You don’t care for your child by telling them to go figure out how to get to school on their own. You walk them there. You bundle them up. You have them hold your hand, so they don’t run into the street and get run over. You think about every little thing that could happen along the way, and you prepare for it. Of course, to be fair, maybe you don’t. Maybe you say they need to learn on their own. So you teach them to read a map or you teach them to pick their clothes. It makes no difference. Either way, it’s all about doing what’s best for them.
Yet, more times than not, when we work with clients, we expect them to figure it all out for themselves.
We wait for them to ask the right questions instead of thinking about what they should ask. We tell them things to cover ourselves instead of protect them. We work at the sale, but we don’t give the next steps, we don’t look for helpful suggestions, and we wonder what’s wrong with them when everything starts to unravel. After all, didn’t we give them all those cool trinkets along the way?
I had a professor who memorized the name of every student in every classroom. She wasn’t gifted with a photographic memory. She didn’t have some special trick. She just worked at it, because that’s what she felt was the right thing to do. No one ever forgot her. She was, not surprisingly, a great teacher, as well.
Do it like you’d do for your kids. Or your close friends. Or that professor. Because your clients should be on the list of people you care for. Ask what can go wrong. Ask what they need to get done. Ask what they deserve. Then see how you can help at every step along the way.
It was an epiphany for me when I figured out that people wanted to be told how it worked, what they needed to do, and what I was going to do.