Power and perils of the words "oh can you just…?" - For professionals delivering retail and hospitality spaces

The age-old words everyone has heard…

"Oh, Can you just… …? It shouldn’t take you too long"

They are words that can be a step on a path to a rock-solid client relationship, a closer team, a great project.

Or they can lead to uncharted territories, pushing the boundaries of roles and responsibilities beyond what's comfortable.

It is especially common in when working in Retail, Hospitality and Luxury - it’s a question that we all must be good at answering to succeed. Often, it is not just appreciated - but expected.

All brands and operators will have a queue of people lining up to take a look at a new project, or provide free of charge/add-on help when there is a big carrot. But it is the ability and willingness to go the extra mile purely to help someone out that yields the biggest long term results for relationships.

This article looks at the balance between the two - and asks what we can do to get the balance right and provide an exceptional service based on trust and mutual support, while also protecting a team and a bottom line.?

Two sides of the coin:

When you are the person in a client's phonebook who always covers the "can you just" questions you're in a golden position.

Examples of (seemingly) GREAT "Can you just"s:

• "Can you just pop over to the King's road and take a look at a location we're considering?"
• "Can you just take a look at this render/layout we're looking at, what do you think? Do you have any fresh ideas?"
• "The project is a go, can you just give me a bit of advice about the planning process we'd need here?"
• Then finally… "You’ve been so helpful getting us to this point… can you just put together a proposal to help us on this project? We want to get started next week!"

However, there are some which at the time might appear to have only downside - but are actually the most important:

• "Can you just coordinate all these direct orders, there are quite a few things I am ordering myself and I need to make sure its all planned properly"
• "Can you just shorten that deadline by a week?"
• "Can you just put together a programme..? And also let me know how much all the works will cost?"
• "Oh and can you just do the main contractor tender for us?"
• "Can you just help us save 30% on the budget? Oh, and we'd like to change all the upholstery from leather to custom Mohair with gold inlay…"

The upside:

The power of answering these questions is clear - you become the most trusted and relied upon advisor in the client's inner circle. The benefits are of course:

• Great pipeline visibility
• Greater creative and professional freedom
• Leapfrogging tender processes
• Quality and efficiency gains through repetition
• The list can do on

?

The Trust Equation:

The trust equation, created in the book “The Trusted Advisor” by H Maister (AMAZON), sets out the basis for Client > Consultant relationships. The equation could be an entirely separate article, but answering the "Can you just"s works on the "Intimacy" part of this equation:

Trust = (Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy)/ Self-Orientation.

?To summarise neatly:

"It's about demonstrating, through actions and interactions, that the advisor is committed to and genuinely concerned with the client's overall success and well-being, not just in achieving specific business outcomes."

The Downside:

The risks of taking on so many "Can you just"s can be perilous. Particularly for small/medium size firms looking to produce excellent work:

• Quality of your core service drops because you're spending too much time on other things and not what you're best. Eventually, helping the client ends up hurting your relationship with them as they're let down.
• With client's who you know are full of "can you just"s pricing projects is challenging. Price in the time needed to cover all these requests and you might be uncompetitive, fail to price them in and there could be a sticky add-fee conversation, which if done incorrectly can harm a relationship.
• Projects become unprofitable as death-by-1,000-cuts sets in when extra effort eats away margins
• Your client might be happy, but you struggle to scale your business. Being great partially because of all the extras you provide, but not having a way of scaling these "extras", can hamstring growth.
• Teams become overworked or burned out by constantly spinning extra requests alongside their core workload. Going the extra mile is great in the short term, but in the long term leads to unhappy teams and turnover. Losing an excellent team member can be more costly than losing an excellent client!
• The "can you just" ends up costing the client money, time or a drop in quality - and you are left holding the baby for something you didn’t want to do in the first place!
• The list can go on…

What can be done?

In the end, the nature of retail, hospitality and luxury projects is that the client and the entire project team strive for excellence - and this can mean everyone often pulls together to step a little out of their box to deliver brilliant results.

Delivering over and above for a client in need at a time when the upside might be months or years away is the only way to foster long term trust that lasts.

Balancing these "can you just"s is a skill that everyone who has grown or run a business in this space is all too familiar with.

Only you will know how your firm works best or what will work best for your clients… but putting things in place to both go the extra mile for a client and protect your team and business is the goal.

Where we come in:

For those projects where "can you just?" goes past that fateful point… and scope creep becomes too much to manage - we're here as a tool in your box.

Our approach is designed specifically to work with architects, interior designers and creative teams delivering projects in this unique sector.

We pick up all or some of procurement, cost management, project management and site management so you can focus on what you're best at, and love doing… Stakeholder Management- Architecture and Design.

We would love to connect for a coffee or introduction chat. Use the link below to book a call now, or reach out at [email protected]

https://www.mettbuild.com/contact