Ok, let’s talk about how to handle difficult clients in your coaching business or agency. When you start your business, your mindset is, “I want a lot of customers”. Then you get those customers and they aren’t always the easiest or best to deal with. Not all customers are the same and yes, some can be difficult clients. Not all are created equal. Some will be easier to work with than others.
So…if you’re expecting success, you should know how to deal with the inevitable difficult clients.
Everyone knows how to deal with great customers. They love you, you love them. Done. These are not your difficult clients and typically won’t become them unless something really goes sideways.
Let’s talk about the flip-side of that – how to deal with the difficult customers.
No one likes to talk about difficult clients until it’s too late. No one wants to think there are difficult clients looming. But sometimes there are. And sometimes those difficult customers are a result of our own lack of organization, communication or processes.
Steps to Handle Difficult Clients
Have written agreements. Be thorough in your contracts. If it isn’t written, it isn’t true. One way to deal with someone who can never be satisfied is to point to the document. (Side note). This also helps keep you accountable to what you have promised to deliver.
Holy Grail of Objectivity – don’t be too quick to get defensive or reactive. Really look at how you can be causative about improving the situation. Maybe listening to your client and acknowledging their concerns. Giving feedback on what you can do to make things better.
Apply diplomacy, not emotion. Before handling any emotionally challenging situation, be sure to get yourself into a good mental state. Go for a walk, eat a good meal, take your vitamins, hydrate, then reflect on the situation and decide how to handle it. Personally, we like to verbally communicate with the person on zoom or by phone so that we can keep things very professional.
Don’t hide from it. More communication is better, not less. Bonus tip – don’t hit “send” on an email you’ve written emotionally. Have someone else read it for you before you send it. It’s like pressing the trigger on a gun. You can never get the bullet back.
Create clearly established boundaries or use an intermediary, like an assistant between you and the clients if you find handling clients challenging. We always recommend limiting personal contact with clients so that you can be in the CEO role of your business, not working IN your business but rather ON your business.
We’ve seen people throw their arms up and walk away from perfectly amazing businesses because they had difficulty dealing with clients. Follow this advice to void that outcome. Better yet, organize your business so someone else is responsible for working with your clients.
When Annette Morris came to the CEO Freedom Accelerator, she was neck-deep in constantly creating **new** things, but selling few of them. She had tons of e-books, mini-courses, etc. but wasn’t hitting her income targets. Add to that different revenue streams and it was all wildly overwhelming.
We put together a brand strategy that got Annette focused on her core offer and matched her up with a kick-ass accountability coach in our program and history has been made.
Not only did Annette:
Open her own collaborative facility to empower other female entrepreneurs,
Get featured as an executive contributor to Brainz Magazine AND named one of the top 500 most influential businesses along with the likes of Oprah Winfrey,
Score a killer book deal;
Get invited to countless summits and podcasts,
Walk stages around the US
Her business has next leveled and she’s on track to hit the 7-figure milestone.
Here’s Annette’s take on working with us:
Are you ready for next level success, Book A Call with us and let’s talk about your business.
Karla Silver is a powerhouse business coach who helps female network marketers scale to 6-and-7 figures in her Top Producer Academy and Top Producer Mastermind. Her zone of genius is giving network marketers digital strategies so they can ditch the home-parties, one-on-one meetings, and scale rapidly instead of slowly.
While her services and programs are in high-demand, Karla found herself completely tapped out and on the verge of physical burn-out. She came to the CEO Freedom Accelerator looking for a strategy to scale quickly that would take less of her time, not more. She has worked with other business coaches before, but no one had given her an organizational strategy for scaling.
We quickly mapped out her business flows and identified where she was spread to thin. We followed that with a hiring plan to fill the holes and give her some relief. Karla onboarded the key new team members we identified as essential and her results were exceptional.
Not only did she earn $137,000 in one month, but she was also able to continue that growth while taking a 3 week vacation to South Africa and enjoying multiple luxury safaris with her husband.
When Mariany and her business partner joined CEO Freedom Accelerator, her biggest complaint was that she felt like she had to chase people and beg them to join her network marketing team.
They were seeking a business coach who could help them maximize the potential of social media to grow their customer base.
They had been trained to use “old school” MLM methods that no longer worked in the digital world. Not to mention, COVID had everyone in lockdown so going online was urgently important to their business growth.
The CEO Freedom Accelerator gave them a branding and digital strategy that was lightyears better than what they had been doing.
Our accountability coach helped them implement the strategy quickly so they saw almost immediate results. We also directed them on a new offer as the current “entry” product had a lot of science behind it and they were “numbing” their audience with all of the scientific terms. We had her switch the initial offer to their skincare line and utilize the images of amazing results they had available.
The brand they created – ReNu – was so professional and exciting, people were literally begging Mariany to sell them her product. Her team grew, her customer base grew, and she experienced the easy flow of sales she desperately wanted when she joined us.
She also grew a TikTok channel from nothing to 78,000 followers, giving her an audience to also sell coaching and additional products and services.
Tired of being ignored online and ready for rapid growth? Schedule a call and let’s talk about your business.
**All businesses are different. No incomes are represented or guaranteed in any amount for any person and are used for explanation and information purposes only**
Heather Benton-Stokes is not your ordinary woman. She’s a homeschooling mom of two dynamic daughters, has a thriving financial advising business, and cares for her husband who has been battling cancer for some years.
Heather came to the CEO Freedom Accelerator struggling to adjust to growing her business online because COVID had made face-to-face meetings impossible with shutdowns and the risk to her family. When she started, she had very little experience online or on social media. She only had a handful of connections on Facebook, no presence on LinkedIn, and no professional online appearance.
We immediately gave Heather a strategy to establish her brand and online presence. She began implementing the plan with consistency and her presence gained an audience. Soon, she was being invited to speak in forums, on podcasts, and in groups. Her online growth even caught the attention of a well-known book publisher and Heather scored a publishing deal.
She is now an Amazon + New York Times Bestselling Author and has experienced significant growth in her client base.
