The Amazingly Simple Way To Build Trust In Your Client Relationships
Think back on the last client that you truly loved working with.
What did you love about the client relationships?
For me, I love to work with clients that trust me implicitly.
They get tons of value out of working with me.
We vibe, we jive and we make something truly amazing together.
They’re the ones I'm excited to hear from when I get an email from them, and I enjoy communicating with them in meetings or phone calls.
Imagine if all of your clients were like this, what would that do for your business?
In honor of February, the month of love, I want to talk about client love this month.
Specifically, I’ll be talking about three different aspects of a client relationship that can take us from a business transaction relationship to something truly magical, something that lights you up that energizes your client, and that results in a much greater outcome for your delivery.
The simple way to build trust
I talk about trust a lot inside the No BS Agency Mastery Programme.
And I talk about it specifically in the Intensives Programme because in order for us to deliver an entire brand in just a couple of days, to get clients to pay me $40,000+ upfront before they've seen any creative work, and then to get them to say yes, is only possible because of the amount of trust that I cultivate in these relationships before the project starts.
To show you how you can cultivate more trust in your relationships with your clients, I want to tell you a story about a PR company that I hired six or seven years ago for an event that I was hosting.
It’s headed by Renee Seeley, who’s now a very good friend of mine, but at the time, I didn't know her very well.
I hired her company to promote a sell out art show that Steve and I were doing back in 2013.
And even though it was such a long time ago, there’s things about this relationship that I will never forget.
I have hired so many companies, service providers and consultants in the last 10 years, and Renee’s company stands out and continues to stand out as one of the best experiences I've had to date.
And it had to do with trust.
One of the things that really stuck out for me that I still remember to this day, is that we went through a process with her where she set us a strategic plan in the beginning, where there was a clear outcome that we were going - we were looking for press for this event.
And it wasn’t just that she had the process, she also had a cadence of communication with us that built an incredible amount of trust.
I distinctly remember that every Monday, she would share with us a report on what had happened in the past week.
There was a document that she wrote up and shared with us on Monday morning, of all of the places that they had reached out to, what the result of that had been and what press pieces had actually been published or were in the works.
It was a very simple document, but it meant that every single week, I could take a quick 10-second glance and know exactly where our project was, and what was coming in the next week.
I also knew exactly what she needed from me in order to move the project forward. And not only was this a very simple and clear communication that she had set up, but she did it without fail every Monday at 9am or 10am.
She was not late once and there was no question halfway through this project that everything that Renee said would happen was going to happen.
Now it's a very simple thing to do, right?
She said that she was going to communicate with us every Monday with an update and then she did it!
But to me, that is really a demonstration of how you build trust with someone. You say you're going to do something, and then you do it.
And believe it or not, this still stands out, as one of the only times I worked with someone where literally everything they said they were going to do happened exactly the way they said it would happen.
And to this day, I trust her implicitly. I refer her out with abandon, I do not hesitate to introduce her to people whenever I think there's even a possibility that she might be able to help them, because I trust her and her word implicitly.
So the question is, how can you create that feeling of trust with your clients, where they would introduce you to their family, where they would introduce you to the most important person in their lives, because they trust you?
I believe that it comes down to a ton of micro experiences that they have with you, from the very moment they touch your brand through the first phone call through the first engagement through doing a Lead Product into the project.
At every moment, there is an opportunity to build trust with your clients.
And again, it comes down to this very simple formula of ‘I say, I'm going to do something, I say something's going to happen, and then it always happens the way I say it.’
And after you have set and met an expectation over and over again for someone, what happens is your word becomes truth.
And once your word has become truth for somebody, and they trust you implicitly, and you can start to guide them more and more.
Because if I believe that everything you say that's going to happen is going to happen and if I believe that everything you tell me you're going to do, you're going to do exactly the way you said you're going to do it, then I’m going to believe the next thing you tell me, and I am going to be more likely to relax into following you.
And that's really what we want from our client relationships.
We want them to follow us, we want them to listen to us as experts and we want to lead them to the end result that will be most effective for them.
And that's only going to happen when you have trust.
What undermines trust with a client (without knowing it)
Now let me give you a couple of examples of how you may be undermining that trust without even knowing it.
One thing I see especially from creatives is that creatives tend to say I'm gonna get you that piece of work by next Friday.
And the creative thinks, ‘OK I have until sometime on Friday to send this work.’
Now, if you don't send it on Friday, and you don't send it on Saturday or Sunday, and you send it late, that's definitely an obvious way to break that trust, right?
The second you say I'm going to send you something on Friday, and you don't send it you have undermined that trust that they're going to have on you. I no longer believe that when you say you're going to send me something you will.
But I think there's even a more subtle way that you can build trust in that relationship or threaten it.
And that is when on Friday you send it.
I find that creatives sometimes think that ‘Well, if I send it by midnight, then I have sent it on time.’
But as a client, if I'm expecting something on Friday, and I get it at 11pm, I didn't really get it on Friday, did I?
I mean, I'm not checking my email at 11pm.
So even though you technically got it to me on Friday, it's actually late.
And actually, if I was expecting it on Friday, and looking forward to it, and I got it at 5pm, technically you were on time, but it still feels late to me because I didn't get to look at it all day.
So the best way, in my opinion, to build trust, is to always send things that you promise people first thing in the morning, say 8am.
I want my clients to have the work that I promised them in their inbox when they start to work that day.
And I find that the more often I am punctual like that, the more trust I will build more quickly.
Now, you might think ‘Oh, maybe I should send it early.’
But I actually don't think sending work early is adding to the trust.
In fact, I think it confuses things.
Something I've also seen happen is that creatives think that if they get something done early, (like sending something on Wednesday or Thursday, even though they said they’d send it on Friday) it looks like they’re going above and beyond for this client, and that should build more trust, right?
I actually think it's a problem to send it early as well.
Now, it may seem like a great thing to your client. They're excited, they got it early.
But it's going to create this precedent that you sometimes send things early.
Sometimes you say you're gonna send something on Friday, and then you send it on Wednesday.
And while that instance in and of itself isn't a problem, it creates different expectations moving forward.
So maybe the next time we work together, and you say you’re going to send me something on Friday, as the client, I might secretly be hoping that you're going to send it on Wednesday.
Or I might even ask you, ‘Hey, I need it earlier, can you get it to me?’
And maybe this week, the second time around, you can't get it to me earlier, or you aren't able to do it early.
Well, even though you're now sending it on time as you said, to me, the client, it's going to feel late, like a letdown.
So rather than messing with all of these emotions, just say you're going to do something and do it and try to be exact about it.
Try to always set and meet expectations.
The better you get at setting exact expectations, and then meeting them, the more trust you're going to build with your clients.
And what's going to happen is they are going to start following you.
‘Difficult’ clients
Have you ever had an experience where you're working with a client where they seem to get more and more difficult?
Maybe it’s not clear that they're being difficult, but they start asking for things and they start going out of scope or they start emailing you ahead of time questioning stuff or, or wondering, well, did you try a bigger font?
Have you ever had a client start kind of questioning and asking you about other ideas or asking you to expand the work that you did?
That can be kind of frustrating, especially if you're the creative doing the work?
Because you want to say ‘No, this is the work I think it should be. I'm showing you a design, or I'm showing you a logo, because this is what I think is the best. And if you start questioning whether or not I tried other stuff, you're basically questioning my ability to do good work.’
Well, this happens when they don't have trust in you, and they don't realize it.
I don't think they know it but it's a subtle lack of trust that can be built over how you communicate with them and how you interact with them.
Let me give you an example.
I hired a company a couple of years ago to set up some funnels for me.
They came very highly recommended and in retrospect, that recommendation was not from somebody who was being totally honest with me.
But at the time, I took this recommendation at face value, paid this person upfront, I believed that he was going to be really good at what he did.
From the very beginning, this guy told me ‘Okay, I'm going to send this thing to you on Tuesday.’
And then not only would I not get it on Tuesday, but I wouldn't even hear from him on Tuesday.
And then Thursday or Friday would roll by and I would have to email him ‘Hey, what happened to that thing? Weren't you supposed to send it to me?’
This happened over and over again.
This guy literally could not fulfill whatever it was that he promised me at every step of the way.
In fact, it was so bad that at every step, I believed less and less what he was saying he would eventually do the work.
But he would never do it the way he said he was going to and so I started questioning everything he gave me.
I noticed myself becoming a really annoying client!
Because now when he sent me work, I didn't really believe that he had done what he said he was going to do.
So I would ask him about the copy. Or I would ask him if he had checked this thing or that thing.
And I started to become a real nag. I felt like I was nagging him because I kept questioning everything he was doing.
Why was I questioning it? Because I didn't really believe that he was doing what he said he was going to do, because the way that he interacted with me throughout the process kind of showed me that he wasn't really living up to his word.
By the end of that project, I was so done with it, it took so much longer than he had promised.
But also, I hated how I had become that very horrible client that I hate - someone who is questioning and micromanaging everything.
And I share this story from a client's perspective because I could see how he had cultivated that relationship with me.
I've worked with so many other people where I'm completely hands off, I want you to take over this project, I want you to do it to completion.
I don't have time to micromanage this. And I don't want to question what you're doing - quite the opposite.
I pay a lot of money to have an expert handle it for me, but in this situation, he was expensive and supposedly an expert.
I had hired him to do just that. And then because of the way our trust was eroded over time, I became the kind of client that we all want to avoid.
And I became that difficult client because I just didn't trust him.
So the question is, throughout your engagement with your clients, from the very first touch point through to the very end, are you managing expectations at every interaction?
And are you meeting those expectations?
Are you building that well of trust, so that your clients can relax into the relationship and let you lead?
If you want to work with clients that you would love, that excite you to work with them, that are going to get the most value out of working with you, then you need them to trust you.
How much they trust you is as much or more on you to develop that relationship of trust than it really is on them.
If you find that clients are questioning your every move, or they're questioning your work, or they're asking you to see more or to try different things, what they're really saying is, ‘I don't believe that you've done your best work’ or ‘I don't believe that you've tried all of the variations’ or ‘I don't believe that you've really put the effort that this requires into it and I'm scared that I'm not going to get the best result.’
When a client is asking for so many revisions, when a client is throwing new ideas it's just a representation of their fear that they're not going to get the best result if they don't do that.
How can you put their mind at ease, and tell them to relax and let them know you've got this? That is what is going to be the basis for a beautiful client relationship full of love and respect.
And that is the best recipe for a great outcome.
There are so many nuanced and subtle ways that you can do this. Part of it comes from how you show up with confidence and how you lead your clients. That's another great way to cultivate trust.
And we talk about all of the different opportunities to do this and so much more inside the No BS Agency Mastery Programme.
If you're a 1-2 person branding agency, looking to scale up to $30k to $50k months, without growing a big team, and shrinking your working time by up to 80%, then go to nobsagencies.com/apply.
Share a few details about your business and then hop on a phone call with my team and see if now is the time for you to level up your business.
Wouldn't it be nice to build a business that gives you that profit and freedom while working with clients you adore, who adore you and who are singing your praises to everyone they meet?
That's what we're doing inside the No BS Agency Mastery Programme.
And if that is something that you are interested in learning more about, go to nobsagenices.com/apply.
We cannot wait to talk to you and see if now is the time for you to jump in and grow your business with us.
Here’s what you need to get…
Building trust is the cornerstone of a great client relationship, and is incredibly easy to do. Communicate clearly, and set and manage expectations from the beginning through to the end. And it’s just as easy to undermine that trust - ‘difficult’ clients only become that way if you haven’t created that experience of trust and reliability. Once you fix that, you’ll find that you’ll only be working with great clients who trust you.
P.S. You can always jump on a call with my team if you want to learn all my other tools and strategies to develop those great client relationships and scale up your agency - just go here to get started!