Don’t make it look too easy.!

A dilemma faces all service provided, who happen to deal with first time clients, and especially unenlightened ones. However you are a surgeon, a designer, an architect or even a magician, you must be very careful when explaining your procedures to your client, a.k.a. the employer, the end user or generally, the service consumer. Time changed, and professions are not safeguarded as they used to be. More than ever before, national regulations now give consumers the right to ask questions, which previously were labelled “trade secret”. Clients, the consumers of professional service providers, expect professionals to take them through the process, and get them involved while performing the service.

As an architect, my dilemma is that when I explain the design process to my clients, they think it is very easy, and they try to do it themselves. How I wish I can raise a banner saying “good architecture is the product of highly trained professionals, so please don’t try to do it alone”. But why I have to explain the trade secrets to clients, instead of just showing them end result? There are many reasons, such as:

-         One of the fastest ways to get clients’ approval on a scheme is to show them where they come from

-         Some codes of practice insist on explaining the professional product to the client

-         In case the job is not yet secured, elaboration could be a good selling tool

-         Sometimes a professional engages the client in the process, to define the client’s requirements quickly

-         If the professional product is meant to be controversial, such as the case of architecture, and in other creative arts as well, the professional service provider have to convince the client with the non-conventional way of doing things.

But what happens next? Especially if the client is inexperienced or over enthusiastic? An array of reactions, varying from mild to moderate or even severe could be expected, including:

-         Euphoria, ending up with signing off the job, but coming back later with a changed mind, after the client finds out it is not as simple as he initially thought

-         A tsunami of irrelevant questions, wasting a lot of time and effort to answer

-         The client takes the liberty to “enhance” the design, or suggest impossible changes

-         The client takes over, and decide to start the design himself, because you let him think it is a very easy job, and come back with tracing paper scratched with his bright and revolutionary ideas

-         The client brings in an amateur relative or friend, and asks to tutor him/her on your trade, because he/she is fast learning, and will do a job by himself next week.!

I am sure all other service providers face the same dilemma one way or another. Think of the patient who is trying to do a minor surgery on the kitchen table using a steak knife, and the sports fan trying to perform a tricky move, to the land owner trying to self-built a less pleasant house. So, fellow professionals, please don't let it look too easy.

Needless to say, the same concept applies in corporate context. As a manager talking to his corporate or head office, you are less likely to receive the resources you asked for, if you make your assignment look too easy.! Isn't it true??