Doing Business: How To Not Sell Me a TV
After brunch today we found ourselves in the Sony Style store. What a fascinating place. Gadgets, bells, whistles, humongous tvs, stereos, computers, cameras, mp3 players. It was quite intoxicating. We spent a good deal of time in the television section as we hope to buy a flat panel HDTV before Christmas of this year. The first program on the display televisions was a nature program with stunning clarity and detail. It was simply spectacular. Next came a football game that was more than a little blurry. I asked the salesman who had approached us why the picture was so blurry, surely you couldn’t expect that kind of performance on a $3000 television. His answer was “well it really could be anything. We’re running a DVD and there could be signal loss there or a loose cable, or anything really.”
His answer could very well have been true and accurate but it certainly didn’t inspire any confidence in Sony televisions. Or Sony television salesmen. It wasn’t the fact that he didn’t have a specific answer to give me, it was more the fact that he didn’t seem interested in finding a plausible answer. Perhaps that’s because he knew I wasn’t going to buy today and he didn’t want to waste his time with just a browser.
As a freelancer or someone who runs an independent business customer service is one thing that always has the potential to set you apart from the bigger firms, well known competitors or just the generic “other guy.” I have clients that I did work for two years ago that still send me emails occasionally asking for my advice or help. Most of the time it’s a question I can answer in five minutes and I do. Not because I’m going to bill them for the time it takes to answer their question, not because I think it’s going to make them hire me for something else right away. I do it because it’s another step in building a relationship with that client. It makes them think of me not as a business entity who is out to get more and more money from them but as a person who has their interests in mind and is willing and able to help them. It’s these relationships that make them hire me repeatedly or recommend me to their friends and colleagues.
There have been several situations where I didn’t know the answer to a client’s question and I’ve had to be honest and admit that fact. But always when I did so I made sure they knew I was eager to research and learn about the problem so I could give them a useful, productive answer or solution to their question or problem. No one has ever backed out of a project because I didn’t know the answer to a question. In fact clients have seem to find my honesty refreshing. Your client knows that you don’t have the answer to every question and pretending that you do just makes them doubt you. Translation? You’re probably not as good at bullshitting as you think you are.
If you really can convince them that you know the answer to everything then more power to you. But if you can’t then it’s your job to convince them that you can find the answer, learn the technique, or find an alternate method to accomplish the same goal. You can’t possibly know every answer but you can always find a solution. That creative thinking, quick on your feet action is one of your key assets as a small business person or independent contractor. Your clients hire you because they have confidence in you the person, not just your listed or implied skill set. There are five or fifty people out there with the same skills listed on their resume. Making yourself stand out as person of character dedicated to client service will grow your business and your business relationships. It’s those relationships that are going to make your bottom line grow over the long term.
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