Dealing With Tough Clients Who Tell You What To Do— Role Play ep. 11

How do you deal with tough clients who want to tell you what to do and how to do it? How can you stop them from running all over you?
How to sell strategy to a client that just wants a logo? How to convert the unconvertable? How to move past order taking?

In this episode, Chris shows Melinda how to talk to clients that want nothing do with strategy. Learn about how to embrace their emotions and concerns then pivot to logic.

1:43 One that is, uh, one that you’re not gonna have to sit there and question whether or not this was the right decision or not. Because, truth be told, design can be fairly subjective. Often times clients will come to us and say, “I need a website, I need this.” And once we understand who their customers are, we realize the focus shouldn’t be on that, it should be on the design of the menu, or to design a better customer experience, and that the money is better spent elsewhere. Most of the clients that come to us through our process realize that there’s a deeper motivation as to why they’re doing this. And what they do is self diagnose and prescribe a solution. Now in the real world, if we went to the doctor and did that, they would look at us like we’re crazy. “And, just give me some penicillin. I have a headache.” Well, the solution may not be connected to the problem. And that’s why we do what we do.

3:16 Melinda, I’m gonna be honest and really frank with you. Probably even to enter into a conversation with me about doing logos and what I do, we’re gonna be north of 20 to 30 thousand dollars easily. From what you described to me, you could probably just hire some young graduate, or maybe go onto one of these sites that broker design services, give them a sketch, and then have them just do it for you.

5:07 So, what happens often times is clients will make something and feel like that’s the right decision without any real parameters to decide why they should do something, and then tomorrow they get a new idea. And now they’re stuck with something, and it’s--it’s not one, uh, when you, when you go through and you’re making a lot of changes like this, it doesn’t exactly send a signal of confidence to your consumers. Like, “Why are they so indecisive? Why are they changing things?” So, we get the opportunity to re-introduce ourselves every once in a while. It’s not a daily, weekly, monthly occurrence. I would just encourage you to think about that. And if you really want a fast logo, there’s lots of different things. I’m not in the “logo-building” business. I’m in the “brand-building” business. I’m in the “client/customer acquisition-building” business. That’s what I do.

7:20 So that’s the problem, you see? It’s...we’re, we’re experts for a reason. We make something and we have a very clear process that gives us very predictable results. And, it’s like you’re coming in here and you want to dictate how we make it and the results. Well I, I just--that’s not how we work. So as much as I’d like to work with you, it’s not a good fit for us.

9:11Uh-huh. That’s right. So what we’re trying to do here is, I just, I’m not here to argue with you. This is the “embrace” part.

10:16 So the “embrace” part is just to listen and to say back to them, and agree with them.

11:24 All you have to do, it’s because there’s this disconnect. There’s that “gut feeling.” It drives a lot of decisions that you make. “I trust that person! He’s a good person! That lady’s moving forward!” All those kinds of things that they say, and all you have to do is ask them, “Why do you believe that?” And it usually is enough to mess most people up. Because most people are not that thoughtful and intentional in the things that they say or do.

17:30 Cause the more you learn, the more you feel like you don’t know anything. That’s the thing. It’s only the ignorant people that I get into a debate with and they’re easy to defeat.
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Credits:
Executive Producer– Chris Do
Host– Chris Do
Director– Erica Pead
Cinematography– Aaron Szekely, Mark Contreras
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[jgonsuron]

There was once a man that lived to be 300 years old. He had proof of his birth and there was no debate as to old he actually was. Scientists and thinkers from all over gathered and asked him what his secret to long life was. They invited him to a gathering to discuss what his secret was and to hear him speak. They were shocked to hear him say, "The secret is easy. I never argue with anyone." They mumbled among themselves and argued back and forth. The leader of the scientists stood and said, "Sir, that can't be it. There is no way that that is the secret to your long life." The man quietly replied, "You know, you may be right" and walked off the stage.

[cubworld]

Basically, Chris knows peoples love/business language and acknowledges that in conversations and once they feel understood he schools them on what his business language is and at that point they both understand each other...boom! So boss! Easier to move forward from that point.

[brittanychristian]

Role play is always so valuable!! Tone and attitude is so on point here. The level of zen is admirable. Fortunately, my days don't look like the logo conversation anymore (in part thanks to the Futur for helping me towards achieving the career progression I wanted) and look a lot more like: Fortune 500 company client needs an app and is super on board with the agency's outcomes-based process. We have done research, user-testing, etc. and now they want to dictate visual design of the app.

The work that we've done in the past has been really strong from a UX perspective because we put a lot of weight into testing that and it can always be supported by numbers, but we find ourselves working with internal design stakeholders at these companies who want a large say in how the visuals turn out—which is fair. The company has a brand. These individuals are largely in charge of that and are responsible for the preservation of the current brand. But what happens when their visual eye isn't quite up to par and their visual taste seems to be dated/not so great?

It's harder to make as sound of a case for visual design because it's so subjective. As a result, I always find myself scrambling to find any statistic or study I can to support my visual choices in prep for client meetings. It doesn't seem appropo to just cite "proper design principles" because it feels like a jab at their internal design roles. We want to work WITH the client and make them feel as included as possible, but we also don't want to end up having to launch an app that looks like shit.

TL;DR
Role play client design review style, anyone?? :D

[TheMasterKiller]

Chris... you have no idea how much you've actually helped me change my life in the past few months. I am 22 years old I WAS an engineering student in Cluj-Napoca, Romania and after watching a few of your videos i decided to start taking action. The first thing that popped into my head was: "I want to own a great graphics design business and i'm going to do whatever this man says i should do to get to that goal". You're not going to believe this but i actually left college to be able to take action (my parents had a hard time accepting that, of course, but that's another story)! I started following your "3 month runway" method, i made a few projects, even got my first payed work. I have used your ways of talking to the client, I realized how important a strategy is not only to help me understand what i need to do but also to reveal all the things my client used to not even think about and have him actually thanking me for what i taught him. I managed declining a client that wanted me to work for a cheap project by being fair and sincere about what i do and what i charge for that (that was a bit hard for me because one of my best friends was also involved and i didn't want to make him feel bad). This month i am working on establishing my business ( legal issues, finances and stuff like that). I made a business plan, talked to an accountant, made marketing strategies and i plan to have all the paperwork done my the end of this month. I have to say, I had no idea what was going to come but God do i love doing this! Next month i'm building all my social media accounts and I'll start making personalized presentations of my weekly progress for each of them. I will build my Behance and Pinterest and work my ass off every single hour. I just wanted to thank you and all of thefutur's staff, as well as Melinda here for your work and devotion to help us achieve our dreams! I have so much more to learn and I am eager to do so. I also plan to one day be sitting with you guys at a table and personally thank you for everything.

[mindmatters]

I love the "sharing mentality" of Chris.
Sharing your ideas and beliefs or invititing others to enter your world is just a more powerful approach than forcing others to do so.

Actually, you can never win a debate if the opponent is an ignorant/emotional driven and reactive person. He/She are just not willing to accept defeat. I think of it as an infinite verbal UFC-Match.
#tongues are sharper than swords since they never seem to get dull.

A wise person on the other hand will just back off, avoiding useless confrontations that only worsens the situation.

[Vampandamonium]

Many of these 'discussion with clients' are dealing with a single 'owner' figure.
Would you be able to expand into dealing with 'panel' type clients where you have to convince a group of people?

[VisionaryDigitalMedia]

I shouldn't be surprised since the channel is about the business of design, but you guys have the best thumbnails on all of YouTube. Every time I see one in my feed it stands apart from all the other videos.

[ayarkatsi]

This is great! Clients are not used to understand design as a part of branding and branding as the core of business. So is difficult to guide them in the process of thinking strategically, but at the end they understand everything is connected and work toghether.

[TRAdamTM]

Thats the beauty of a rational approach.
As long as you use the same toolset (reason) you will in the end agree with each other, because the toolset is designed to arrive at an objective truth (not to be right).

[spikespiegel]

The last second of both was the best part of the video. Both going deep thinking about how small we are... Gold!

[astrarai-thesobercoder]

Where has this channel been for my entire life and past lives? Awesome video and helpful.

[perezgroupfilm]

Dude I am so totally loving this exchange. Not only has this series justified a lot of my thoughts it’s actually motivating me to take action on those thoughts thank you both so much for sharing your insights.

[wasiuraji]

Melinda is great at listening more accurately now, expressing the communication of feedback well. That improve my understanding, Thanks Chris Do.

[Peteristrate]

Awesome. Keep these role-play videos coming!
At about 9:00, you said Melinda didn't played the role of an open client and give Chris a lot of options to work with. But, in fact, that's how most of the clients are: stubborn. They are not too willing to compromise or for for another solution presented - and if that's the case, Christ sent them away, which is, exactly, what should happen many times - and I like to see that role play when the client is sent away as well.

[ash.]

Chris gave me hope that there are ppl in this world who are successful, creative and very smart .. when he talked about talking about his beliefs with others and that really made him more believing, that actually happened with me .. and when he talked about ppl telling him to do things in a different way because maybe he's wrong and he listened, that is also me .. i certainly need to improve a lot at many aspects to be "successful", but Chris really give me confidence and hope .. this is when i subscribe :D

[dansubchenko]

She had him on the ropes, their chemistry is outstanding

[raider_]

dayum guys, this is gold, from an artist point of view but also on a personal level, really feels like a good 'life' lesson

[beunlimited]

Melinda is growing more and more FEISTY!! hahaha. I love you guys' wayward chemistry. It's like Lightning McQueen and Cruz in CARS 3. lol

[felipesilva]

It's really awesome to see Melinda's growth through this great series. Really inspiring! Thanks for sharing

[latinillusion]

I LOVE THIS SERIES!!! This is one of my favourite eps, on the side of it is less structured and we get to see Chris in another light. Melinda rocks!!