Many highly trained technical experts of all kinds – IT professionals, engineers, lawyers, doctors, architects, and other sophisticated experts – know the answers to their clients’ issues before the clients even know what their issue is.
The problem is that until a client trusts you to take care of them – especially in an area they don’t even know how to evaluate your expertise – there is a significant barrier to appreciation, respect and recognition that YOU need to overcome.
Why don’t your clients appreciate and care about your expertise and answers, even when you have the answers and expertise they need? While clients want to get their problems solved and their possibilities achieved, the real problem is they usually don’t know exactly what they really need.
When clients don’t have clarity about what they really need – much less how to get it – they are not ready to appreciate you nor value your solutions. What you need to do is start by helping your client get clarity and focus about what is most important and valuable to address.
Getting clients clear about the high-value outcomes they need – and should want – is the critical first step to getting them to appreciate your solution.
Consider your own situation for a moment. When you go to a surgeon, do you really want to hear about the details of how she conducts the surgery, and who else they operated on? Or do you want them to be aware of and take care of your concerns, and ultimately the outcomes you want, yet may not even be able to articulate initially?
The same can be said when you go to a lawyer, an architect, or your tax accountant. You’re far less interested in their methodology than in how they take care of you. This is especially true in an area you’re not even competent to make judgments and evaluations about what a great process looks like.
This illustrates the key to how people make their decisions when dealing with technical experts. They want to know you understand them, you care about them, you’ll take care of their most important concerns and outcomes, and you can be trusted to take care of these well.
Prematurely offering answers, discussing your technical expertise, or details about how you’re going to provide their solutions can actually make it seem like you’re not taking care of them and their concerns. Being focused on what you are going to do rarely works – because clients can’t evaluate, and often cannot understand, the details of your technical activities.
It is necessary and critical to have a high degree of technical expertise. However, while this is the minimal standard for even being in your profession, it is not the key to ultimate success with clients. How you treat your clients is the best initial indicator of how much they should put themselves in your hands and trust you – and one of the greatest differentiators between you and your competitors.
When you are ready to significantly upgrade the quality of your client relationships, contact us for a free whitepaper or free informational session on the Best Keys to Success at Info@Optimizeintl.com
