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The Complaining Client: How to Handle It · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

• 0:01
  Hello and welcome to the show today I'm also going to be
• 0:04
  running commentary on something I saw on LinkedIn and I think it
• 0:08
  was to commemorate customer service week.
• 0:11
  Now, unfortunately I've closed the post so I can't remember if
• 0:15
  it's something that was current because you know, sometimes
• 0:17
  LinkedIn will serve your stuff that happened maybe a week, two
• 0:21
  weeks ago. Oh, by the way, that's also
• 0:24
  another reason why it's good to be up on LinkedIn because the
• 0:28
  stuff that you put up on LinkedIn, content that you put
• 0:30
  up on LinkedIn seems to have a very long life cycle, if I can
• 0:35
  call it that. Because I've noticed that I
• 0:37
  share some stuff and I think, OK, I shared this a long time
• 0:41
  ago, so it's over and done. But then I still receive
• 0:44
  engagement from it maybe like 3 weeks later.
• 0:47
  You know, like those of you who play around on Facebook or
• 0:49
  Instagram, I think Instagram, the life cycle is, is pretty
• 0:53
  much like a few hours. So like if you put something
• 0:55
  8:00 in the morning, you know, by afternoon, it's, you know,
• 0:59
  it's gone, It's not going to be up again.
• 1:01
  Nobody's going to see or interact with the stuff that you
• 1:04
  do. So.
• 1:07
  Yeah. So the post was commemorating
• 1:09
  Customer service week, and I was written by a communications
• 1:12
  professional. And of course, I like paying
• 1:15
  attention to these sorts of things because, you know, for
• 1:18
  those of us in the sales and business development space, we
• 1:21
  are concerned about these sorts of things.
• 1:23
  You know, customer service, customer success, customer
• 1:25
  satisfaction. They are important because if we
• 1:27
  don't get that, that part of the equation locked down, then
• 1:30
  people don't come back to us to buy again.
• 1:32
  You know, there's no repeat business, there's no referrals.
• 1:35
  They don't bring their friends, their family members and
• 1:37
  associates. And we don't get to maximize the
• 1:39
  lifetime customer value in the situation.
• 1:42
  You know, in other words, we're not going to get the maximum
• 1:45
  the, the full potential amount of income that we could have
• 1:50
  gotten out of this. Because obviously if somebody
• 1:53
  buys from you once and never comes back, it's not the same
• 1:56
  thing as if you know, the person comes and buys from you several
• 2:00
  times a year, you know, for XYZ number of years.
• 2:03
  That's for those of you who have businesses where those sorts of
• 2:07
  things can, can happen. So I'll just make a bunch of
• 2:11
  comments on on the post. We'll just riff around it
• 2:17
  because the post was around. It was one of these rambling
• 2:21
  posts, you know, the same the same sort of thing I do over
• 2:23
  here on the podcast where, you know, I get a topic and I just
• 2:26
  rant. So basically lady was just
• 2:28
  talking about how you deal with customers that troublesome
• 2:34
  customers. Basically the post, the title of
• 2:38
  the post was was a question whether you feel fear for not
• 2:42
  meeting your customers, your clients expectations.
• 2:45
  And she was talking about dealing with troublesome
• 2:47
  customers, how they have unrealistic expectations, but
• 2:51
  how she thinks it's a good thing because these kinds of customers
• 2:54
  or these kinds of clients force you to write to the occasion and
• 2:58
  they help you to improve your service delivery.
• 3:02
  And I must applaud her that it's a real positive way to look at
• 3:05
  it, although I'm not going to endorse, you know, her point of
• 3:08
  view 100%. So let me just make a bunch of
• 3:11
  comments on that. Well, before I do that, the nerd
• 3:15
  list, the geek list, so on the playlist, I'm still on that
• 3:19
  Scarface. And I mean Scarface is truly the
• 3:23
  woo Gambia, as in he's the GOAT. As for Shizzle, because I mean,
• 3:31
  the collaborations that the guy has done, I didn't realize that
• 3:33
  he has worked with so many artists and it's amazing how he
• 3:37
  never quite crossed over into commercial, renowned commercial
• 3:41
  mainstream. So there's some collaborations
• 3:45
  that he did with Jay-Z, for instance, on I can't remember,
• 3:51
  was it volume 2 or something? I can't remember one of those
• 3:54
  old albums collaborations with Snoop.
• 3:58
  Scarface also did collaborations with Nas.
• 4:00
  He even has a collaboration with Anthony Hamilton as if you
• 4:03
  listen to that kind of, you know, music, that New Orleans
• 4:07
  kind of soul, R&B music. Not too many people like Anthony
• 4:12
  Hamilton, but I like him. He's my guy.
• 4:14
  I think he's I think he's a correct guy.
• 4:17
  Voice is different, but good. Then Scarface has also done
• 4:24
  collaborations with DJ Khaled, Jada Kiss and he's been a while
• 4:29
  since I heard Jada Kiss. I wonder if he has retired
• 4:33
  Scarface collaborations with John Legend, with Acorn, with a
• 4:37
  young one. Other people in the Rough Rider
• 4:40
  crew, as in Scarface know the guy.
• 4:43
  Try the guy. Really, really try.
• 4:46
  So so young Bloods listening to this.
• 4:49
  Please check out Scarface. It's worth a listen to.
• 4:52
  Like I said, if your popsy doesn't like hip hop or your
• 4:55
  wife doesn't like hip hop or your husband doesn't like hip
• 4:57
  hop, you know, some of the themes are conscious and some of
• 5:01
  the themes are gangster. So I mean, some people might
• 5:04
  just listen to it and say, look, why are you listening to all
• 5:06
  these angry music? You know, you're you're ruining
• 5:08
  your motivation or something like that.
• 5:11
  So that's on Spotify there for Netflix.
• 5:13
  I'm watching this Scandinavian, Scandinavian, I'll be Swedish or
• 5:18
  whatever movie called trouble. It's a really interesting,
• 5:24
  should I say comedy or action comedy.
• 5:27
  How, you know, a guy just got mixed up in all kinds of things.
• 5:30
  I mean, basically it was a drug heist gone wrong and corrupt
• 5:35
  police people were involved and because of mistaken identity,
• 5:39
  this guy got to jail, went to jail.
• 5:41
  He's trying to clear his identity so he can get back to
• 5:43
  his family. Meanwhile, his wife has gone and
• 5:45
  married somebody else who, you know, is more paid up the pilot,
• 5:49
  although this happened before the hour started to happen.
• 5:52
  So there's marriage issues, issues with his daughter and
• 5:54
  then this mistaken identity and stuff like that.
• 5:57
  And it's an interesting film because I haven't seen, in fact,
• 6:03
  I haven't seen this kind of comedy before.
• 6:05
  So it's, it's, it's impressive, you know, it's good.
• 6:09
  So there are benefits to watching movies that come from,
• 6:13
  you know, expanding your movie palette.
• 6:16
  So not every time Western movies or the high production Nollywood
• 6:21
  movies that we see on Netflix. So once in a while I'll try out
• 6:23
  stuff. So I haven't been disappointed
• 6:25
  by Scandinavian movies. I haven't been disappointed by
• 6:28
  the Korean movies. The Indians definitely are on
• 6:32
  point. I mean, the CGI in Indian action
• 6:35
  and science fiction movies are just as in like take about that
• 6:41
  good. So yeah, that's it.
• 6:44
  That's what's on my playlist. So now back to this whole thing
• 6:48
  of do you sometimes fear not missing your, your customers,
• 6:55
  your clients expectations? So yeah, like I said, there was
• 6:58
  a LinkedIn post written by a communications professional
• 7:00
  professional and it's supposed to commemorate customer service
• 7:03
  week. So the lady spoke about
• 7:06
  challenging clients. And there's a thing where she
• 7:08
  said the challenging clients are not the high paying ones.
• 7:12
  And that is something I can definitely relate to, especially
• 7:16
  back in my wedding photography days, because I noticed that the
• 7:20
  people who, so I'm not sure what the fees are like now, but back
• 7:25
  then when I was still in the field, all those 150 K clients,
• 7:29
  those 150 K people are mad. Like they're really hard to deal
• 7:33
  with. Those other people, like, you
• 7:36
  know, they don't hear, sorry. And the expectations are, I
• 7:39
  don't know, like off the planet. Like it was one of my second
• 7:42
  shooters who got a client, 150K client and then the baby session
• 7:47
  was not going to pay because in one particular photo, she found
• 7:50
  a pimple on her husband's head that's in the reception photos,
• 7:54
  not even on the portrait. I was like, the baby says she
• 7:56
  won't pay the balance. So I mean, that's how difficult
• 8:01
  these people can be. And I remember the first time
• 8:05
  that I had to apologise to a client and I, and it was
• 8:09
  actually was a high paying client and I had to apologise or
• 8:11
  something that was clearly my fault.
• 8:13
  And she said, oh, that's OK. And I was stunned because that
• 8:16
  was the first time I actually heard that kind of thing.
• 8:19
  Like your bride would look at you and say, oh, that's OK.
• 8:22
  And yeah, I don't notice that those 150 K clients like they
• 8:26
  don't used to hear sorry. There's no such thing as sorry
• 8:29
  in their book. Those are the ones that shout
• 8:32
  fire brimstone, you know, I will call police and blah, blah,
• 8:35
  blah, you know, and all that drama, all that, all the
• 8:39
  nightmares. So she was able to find a silver
• 8:44
  lining by say they force you to, they force you to up your, your
• 8:53
  customer fulfillment game. And I guess like how I'll say
• 8:56
  there's a silver lining there. But for me, the best thing I
• 9:00
  found about dealing with challenging clients was I used
• 9:04
  them to learn how to set expectations and to communicate
• 9:11
  expectations. Because I realized even before I
• 9:15
  had started taking sales education much more seriously, I
• 9:20
  realised that a lot of the quarrel at the end of the day
• 9:23
  was because we were coming into things with too many
• 9:25
  assumptions. So they're paying 150KA150K for
• 9:29
  them is a big deal, but they're coming with a whole sort of a
• 9:32
  whole host of expectations. And I'm coming with a whole host
• 9:38
  of expectations and neither of us is communicating clearly.
• 9:41
  And those are the kind of things that cause quarrel at the end of
• 9:43
  the day. So I used all that practice.
• 9:46
  And so if you're currently at that stage in your business
• 9:49
  where you have all these people that are paying you peanuts, but
• 9:51
  they want you to send them to the moon, this is the time to
• 9:55
  organize the sales process so that you're setting expectations
• 9:58
  really, really well, properly from the beginning.
• 10:02
  And clearly. Because when you're locked in
• 10:04
  those situations where people have never ending complaints or
• 10:07
  lofty expectations, usually just because of a failure of needs
• 10:11
  analysis and then setting expectations.
• 10:14
  So you, the professional, you haven't done a good job of
• 10:16
  figuring out who this client is, what their problems are.
• 10:20
  The visions are, the implications of not meeting the
• 10:22
  goals, their urgency, you know, timelines and then being able to
• 10:26
  communicate the limits of your product or your service.
• 10:29
  So like, back to the wedding photography thing, I noticed
• 10:31
  that those 150 K brides, you know, those are the ones that
• 10:34
  have much more. Those couples are much more
• 10:38
  aspirational. Yeah, let me just put it that
• 10:40
  way. Aspirational.
• 10:41
  So the baby's paying you 150 K and you know, to be honest,
• 10:46
  those 150 K weddings are not, you know, those are the ones
• 10:50
  that they have those small venues in like Area 8 or yeah,
• 10:55
  like Area 8, Area 3, all those small, small venues.
• 10:59
  You know, that was one time my wife was laughing at me because
• 11:02
  I took one of those 150K weddings.
• 11:05
  In fact, like I was shocked, like I landed at the wedding,
• 11:08
  the wedding venue just to check it out and then do some detail
• 11:15
  shots. And then outside, woman was
• 11:17
  drying. Woman was drying.
• 11:21
  There was this thing called like, like smoked fish.
• 11:23
  I was weak. I said, haha, no, wow.
• 11:26
  Like what kind of kanji hall is this in the middle of nowhere?
• 11:33
  And then people are just drying fish outside.
• 11:35
  I said, OK, no problem. I just told myself that, well,
• 11:39
  I'll do my best, but I'm definitely not putting this
• 11:42
  wedding up on Instagram. I said, there's no way I'm
• 11:45
  putting these girls pictures up on Instagram.
• 11:47
  Let people not come and associate me with this, with
• 11:50
  this kind of wedding. Well, let me stop talking like
• 11:52
  that before you guys say that I'm one of those people who
• 11:55
  believe that if you don't have money, you're not entitled to
• 11:58
  good things. You know, that's not what I'm
• 11:59
  saying. But and then let me move on.
• 12:02
  I was like, so those kinds of things.
• 12:05
  Now you find out the babes are kind of aspirational, so they
• 12:09
  want the photos to turn out. They want the photos of the
• 12:12
  hall, for instance, to turn out more glamorous than it actually
• 12:15
  is. They want photos of the wedding
• 12:19
  dress to turn out more luxuriant than it actually is.
• 12:24
  She wants her makeup to turn out more on fleek than it actually
• 12:28
  is. If she has Christian mother
• 12:31
  arms, she also wants you to do that.
• 12:34
  I think we taught us how to liquidate.
• 12:36
  Yeah, you do liquidation and then you're able to give
• 12:38
  somebody ways you're able to expand BOM, BOM, be able to
• 12:41
  reduce hand. So they want all that magic
• 12:43
  done, you know, so that things are much more, what's the word
• 12:49
  like sophisticated than they actually are, you know, and all
• 12:53
  these sorts of things. So me now knowing that that's
• 13:01
  how these kind of things turn out, I really should have made
• 13:04
  it a part of my sales process of having those conversations ahead
• 13:07
  of time. You know, that's where the
• 13:09
  whole, who are you? What division are you looking
• 13:11
  forward to looking towards? I should really should have been
• 13:13
  having those conversations. Well, congratulations, blah,
• 13:17
  blah, blah. We finished the money thing.
• 13:20
  We agree on a date and everything.
• 13:23
  You know, whether they pay the deposit yet or not, we
• 13:25
  definitely have that conversation.
• 13:27
  So like, so at the end of the day, your perfect wedding photos
• 13:31
  hardly expect them to look and then just keep quiet and then
• 13:34
  hear what the BB says. By the time she starts talking
• 13:37
  and talking and talking, you as a photographer, you will get the
• 13:40
  sense that Omar, I'm in trouble or OK, no problem, I'm ready for
• 13:45
  this bride. Like we can make it happen.
• 13:47
  By the time they start talking about stuff, the perfect wedding
• 13:51
  day photography, how it's supposed to flow, how things are
• 13:54
  supposed to look, the portrait ideas that they're supposed to
• 13:56
  try out and things like that. But it's let me have that
• 13:59
  conversation. You know, I've taken those kind
• 14:03
  of weddings that, you know, back then, those 150 K weddings just
• 14:07
  because I was broke. But to be honest, I'm not sure
• 14:09
  if it's worth the hassle. But at least ask these questions
• 14:12
  so you know what you're getting yourself into.
• 14:14
  So that if it's going to be a quarrel, you know from the get
• 14:16
  that I'm taking this job because I need this money.
• 14:20
  But in two weeks time, me and this babe who I went to quarrel
• 14:23
  now is for sure at least you'll be ready for it.
• 14:26
  So, yeah, do the needs analysis, ask those questions.
• 14:33
  No simple things like, OK, do you have a what was it called?
• 14:38
  I was about to say motherboard or motherboard is for computers.
• 14:43
  I think they used to call it idea boards back then.
• 14:46
  I think. I don't know what the trends are
• 14:49
  now. Well, back then I think we
• 14:50
  should call it idea boards. So.
• 14:51
  OK, so do you have any idea boards, you know, on Pinterest
• 14:53
  or on Instagram, you know, the baby will now show you that.
• 14:56
  OK, this is the kind of picture I like.
• 14:58
  I like this kind of picture, blah, blah, blah, you know, this
• 15:01
  and this and that and that, you know, it just gives you a sense.
• 15:05
  So like for someone like me who is not good with the airbrushing
• 15:08
  and the everything because my own photos are photo
• 15:10
  photojournalistic, keep it candid.
• 15:12
  So that kind of thing. She shows me a photo of Tokyo
• 15:15
  Mackimo, for instance, and I don't care, man, I'm in trouble.
• 15:18
  Like this baby is going to be hot to deal with.
• 15:23
  So if you do a good job at the needs analysis, I'm trying to
• 15:28
  understand what these people's vision is, where they're heading
• 15:32
  to, you can now have the honest conversation like, you know,
• 15:35
  babe, thank you very much. I'd really love to work for you
• 15:39
  guys and help take care of you guys at your weddings.
• 15:41
  But your wedding. But to be honest, some of the
• 15:44
  things that we've been discussing, it goes beyond, you
• 15:47
  know, my expertise. So I'll transfer the money back
• 15:50
  to you. I can recommend you to, you
• 15:52
  know, 123, you know, 456 if they exist is going to be you.
• 15:56
  Then this is the point where you now start discussing the
• 16:00
  limitations of your product or service as clearly as possible.
• 16:04
  OK, yeah, you know, understand, you know, this talking back and
• 16:06
  awful to everything or whatnot. But for me, I'm a candid guy, so
• 16:11
  I don't know how to do airbrushing.
• 16:12
  So, you know, you have a wonderful and a lovely
• 16:17
  complexion. But if you want me to touch you
• 16:18
  up one shade or two shade in all the photos, it really is not
• 16:22
  something I can do or like I tried to warn bride like, OK, if
• 16:27
  this is the quality of retouching that you're
• 16:29
  expecting, then you guys will have to pay more because I will
• 16:32
  have to pay a retoucher to go over photos individually to make
• 16:36
  sure that we bring you up a shade, you know, all these sorts
• 16:39
  of things. So have all these conversations
• 16:42
  from the get go. He'll let you know what they are
• 16:44
  supposed to run or he'll let you know how to amend the invoice,
• 16:49
  amend the price, amend the whatever.
• 16:52
  So that's the chief benefit of dealing with these kinds of
• 16:55
  clients. The ones who have never had any
• 16:56
  complaints are lofty expectations.
• 16:59
  Just get very good at setting expectations.
• 17:04
  You can't set the expectations until you figure out who they
• 17:07
  are, what they're aiming for. And this whole question of the
• 17:13
  implication of goals not being met, you know, it's, it's good
• 17:16
  to statically ask about these kinds of things so that you
• 17:20
  know, anyway, let me just leave it.
• 17:21
  Let me not give you guys too much, too much Nollywood about
• 17:27
  all the adventures that I had in my former life.
• 17:31
  So yeah, these are the sorts of conversations that you need to
• 17:35
  have so you can set expectations from the get go.
• 17:40
  So apart from setting expectations clearly from the
• 17:43
  beginning, I think the best way of dealing with these people
• 17:45
  that have realistic expectations is very simple.
• 17:48
  Come up with a clear sense of your ICPICP is your ideal
• 17:51
  customer profile. Be very clear about who your ICP
• 17:54
  is, your ideal customer, your target market.
• 17:58
  If the person doesn't match your target market, just weave.
• 18:01
  Just leave it right now to avoid stories that touch because very,
• 18:06
  very I say unto thee, at least when it comes to wedding
• 18:10
  photography anyway. And back in those days, with
• 18:12
  those days prices, there is some money that you collect, like
• 18:17
  even if let's say you collect 150K, but then you guys quarrel,
• 18:21
  quarrel, quarrel, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight.
• 18:23
  At the end of that day, that 350K will now taste bitter in
• 18:27
  your mouth. And then on the other hand,
• 18:30
  there's a 150 that you collect, but 150 was smooth and then that
• 18:33
  150 would taste very sweet in your mouth.
• 18:35
  So it's weird, but sometimes, you know, the money doesn't seem
• 18:41
  worth, doesn't seem to be worth the hassle.
• 18:43
  So stick to your ICP, be clear. If you don't think this is my
• 18:47
  ideal customer, just run. So for me, rather than having
• 18:51
  all these conversations about bring an extra retoucher, we're
• 18:54
  going to bring you up one shade. This is what we're going to do
• 18:57
  to make sure that we cater to this quirk of yours or that
• 18:59
  quirk of yours. If I'm Speaking of quirks, there
• 19:02
  was all brighter that I shot. In fact, this this will be the
• 19:05
  last story I'll tell on on this one.
• 19:08
  The babe was a fine babe as a correct babe, very correct babe.
• 19:12
  But The thing is, she had a mole on her cheek and it's not.
• 19:20
  It's a mole that has been there since childhood, But only this
• 19:23
  babe was fine. Like fine, like beauty queen
• 19:25
  fine. But she has the mole.
• 19:28
  And of course, everybody called it a beauty spot.
• 19:31
  But The thing is, the babe didn't like this mole.
• 19:33
  So she either had to be photographed from the opposite
• 19:38
  side where the mole would not show.
• 19:40
  And then in every single photo where the mole showed, it had to
• 19:45
  be photoshopped away. And I'm thinking like, you were
• 19:54
  born with this thing. Everybody knows it is there.
• 20:00
  Your husband loves you regardless of the fact that The
• 20:04
  thing is there. I shoot high volume.
• 20:08
  I want to submit a huge number of photos, you know, 203 hundred
• 20:12
  maybe. And you want me to chase one
• 20:15
  more? In every single photo, I get rid
• 20:18
  of it in every single photo, or shoot you from the opposite
• 20:22
  angle. And of course that's not
• 20:23
  realistic because sometimes you're going with the flow,
• 20:26
  you're going with the moment. You know they're on the dance
• 20:28
  floor, they're having that magical moment and you are here,
• 20:32
  but you are at the wrong side. If you want to run over to the
• 20:35
  right side so you don't get them all.
• 20:37
  The moment will be lost. So you just fire anyway.
• 20:39
  So how did they get on that? Oh yes, I was talking about
• 20:45
  ideal customer, ideal customer profile.
• 20:49
  So the reason why I remembered her was because after that
• 20:51
  wedding, I came up with a very simple rule.
• 20:53
  And my rule was this. I was not going to do yellow
• 20:55
  babes anymore If I just saw a yellow babe.
• 20:57
  I'll look for any excuse to just weave this wedding, no matter
• 21:01
  how much money that they had. And so for me, my ICP did not
• 21:06
  include babes who were yellow. But then I met another
• 21:09
  photographer and we started talking, you know, side sharing
• 21:12
  stories. Actually second shot for me at
• 21:16
  at one of these birthday parties as I was in the club.
• 21:20
  And so you turned out we had similar experiences.
• 21:25
  And then he gave me his own, his own scope and I announced that
• 21:28
  adopting his own scope. So I tweaked my own ICPA little
• 21:31
  bit. He said, oh, yellow babes, not a
• 21:33
  problem. What he said was if the baby's
• 21:35
  yellow, look at the knuckles first.
• 21:37
  If the baby's yellow but the knuckle is black, then there's
• 21:40
  going to be a problem. Those are the girls that will be
• 21:42
  particular about, you know, take me up 1 shade or take me up 2
• 21:46
  shades. And when he said I was like, oh
• 21:49
  OK, that made sense. So was after I had that
• 21:51
  conversation with the guy that I was now comfortable shooting
• 21:56
  yellow babes. Please.
• 21:57
  I'm talking as a photographer. So when I say shooting yellow
• 21:59
  babes, I don't mean like gun shoot, shoot.
• 22:02
  I mean camera shoot, shoot. Don't Take Me Out of context.
• 22:06
  So then I got comfortable shooting yellow babes again.
• 22:08
  I'd have the conversation with the yellow babe, but I'll check
• 22:11
  knuckles and I'll check elbow stylishly.
• 22:13
  If elbow is black, knuckles are black.
• 22:15
  And I know that Omar, weave this babe, forget this thing.
• 22:18
  There will be quarrel. So I have a clear sense of the
• 22:21
  ICP, even if it means something as simple as if they're yellow
• 22:26
  babes, they must have yellow elbows and yellow knuckles and
• 22:31
  stay clear. Be that clear about your ICP.
• 22:36
  And so excuse me, still recovering from the throat and
• 22:40
  cold and all of that. So yeah, be clear about your ICP
• 22:44
  and then stick to it. And then another solution that I
• 22:48
  found while talking with other photographers was to double or
• 22:52
  triple your price. At least make it worth your
• 22:54
  while. So normally if you charge 300K
• 22:58
  and looks like this babe will be problem, just tell her look
• 23:01
  babe, this will be 600. Q.
• 23:03
  Well, I'm surprised that she would say OK now you now know
• 23:07
  that you're putting up with a whole bunch of trouble, but at
• 23:09
  least you're going to deal with double the profit margin.
• 23:12
  But actually in most situations all would happen is if you
• 23:15
  double your price, they will carry their own 2 left legs and
• 23:18
  leave you alone. So either way you win.
• 23:20
  If they say yes, there'll be quarrel which have a hefty
• 23:23
  profit margin. If they say no one leave, well
• 23:26
  at least they're not your problem anymore.
• 23:30
  So these are just some rambling ideas about how to deal with
• 23:34
  customers who have unrealistic expectations.
• 23:40
  Yeah, We can't keep going on and on about all these, all these
• 23:44
  experiences. And yeah, I think that's just
• 23:50
  it. Just it.
• 23:51
  So if you take the lady's approach, the lady who wrote the
• 23:56
  post, then be happy when you do with these clients because they
• 24:00
  force you to up your game. And then if you take my own
• 24:02
  approach, we need to, it's not necessarily a good thing dealing
• 24:07
  with all these angst. So we need to find ways of
• 24:09
  getting around it. So number one, we need to learn
• 24:12
  how to set expectations clearly from the beginning.
• 24:15
  So needs analysis is really, really important.
• 24:17
  Who are these people? What goal are they working
• 24:21
  towards? What problems are they facing?
• 24:24
  What timelines do they have where you figure this thing out
• 24:29
  and you give your proposal, your presentation, or your price
• 24:31
  quote? You now talk about the limits of
• 24:34
  your product or your service. OK, if I understand correctly,
• 24:37
  this is what you guys are trying to achieve.
• 24:39
  My product and my service will help you do XYZ and ABC.
• 24:43
  However, my product or my service is not going to work in
• 24:47
  this situation or this situation or that situation.
• 24:50
  Is this going to be a problem? And then you keep quiet and then
• 24:52
  you hear what they have to say. If they say, of course you'll be
• 24:57
  a problem. Now, how can I pay you XYZ
• 25:00
  amount and you say you won't give me this, you won't give me
• 25:01
  that. At that stage, there's no point
• 25:04
  of arguing and saying that look, Madam, this is a more realistic
• 25:08
  expectation or God, this is blah, blah.
• 25:11
  There's no need to argue. You just say, oh, OK, it looks
• 25:15
  like I don't have the skill set to give you guys what you need
• 25:18
  then. So yeah, would you like me to
• 25:21
  make a recommendation to you guys to try somebody else?
• 25:24
  So just weave it if that's not the answer.
• 25:27
  And then after you build a little bit more experience and
• 25:32
  you get a sense of who your ideal customer is, only do
• 25:35
  business with people who seem to be your ideal customer.
• 25:38
  Avoid the rest. Then there's nothing that I
• 25:42
  learnt on the field as a young photographer.
• 25:46
  It looks like these people are going to be trouble.
• 25:48
  Double the price or triple the price if they have the money and
• 25:52
  they drop it. You now go home and tell your
• 25:54
  wife that, look, babe, I've collected money.
• 25:58
  This work is going to be troublesome.
• 26:00
  But at least the good thing is by the time we finish this
• 26:02
  wedding, we'll have some correct money from that.
• 26:04
  So the money that we collect from this, we can now use it and
• 26:07
  pay deposit on school fees. And then nothing was supposed to
• 26:10
  buy. This was supposed to do.
• 26:11
  We can now settle this. We can now settle this.
• 26:13
  And then, you know, you just say like that to your wife and you
• 26:16
  know, you guys are cool and then you go ahead for the whole
• 26:19
  drama. If the money is too big and they
• 26:21
  leave you, fine, no problem. It's not your concern.
• 26:25
  You can use that time to go and look for somebody else to be a
• 26:28
  client of yours. So thanks for your time and
• 26:31
  attention on today's episode. You can connect with me on
• 26:35
  WhatsApp. The phone number is 08064662140,
• 26:40
  country code +234. Then also connect with me on
• 26:43
  WhatsApp. My name is Tavishima Ayede, the
• 26:45
  host of the show. You can confirm the spelling of
• 26:47
  my name from the link where you're listening to this
• 26:49
  episode. So highlight, copy, paste and
• 26:52
  LinkedIn and my profile will come up.
• 26:54
  So thanks for your time and attention.
• 26:56
  I'll catch you guys at the next episode.