The reality of business, although filled with marketing, strategy, client management, schmoozing etc at the end of the day it’s all a game. Adapting ideas and creative intent to a client’s personality is part of the game, persistence and  knowing how to open, sell an idea then close correctly with your client while taking in personality, mood and sometimes the politics of the company is another part.  Politics are an endless obstacle that come up all the time especially when you want something.

I find when dealing with the politics, it’s the persistence with the project for the client works best. If you are doing what is best for the project as well as the client, you will look outside your relationship with your direct contact and add more people and a clearer understanding of the client and politics.

Relationships can help you sell, they can also help you lose out on an opportunity so be strategic. For example, if you’re working with an organization who are funded by another organization you will want to also build a rapport with the funding organization too. You can learn more about how to sell to the client, what additional work might be required and if it is worth pursuing. *It’s important to be careful and mindful of how you build these relationships, you don’t want to come off as ’sneaky’ or worse ’shady’ for doing the proper amount of homework.

Other tips to help build your knowledge of the client and relationship with them:

1. Listen to the client, and call or email at times when it is expected that they are busy.  Monday afternoons & Wednesday mornings are generally good times to do this. Keep your eye on, A) How long it takes them to get back to you, and B) What they say about the day, and C) If they take a while to get back, what they say was their reasoning.
2. Give the client something FIRST before you request something from them. This builds trust and professionalism.
3. Always charge them. If you are willing to do something for free with no strings attached they will expect this often and push you to do it and you could come off as not serious. *You can of course have first consultations for free but once they start asking for something you would or should charge for tell them. They should expect this or they are not who you want to work with in the end anyways.
4. Call them Friday afternoons after 2pm to touch base quickly and make a time to talk next week. They want out of the office by then, will be in a good mood and you will likely find out how there week went what they did. This is also a great opportunity to see what they do on their off time so you can relate.
5. Persistent is good, annoying is bad so don’t overdue it…when you do you will know it

Another part of this game is making it seem you’re busy, doing better in sales then you likely are in reality and requests for you’re work are coming in like wild. This is a hard one, because in times when you really need business you still need to come off like you don’t have to take on more work. But…making an exception because this client is important to you helps make them feel that much more important. On the other side, if you are super busy try not to act like you can’t take any more work or that you are ’swamped’. If you say no or come off like you are drowning in work, they may not think of asking you again once they find someone else. It is creating that happy balance with your own sales roller coaster.

Be honest. Be true to yourself and your company and also to your client. If they find something odd or off and you agree, then agree with them and fix it. If something goes wrong or was missed take the blame and move on adding in something else in return. Blaming a team member or someone else makes your team look incompetent. Always take the blame because even if you can’t control everything it is expected you can and will. Remember it is you that has the relationship with the client not your production team.

By being honest, and this will contradict what I just said earlier, if you are looking for work and need it tell your biggest fans or come out and say it…correctly. There is no shame in wanting more work, as long as you ‘have’ work and ‘want’ to add more.

My last point, a friend said after they gave me some links to help learn more about an area I am not familiar with ‘Google baby Google!‘