Defining Expectations

For many of us, when we’re working with a client – it’s personal. Usually, we’re helping someone change his or her life or business – and we don’t want anyone interfering in that. That one-on-one care is what attract our clients to us and will sustain us.

The relationship we’ve built with our client is one of the hardest barriers to overcome when you need help with your business. We usually ask ourselves how possible it is to teach someone how to speak to our clients – especially when our clients expect so much from us. From phrasings of sentences to tone and emphasis, our clients expect certain things from us.

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My Clients Expect ME!
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Yes, they do. Because you told (or implied) that you’d always be there, they expect it. Then again, if I told all my clients to expect all future correspondence in pink butterfly stationary, they’d expect that as well.

Expectations are funny things – if you tell people what to expect, then they will. If you don’t tell them what to expect, they make up their own expectations. Do you really want people making their own assumptions on how your company is run?

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Case in Point
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One of my long-time clients would always end our telephone conversations with “Great, Erin – I’ll talk to you Thursday at three!” I never gave it much thought, until one day I couldn’t make the appointment… which got me thinking, “why does he always assume that I’ll be there Thursdays at three?”

I quickly figured out that our long-standing appointment was due to it always being open. We had never openly stated that we would meet Thursdays at three, but we did. We repeated the time enough where the slot became an expectation – and that was fine until I couldn’t make it.

I quickly realized that I had to set expectations. I was allowing my clients to make assumptions and set expectations based on my habits – and even though I had great ‘habits’, I didn’t want this to continue. So I set out to write out my client expectations.

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Stating Your Expectations
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Rest assured that we’re not stating project expectations for a client – we’re stating what your client can expect from you on an ongoing basis. If your client can expect to speak with you once a week via the telephone, write that down. Write down whether it’s best for your client to call you or email you between meetings, and whether you or your assistant is going to confirm appointments.

Then, all you have to do is state your expectations to your client. And, since you’ve written down all those nifty expectations, they’ll be easy to list and discuss. That’s another funny thing about expectations – the clearer you are with them, the easier they are to change. And, your clients will thank you for it.