Feeding the Dragon - Paying the Mortgage

Okay, so I teach the subject but, I also practice marketing. How can I relate to my students what is waiting for them outside the gray corduroy halls of UMass Dartmouth? How can I tell them that, yes, there is a right way, a wrong way and the client's way, without sometimes feeling cynical?

For sure, sometimes you have to feed the dragon (AKA client) in order to pay the mortgage or somebody else will. Then again, why do clients spend so much time looking for, finding and interviewing you just to hire you to have you do what they think they want rather than letting you do what you know they need?

I won't ever argue that I know the customer's business better than they do. But I think it's also the problem. They know their business better than anyone else and, if familiarity breeds contempt, here's a perfect example Who knows their child better than a parent? But sometimes it takes a neighbor or a stranger to point out that your little darling isn't what or who you think they are. Perspective is key. You have to be still and listen to the unbiased opinion of others.

The old mindset on this side of the business fence is that the client can have two out of three - good, fast or cheap but not all three. What I've found is, that after awhile, if they trust you, they begin to relinquish their control over you. In fact, they begin to depend on you to lead them, remind them and even prod them into action or towards a different direction. It will even get to the point that, if you don't notice the transition, they will become aggravated that they're doing most, or all, of the thinking and the leading.

Marketing is like any other business. It's populated by all kinds of people. People have personalities, traits and quirks. The trick is to know when to feed the dragon, when to step away because it's a personality based power struggle and when to know when you've become indispensable.

The key to this dilemma is to kind of look at it this way. The more you do something, like interact with all kinds of clients, the more experience you gain. Someone said that, "experience enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it a second time." The secret to knowing whether to, or when to, feed the dragon, based on my experience, is contained in one word - value.

If they've come to value you, your opinion and your consistent follow-through; that's the best you could ever hope for. Cherish that client and clearly demonstrate how valuable they are to you. If they never come to value you, through no fault of your own, it's time to stop spoon feeding their egos or whatever drives them and make a clean break of it. In closing, here's a bit of borrowed (and slightly tweaked) wisdom from the fabled Men's Book of Relationship Rules - Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That's what marketers do. Sympathy is what your employees are for.