creative director turned entrepreneur with a successful national group of businesses that he doesn’t work in day to day. Read more

POPULAR TAGS
management
branding
Sales
Marketing
jargon
Persuasion
Covid 19
Nickelback
Pitching
Coronavirus
strategy
MBA
startup
Copywriting
Motivation
Business
CEO
Design
Graphic Design
Business Travel
Elon Musk
Frequent Flyer
David Attenborough
Advice
Lacey Filipich
Saxton Speakers
Scene Change
Penguin Random House
Gary Vaynerchuk
Sales Pitch
Tendering
Planning
Conversation Skills
Customers
Customer Service
AI
Shingy
LinkedIn
Simon Sinek
Success
Presentations
Mr Pigden
Motivators
Entrepreneur
Ian Wright
Archives
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • Contact
  • Subscribe
  • Privacy
  • Terms & Conditions
© Whitworth Communications 2020
You Get The Clients You Deserve - Undisruptable