How “Difficult Clients” Become Trusted Partners

In SaaS, consulting and advice-based businesses, the case for transitioning from subject matter expert (SME) to ’trusted’ or ‘strategic’ partner is a compelling one.

In clients’ eyes you become a vital part of their team, co-creating value-adding solutions to the challenges they face. As their business develops so does yours. You’re both invested in getting good outcomes. That's what your ‘partnership’ is built around.

Whilst many SME-based companies seek this kind of relationship, getting there can be tricky, especially with "difficult clients." Building trust can feel like hard work.

What if it didn't though? What if the level of curiosity, empathy and risk taking in your client-facing teams made building trust easier?

Let's take a look at these qualities in this context in a little more depth.

Curiosity

Clients take your subject matter knowledge as a given. It's not what makes you different. How curious you are about them does.

When you're wondering about what makes them tick, challenging how they're thinking about their business problems and exploring what holds them back, they start to be intrigued about what else you bring to the table.

Clients are continually making subjective judgements about you. They may not say it to your face but beneath the surface they’re asking “Do you really ‘get’ them,” “Do you have their interests at heart,” and “How savvy are you.”

They form opinions about whether you speak your truth or pull your punches and whether you seem real or are just acting out a role. They gauge the extent to which you force things on them vs. help them think issues through.

Overall they judge whether you're like them or not. You get put into boxes: someone who, like a breath of fresh air, offers a welcome change, a typical expert similar to the rest, someone that knows a lot about their field but not much else etc.

How curious they are about you, and the way they show up in written and face-to-face conversations, stems from these judgements.

Empathy

You make subjective judgements about clients too. Their behaviour can make them seem ‘difficult,’ ‘unreasonable’ or ‘demanding’ to you.

For example, an unwelcoming first meeting, poor listening, the way ideas are either accepted without question or heavily criticised, over compliant or maverick actions, unrealistic deadlines and onerous expectations etc. provide the evidence you need back your judgement up. 

But note how difficult it is for you to be empathetic once this takes hold. Judging their behaviour inevitably prevents you being curious about how it's arisen. Walking in your clients' shoes and seeing the world from their point of view therefore gets much harder.

Overcome this and you'll see just how much of the way your client thinks and behaves isn't related to you, but is framed by their culture. Their team's culture creates an intangible vibe that rubs off on customers and suppliers alike – you included.

You can’t know your client’s culture intimately as an outsider, but you'll feel its affects.

For example clients that feel easy to do business will be operating from a healthy culture. What you’re there to do will be clear, everyone will be pulling in the same direction, disagreements are handled creatively, you’ll get paid promptly etc.

Conversely an unhealthy culture creates a very different vibe. It produces "difficult," unhelpful behaviours like those described above. The question is do these trigger empathy and help you stand shoulder to shoulder with your client or take you outside your comfort zone into judging them.

Risk taking

One risk-averse, and entirely understandable response to the "difficult client” is to keep your head down and stick to your professional discipline. This is often justified by the fact the client is paying for this and it’s what you’re good at. Their culture-and-behavioural-related problems are for them, not you.

You might think it intrusive, rude even, to comment on their internal ways of doing things, however much they seem wasteful to you. You therefore remain firmly in the SME camp.

Another response is to have a different kind of conversation with clients. One that sensitively explores how they come across and the extent to which that makes it harder to achieve the outcomes they seek.

Though an unusual conversation they can be really helpful. In the same way a fish doesn’t know it’s wet, it’s hard sometimes for clients to see the impact their culture has on them, or other, when they're immersed in it every day.

In all innocence that’s their business-as-usual way of doing things and probably has been for some time. The idea they might get to where they want to be more easily is unlikely to have crossed their minds. They're in a blind spot.

Does that mean they're immune from the same restrictive, inhibiting vibe you feel when with them? Highly unlikely, albeit to them they're more used to it, it's their "normal." Does the blind spot imply they want to maintain the status quo that can make life difficult at times? You don't know until you take the risk and ask.

It won’t be the same for all clients but there’s every chance some will be open to change, especially if there’s a business upside to doing so in which your expertise can be of help.

That’s what gets you into trusted partner territory. You see what’s possible for clients in ways they can’t for themselves.

Take four examples:

• Marketing expertise. In a highly-regulated sales culture where many rules need to be adhered to, the marketing consultant interested in delivering growth by resolving the tension between compliance and authentic selling is likely to get more air time. 
• Legal services. In a dispute-ridden culture in which the norm is for "internal silos" to fight their corner, while the legal department "does battle" with external suppliers, lawyers offering to stop conflicts escalating and reduce clients’ legal bills are likely to get traction.
• IT consultants. In a culture where change is seen as a disruptive, unwelcome impostor, the digital transformation expert focused on getting clients' heartfelt commitment to new ways of working, which will make life easier for them and those who depend on their work, will stand out.
• Project managers. On construction projects plagued by a long-established culture of adversary in which investors, clients, advisors and suppliers try to pass risks off to each other, the project manager who adeptly circumnavigates the delays and additional costs this creates will be worth their weight in gold.    

When you set your expertise in the context of what clients may be blind to, you shatter the stereotypes they have about "experts." Your perception of just how "difficult" they are changes too. 

Clients for example feel relieved when they see not all experts are "problem only focused" or "too operational" or "techies first, business people second." Similarly "difficult clients" show up as people who like many can innocently get caught up in ways of operating that doesn’t help them achieve what they’re fully capable of.

When we start relating to each other as ordinary people - rather than as labels, stereotypes, job titles or seniority levels - we make room for trust to build. What once looked risky and difficult becomes less so.

Conversations are key

High-quality conversations create and maintain trusted partnerships.

Too often though these happen by chance, not by design. Typically they’re not in the budget: they’re more a speculative investment of time. They’re also impossible when neither partner tunes into, or is prepared to say how they feel about the vibe: "the way things get done around here."

That said they're where light is shone on blind spots and the value of working in new ways becomes clearer. Only when you and your prospects or clients feel great about the difference you can co-create together, are you on the way to partnering.

If it makes sense to you that trusted partnerships pay large dividends, the question of what makes creating them difficult arises.

I see client-facing teams intellectually understanding the benefits of "getting close to the client," but struggle in practice to access their natural qualities of curiosity, empathy and risk taking.

There are many reasons for this and they vary from person to person and company to company. However, a common theme is mindsets. When people realise how their routine thinking habits can inhibit as well as enable them to be authentic when with clients, those that hold them back dissolve.

Thanks for reading this. 

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Roger is a Co-Founder of The Mindset Difference – specialists in helping leaders and teams create more clarity, deliver real breakthroughs and have greater wellbeing.