PART 3 – The Life Of The Party: Everything You Need To Know About Managing Your Client

12 Chapter 12: L[in]ked

As if the task of finding a client wasn’t hard enough, there is no promise that working with your secured client will be smooth sailing either. Working with real clients requires a delicate balance of courage, finesse, humility, and knowledge.

 

You might not believe it, but managing a relationship with your client is one of the most important things within the realm of your Capstone project. The goal should be to achieve positive results with every client interaction you have by keeping clients informed, engaged and partnered. Remember, no client, no project!

To get started, here are some client do’s and don’ts to consider:

DO: DON’T
  • Have the constant mindset of building a lasting relationship
  • Listen first. Focus on being a good listener
  • Frequently ask yourself, “Are we adding value?” and “Are we helping to enable the client’s success?”
  • Always stay cool, calm, and patient
  • Own both your victories and your fails
  • Be friendly and approachable
  • Be on time, in fact, be early to all meetings
  • Get regular feedback (preemptive and from the client) and take time to address it
  • Make the effort to go above and beyond
  • Communicate clearly and directly. Leave no room for confusion or grey areas.

 

 
  • Overcommit yourself. Don’t say ‘yes’ to everything
  • Pretend to have all the answers
  • Lie or fake information
  • Make the client wait on you
  • Make promises you can’t keep
  • Be rude or inappropriate towards or in front of your client
  • Rely only on emails. Phone and in-person meetings can often be quicker and more information rich connections
  • Be inaccessible
  • Try to cover mistakes. Own them.
  • Avoid speaking about issues
  • Over complicate things
  • Leave bad news until the last minute
  • Get involved in politics (office or otherwise)

 

 

 

While the next few chapters in this section are dedicated to helping you best manage your client relationship, it doesn’t hurt to be over prepared (and humoured). See “How To Identify And Deal With Different Types Of Clients” in Part 5 for a fun list of different types of clients and how you can best manage those types of relationships.

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ITM Capstone Survival Guide Copyright © 2018 by Quest Atkinson and Dr. Lin Dong is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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