How to say NO to the client?

Design studios and advertising agencies are often faced with “wrong” clients. Customers do not trust the agency and get into every little detail in the work and then want to get the job “done yesterday” and discuss financial matters and require a discount after the final approval of the budget … it’s a long line of situations.

Most often, the question that agency asks itself: “Should we continue to work with this client?”

When you have a lot of “good” alternatives, then just kick out the “bad” client. When a client selects an agency, the agency also selects the client.

But what do you do when you prefer to keep the client, and he, in turn, likes to “drink your blood”, “play on your nerves” and transform your life into hell?
Let’s consider some psychological techniques, often used by professional negotiators.

Method number 1

Agree with the customer.
How to agree, when he finds our design bad and thinks that we are idiots? It is not so difficult, keep emotions under control and don’t accept the sense of what client say, but respond in a manner consantt. For example: “We respect your opinion.” (That mean he has rights to have own opinion, so what) I understand that it is difficult to restrain ourselves and respond in this way, but let’s look at the advantages. If you’re talking in a constant manner, your opponent will get tired very soon while attacking you, and you will save your nerves and health.

Method number 2

Convince customer with positive examples.
Most often, if a corp. comm. manager interferes in the design process it shows his unprofessionalism. Think of examples of a professional corp. comm. managers, if you never meet them in your practice, ask friends who may have encountered with the pros. Respond in a convincing manner: “Like all professionals you will certainly understand ….(and add what your customer should understand)” This method works fine with a low qualified workers who love to play “like or not like in the design process”. Remember, professionals will always tell you why your design is beneficial or not for his company and will try to find an effective solution to the problem.

Method number 3

NO or YES?
Sometimes in spite of the obvious “No” should say “Yes.” Millions of clients want to get the result today or “yesterday”. Do you need to say “NO” when you will not sleep an extra hour but get the job done “yesterday”? Sometimes it is good to accept such extreme conditions, but remember to tell to the client that with such unnatural timing, all the responsibility finally lies with him. You can work if the client accepts this condition. Your benefits: your design will be accepted fast because there is no time, and if your concept does not work and the customer suffers losses, it is not your problem. Your potential problem – if you make technical or grammatical errors, then you have to spend from your pocket, so think twice.

It is very important who speaks with the “wrong” client, most of such clients are ready to listen an authority. Play the game a “good cop, bad cop.” In this game the “bad” cop screams and swears creating a visibility of an unbalanced man, “good” becomes a friend of the accused and gets all that is needed from him.

There are many such “wrong” clients in the advertising business. They have unprofessional managers who care only about their asses, contrary to the interests of the company; they should read how to be a good client.

But we should remember that in the advertising business you will find a huge number of good professionals, and it is a really great experience to work with them.

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