“What if my client hates the strategy I proposed?”
By Levina Kusumadjaja
“What if they don’t like the strategy, and then get angry and demand to get their money back?”
Oh, gosh. Yes, that’s a real possibility. I wish I could say that strategists are immune from clients getting angry at them, and that clients will always appreciate and love the solution you offer. The reality is, we can’t control how our clients respond. We try our best to find clients who have a great fit with us, who believe and trust in our process. But at the end of the day, we won’t know if they end up to be somebody totally against our process at the end. The only thing we can prepare are our own actions.
If a client doesn’t approve of the strategy we propose to the point that they demand for a refund, we have found ourselves in a very bad place. Nobody wants to be here, and I’m confident that most of us won’t experience this. But in case we did, planning how we would like to respond will help us to behave in a way that is helpful instead of harmful to the situation. And we all know, that at this point, we absolutely do not want to make things worse.
So let’s try to have a plan in place. Let’s imagine together, how would you and I like to respond if our clients hated the strategy we proposed and demanded their money back?
Do not conclude that you are a failure.
Focusing on blaming and pitying yourself will not help you solve the problem at hand. Refrain from dwelling in your own pool of insecurity, guilt, and fear, and remind yourself that your strategy isn’t your identity. Something went wrong with the project, but this doesn’t mean that your entire existence and what you do as a strategist were a mistake.
Ask questions and dig deeper.
Take a deep breath, don’t panic, and begin to ask questions. Remove as much subjectivity as you can from the situation, and begin to evaluate the situation objectively. Where did the misalignment come from? Did the goal change along the way? Did the client’s situation change that the means of getting to the goal aren’t doable anymore? Did the circumstances surrounding the client, their business, and yourself change? Was there information that wasn’t thoroughly discussed in the strategy session, that made the solution not as effective as you had hoped it to be?
Find solutions, not someone to blame.
This is not a blame-finding game, this is a problem-solving game. While the hope was for the previous problem to be solved by this current strategy, we now have to face the internal problem within the strategy itself first: the client not feeling like the strategy proposed is the right strategy.
Own your part, do your best, move on.
We need to able to look at the situation and have enough confidence in ourselves to ask, “What did I miss?”. And if we did find areas where we went wrong, we must be courageous enough to say, “I’m sorry because I missed this part and that part”, but afterwards also emphasize that “I won’t do it next time”.
How would you like to respond?
What would you do differently?
Having the plan in place help us to not respond poorly, but wisely. At the end of the day, our goal is to move forward and maintain a good relationship. Regardless of whether our clients calmed down and changed their minds, or we had to transfer our payment back to them, we have the responsibility to strive towards that long-term positive relationship. And in our own personal journey, we have to give ourselves grace to start again—another chance to learn, try and be better at what we do.
The main takeaway: Get comfortable with the unknown; if they do happen, don’t panic because you are going to be okay. Don’t look at this as the end of the story, but use this experience as a learning process and grow from there.
Cheers!
Levina
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About the author:
Levina is a writer based in Indonesia. Because of Melinda Livsey, she recognized the power of brand strategy for every creative. She is sharing about her learnings as she goes to help creatives have fun in their growth and journey of building brands. Connect with her on LinkedIn and say hi!