Clients are the lifeline of any business. As far as event management goes, the event manager gets to meet a variety of clients. It can range from the most delightful and memorable clients to the difficult ones. An event manager might have had challenging experiences working with a difficult client. These clients can be overly critical, insatiable and continually changing the proposal and ideas as the relationship advances and the dates near. The difficult clients can range from a know-it-all to the ones who are indecisive and also the ones who are always on a panic mode.
However working with such clients can help an event manager enhance his/her professional development and skills. Initially working with a difficult client can be excruciating but after the experience is over with them, you may realize that you are hugely benefitted by working together. At the foremost, it is important to understand that while dealing with a difficult client; it is a business issue and not a personal one. Here are the reasons why demanding clients can offer some of the best opportunities for professional development.
Learning Flexibility
When working in a demanding scenario, one either adapts to it or walks out of it. With a difficult client, latter isn’t always an option hence you must look for ways to improve the relationship. The best way to deal this scenario is by learning to be flexible to their ideas and vision and also making compromises wherever needed.
Enriching Communication Abilities
Effective communication with the clients and vendors is the central facet of any event planning business because a minor lapse in communication might result in appalling outcomes. Difficult clients will hone your communication skills since they are demanding and might require you to fine-tune your current communication competence to fit their needs.
Learning New Perspectives
Every individual has different perceptions and it helps them form their opinions. An encounter with a difficult client will help you look at one idea from various perspectives as opposed to dealing with clients with same perspective as yours. They also help you be more empathetic and respect others’ perspectives as well.
Learning to Mirror
Mirroring is one of the psychological tools that can be learnt and used while working with such clients. The concept of mirroring means adjusting your pattern of speech, tone and body language to match the opposite person’s. This tool comes handy in order to connect with all sorts of clients. It can make the difficult client feel understood or feel you are their kind person.
Becoming more Goal-Oriented
While working with a demanding client, probably the only factor both would be agreeing on would be the importance of achieving the goal. You would realize the significance of being goal-oriented and it will ignite more conversations around the goal. This would help you stay focused on the task and achieve the goal no matter what the circumstances might be.
Efficiency at Managing Client Expectations
Difficult clients may have improbable expectations. Once you work with such clients, you would find a middle ground to work around these hefty ideas. Later on this experience would equip you to manage client expectations early itself and address these prior itself for better results.
Dealing with difficult clients can be tough but if you are able to navigate those relationships successfully, you are likely to come out after the experience with a lot of professional development and as a better event manager.
