This Is Why Clients Don't Take Your Advice...

This Is Why Clients Don't Take Your Advice...

How often do you find yourself wondering why a client doesn't heed your advice? Perhaps this occurred after you created a fantastic portfolio that perfectly matched the requirements of the client. Or maybe you came up with a brilliant sales plan for them that may ultimately boost their ROI by 5%, or maybe they bailed out when you suggested a long-term strategy made to withstand challenging economic conditions and did so in a panic.

You might have held yourself accountable and sought out additional strategies for persuasion. You could have been inclined to question the honesty of your clients (or worse their intelligence).

The reality can be very different. Clients frequently ignore sound advice for reasons that have very little to do with your ability to persuade them or their intelligence. Instead, it's because everyone is designed to behave irrationally, especially when it comes to money - investors, advisors, and everyone else.

Three key hurdles that can mislead clients have been discovered by behavioral scientists. In order to sum these up, clients must:

Credibly assert what you say

Determine what to do.

Actualize it

Each of these steps embodies a distinct difficulty or pain point.

Imagine you have a client who pays you well for your counsel and asks for it. Also assuming you did your research and have a strong, well-thought-out recommendation...

Let's use this example to keep things simple:

You work as a digital marketer, and an SME owner asks you for advice on how to launch their brand online. You've done your homework on their field of expertise, target market, and any other pertinent information, and you advise them to take a social first strategy, but the client really wants to launch with a website.

Now the question is: Why may customers like this not heed your counsel?

Barrier 1: Clients don't believe what you are saying

Sadly, having the proper response does not guarantee that it will be accepted. There are numerous reasons why clients can reject your advice, thus. A strategy you could employ is to urge a client to imagine the exact opposite of what they now believe to be true, and then attempt to convince them otherwise by providing examples that are relevant enough for them to understand.

In the aforementioned hypothetical situation, the client would be required to defend why a website-first strategy is worse than a sound one.

It provides the client with a compelling, accessible argument to refute their own and forces them to consider both perspectives.

Barrier 2: Clients are overwhelmed by the decision

We frequently want to provide clients with reams of information, choices, and our suggestions. Some customers might even request specifics so they can review it themselves. Even when individuals want sophisticated information, the problem is that they frequently won't use it—at least not right away. Customers tend to put off making decisions more naturally when we add complexity and burden to their lives.

For this, there are two options:

1) Make the content simpler to understand by giving clients clear visuals (which may be a brief video or 3D rendering) of what you are attempting to convey instead of 5-page PDFs of data.

2)The second option is to present information gradually, providing a comprehensive overview, and letting people dig into details if they want to. For instance, you might start your dissertation with a concise overview and a call to action, then indicate that the rest of your in-depth study is optional. Your thorough work is understandable and demonstrates your expertise; your client doesn't need to devote a full day to reading it in order to grasp your viewpoint.

Barrier 3: Clients don't act upon it

Finally, the most subtle and frustrating problems occur when clients simply don't take action - ie when they look you in the eye and say," Yes, I'm with you," and then nothing happens.

As consultants and digital marketers when we ask clients to take action, we assume that the grave importance of our recommendations will somehow overcome human nature. That just doesn’t happen.

When clients don’t act scientists call this the intention-action gap,

Behavioral scientists have found that seemingly trivial details get in people’s way.

When we tweak these details, people do better. For example:

* Simply reminding people of their intention to act can get their attention.

* Asking people to jot down when they will take action, rather than leaving it up to them to decide later, can increase follow-through.

These small changes matter so much because, again, we’re all human — we get distracted, we forget, we procrastinate, etc.

The solution: Don't fight human nature- avoid it

We can help clients by managing the quirks of human nature by knowing the precise reasons why they don't follow through.

Determine the primary issue first: Is it skepticism, decision-making, or action?

Second, pinpoint the precise difficulty. Are they delaying because you gave them too much information to process? Do they have a memorable, emotionally charged anecdote that they can't match with your cool, methodical examination of?

Third, give one or more of the strategies described in this article a try.

You've probably noticed that this method takes a situational, client-by-client approach. There is no one-size-fits-all explanation for why clients disregard guidance.

I hope you picked out a thing or two from this article. Kindly share your thoughts in the comments and share the article with those who might find it useful.