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MAINTAINING RELATIONSHIPS WITH YOUR CLIENTS
Business is about relationships. Without relationships, there is no work. The more relationships you create, the higher the chances of more business.
Maintaining relationships in work-from-home jobs is extremely critical. You even need it much more than you would need for an office setup. This is especially the case if you are an independent freelancer.
Why have good relationships?
Well, it is from relationships that we are born, nurtured, schooled and come of age as independent adults. We are social beings by nature. A relationship is a necessity to our survival just as air, water, and food. One cannot survive for long as a healthy human being without any form of relationship. In fact, a relationship is a yardstick of your health.
Good relationships with our colleagues make our work environment enjoyable. A good relationship with our loved ones at home and neighbors make a good home environment. It is out of cultivating a good relationship with our teachers in school and with our lecturers in colleges and universities that we build our careers. A good relationship with clients makes our business healthy, profitable and prosperous.
With good relationships, you are able to be free and creative. You are not worried about enemies or those who wish you ill. With good relationships, you do not see problems but challenging opportunities. This is a great attitude that you need to succeed in your work-from-home career.
What makes a good relationship?
Well, just as having a balanced diet requires great ingredients, so is a relationship. The following are the critical ingredients of a well-balanced relationship:
- Mindfulness – This refers to being consciously aware of your thoughts, words, and deeds. More so, being aware of their impact on others.
- Trust – This refers to being able to have faith in others honesty and ability to honor their commitments.
- Mutual Respect – This refers to holding each other in high esteem. Thus, you value each other's opinion, perspective, effort, and input. You deliberately seek not to dominate others but work together towards achieving set goals.
- Openness – This refers to an attitude that allows you to be free from fear, suspicions, and worries about how others take your thoughts, words, and actions. It is being free to express yourself without reservations. Openness thrives in a climate of trust and mutual respect. It is in such an environment that you know that even if you are wrong, you will be understood and be corrected without your respect being compromised.
- Love for diversity – It is almost inevitable that when you work from home, more so, in a global environment, that you will interact with people from diverse backgrounds. Each of these backgrounds has its own cultural filters such that things are bound to be interpreted differently from one cultural background to another. Sometimes you may make an innocent joke, which in your culture will cause laughter and lively talk, but in some other cultures, it may be interpreted as rude, obscene or in bad taste. Learning other people’s culture and appreciating their worldviews will greatly help you to cope with such situations.
How to Build Good Work Relationships with your clients
Building good work relationships with your clients require deliberate effort. You just do not assume that it will happen naturally on its own. You have to work towards it.
The following are key things that you need to do:
- Develop Your People Skills
A good relationship requires people skills. You need good people skills to be able to cultivate this relationship. These ‘soft skills' include communication, collaboration, and conflict resolution. To establish your people skills level, take a soft skills test – there are several soft skills tests online, which you can take to establish your level of competency in them. Simply type “soft skills test” in your Google Search Bar and several will come up. These tests will help you identify your weaknesses and thus be able to address them appropriately.
- Identify your relationship needs
What are you looking for in your relationship with your client? Do you know the kind of relationship the clients are looking for you? By understanding your relationship needs and those of your clients, you can successfully build stronger and productive relationships with them.
- Schedule time to build relationships
Building relationships is as important to your work as any other activity. Thus, give it the same priority you would give any other client assignment. Devote regular time towards relationship building. It can be even just half an hour, broken down into 5-minute portions and spread out during the day. You can take this time to call someone, even a past client or a colleague. You can get into your LinkedIn group and post or reply to comments. You can use Twitter handle or Facebook to share out some idea or content. The focus should be on people related to your work.
- Focus on Your Emotional Intelligence (EI)
Work on your Emotional Intelligence so that you can be in harmony with your clients. EI refers to your ability to recognize emotions, understand them and channel them towards a productive purpose.
EI is the cement that glues together strong relationships.
- Be optimistic
Express optimism in your undertaking. Whenever a client gives you work, do not express pessimism. Pessimism could be the trigger that can make him change his mind and withdraw the project. Even your client needs positive affirmation from you. Sometimes the client may be having some reservations and self-doubt. Your optimism will clear this self-doubt while your pessimism will embolden them making the client probably shelve the project. It is good to be optimistic for it is not just for your sake but also for your client's sake. Optimism on your part will build client's confidence in you and your abilities and thus result in further assignments in future and more likely, a recommendation to his friends and partners. This will undoubtedly expand your network.
- Manage boundaries
Everyone needs private space. Even if your relationship with your client gets personal, still, manage boundaries to stay professional. This way, you will keep each other from trespassing into another’s private space. Trespassing into someone’s private space negates good relationship.
- Keep off gossiping
Do not gossip about your client, no matter who you are talking to. You never know how this can pan out. Gossips have a way of spreading out and reaching the targeted victim in unexpected ways. Furthermore, gossiping corrupts your mindset and attitude towards your client. It reinforces your negative patterns in the mind. This eventually weakens and kills an otherwise good relationship.
- Smoothen out difficult relationships
Conflicts do happen in any relationship that there is, your relationship with your client not being an exception. Conflicts are due to different perspectives or different expectations. Conflicts are healthy. It is all about how you go about managing them. Use your soft skills to iron them. Your client will come to senses and greatly appreciate you.
How to make clients appreciate your professional undertaking:
- Get to know your clients – It is important to know your clients. Studying their profile, contacting their previous employees, going through their previous assignments and having an interview with them are just but some of the ways by which you can learn about your clients. Sometimes you may find out that you are not compatible with your potential client. It would be better to avoid further engagement than disappoint each other later on, with serious repercussions to your very own reputation. Having a small talk with clients can help in shaping your understanding of them. They too can have a better understanding of you.
- Share testimonials and work samples – Your previous work tells you a lot about how you perform. This can help your clients manage their expectations of you.
- Email like a professional – The way you present your communication with your client can easily tell whether you are professional in your undertakings or not. It is not so much about being formal (though necessary) but more about being relevant, clear and concise. Converse with your client as you would with a colleague. Present a warm, friendly tone yet not too casual. Whenever you have a phone conversation, be sure to make a follow-up with an email outlining key points discussed so that both of you can be on the same level of understanding.
- Be respectful of their time – Keep in mind that both you and your client are busy. Stay on schedule. Respect appointments. Be on time. If you are unable to make it and thus must reschedule the meeting, inform your client soonest possible.
- Do not flake from jobs – Sometimes, it happens that, due to unavoidable circumstances, you are ...
