Are you treated like an Expert?

Working in the service sector and getting treated by our clients like an employee rather than partners is a common thing, perhaps everyone would have experienced it. However, choosing to accept it, decides for us. I have seen people being on top of their game creatively but struggling, typically they kind of moved into the direction where they “say yes” to everything that comes their way and they end up serving everybody else but themselves. It’s often easy to blame high-maintenance clients for creating these issues, but often the problem is a little closer to home. One of the mistakes we make is, actually we invite the client to treat us like an employee and the way we are doing that is, we never question them or never challenge them. A fine example could be, when a client comes with a requirement, we often would get into the logistics than understanding what was the real objective of that requirement in relation to that business. This is something most would do and have done in the past. The problem with doing so is that we in-directly invite them to treat us like an employee. It’s an important question to ask yourself, are you really inviting your clients to treat you like an employee, do you just exactly deliver what they ask for ? or do you have conversations about why they want that kind of work? Questioning or challenging might seem like a daunting thing to do but it’s crucial to show them you are an expert in your field. One thing that helps you with this, getting your timing right. There is always a sweet spot in a client’s decision-making process, where they know that they have a problem, but haven’t decided on a solution yet. That’s the sweet spot to position ourselves as an expert. Again, there is another part that needs to be noted here. Your timing has to be well before accessing the options they have to solve their problem. Yes, you got that right, timing is everything. Targeting them earlier on in the decision-making process will make things easy for you. It allows them to be more open to your ideas and they are more likely to value you as a real expert, not just someone to hand a contract to. One may eventually learn this, as they move up in the career.