What advice would you give a friend who is so wrapped in someone they haven’t noticed the other person doesn’t feel the same? You’d tell them to take a step back, put themselves first and let the other one come to their senses, right? Well the same goes for business.
I know I care more than the average service provider about my clients – and most of my clients work with me for that reason. But there’s the odd occasion where I care too much for them, if you know what I mean?
You might be thinking this scenario sounds a little bit odd, but depending on the profession you’re in or the service you provide, there are times when you discover something that should be of interest to your client, but they just don’t want to hear it. For me that has been quite a hard lesson to learn. Sometimes you need to be able to step back, realising that perhaps, as a service provider, even though you’re supplying the best information to the client, it’s just that the client is not in the right place to hear it. Whether they’ve got their head in the sand when it comes to their business or they’re focused on other more exciting things; or their care factor being low due to their business diminishing, or doing it too long and they’ve lost their drive, there are various factors that come into it.
These factors are not your doing, but can affect the relationship you have with that client.
When you are a caring service provider it can be really hard when you’re trying to tell your clients what you believe they need to hear, but they don’t want to listen. It can be heartbreaking because you are passionate about what you do, and really care that your clients thrive. But sometimes you just need to walk away. Down the track, perhaps, there will be a time where they are willing to hear it, but sometimes that chance may never arrive and you just have to accept that and move on. If this does happen, accept that you can’t help your client at that point in time, as hard as it may be for you. You’ve just got to let it go – and maybe even let them go as a client – because you know you can’t help them. When you really care about your clients and they don’t care, how do you deal with that? What do you do?
