May 17, 2024

Doing things the wrong way

What clients ask for and what they really want are almost always two different things.

As a professional, it’s your job to diagnose before you prescribe.

I wrote a post about this on LinkedIn and got a question that I would summarize thusly:

How do you handle clients who insist on building an app immediately despite having a small budget and not wanting to invest in a design sprint to validate their idea, especially when they approach you with a specific app idea rather than seeking a diagnosis for their underlying business problem?

This is a classic “Ready! Fire! Aim!” type of client situation.

But what do you do about it?

Short answer:

Say no to clients who refuse to accept your professional advice.

In other words, act like a doctor and send them away.

If you can’t say no because you need the money, you have a marketing problem, not a client management or negotiation problem.

Solution?

Establish stable cash flow that only takes up part of your time and spend the rest of your time doing marketing that will attract the kind of clients you’d like to work with.

It takes time, but basically, anyone you see who is getting paid high fees by delighted clients has put in this time.

I don’t know of a shortcut.

Yours,

—J

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