If someone had asked me when I was first in practice whether it was possible to care too much for my clients. I would have answered: “Absolutely not. I will do whatever the client wants or needs within reason”.
I still believe this. But what has changed over the years is my definition of “within reason”. After having been abused a few too many times from unrealistic, over-demanding, unappreciative clients, what I believe to be “within reason” is not the same as it was.
I’ve learned over the years to care less about my clients, and more about my team, and to some degree, my own mental health.
Consider this:
At the time of writing this, the vacation Lise and I planned is 4 weeks away. In getting everything for this trip, we realize that our passport has expired. Oh crap!
I do some research and discover that the turnaround time for renewing a passport is 20 business days. Hmmm … it’s cutting it way to close for my liking.
Not to worry.
Oh, I’m sure that if I explain this situation to Service Canada Center, they’ll make it happen right?
At this point, I’m sure you caught on to the humor of it all.
I’m quite sure that Service Canada will not be:
- calling me 14 times and sending me 10 emails to make sure I get them my documents on time
- fretting or stressing about my passport
- staying late or working weekends to turn my passport around faster
- upending their workflows to get mine taken care of
At least, I don’t think so.
Instead, Service Canada offered Expedited Service for an additional $110.
But here’s what strange. I’m not upset with service Canada for NOT doing what clients sometimes expect from me. Why?
I think as a practitioner, we need to be very clear with our clients what exactly is reasonable expectations, and what is not. Be clear of what you’re capable of delivering, to what degree you can stretch what you can deliver without hurting yourself or someone on your team, and then communicate this to your client. And yes, sometimes as a business owner, you will need to stretch yourself a bit. And please don’t think that what I’m saying is that we should never bend over backwards for our clients. Sometimes, we absolutely should. I’m okay with that insofar as nobody gets hurt and the long term reward is worth the effort.
Let’s work hard, give it all we reasonably can. But let’s stop being martyrs and let’s be sure we’re driving our practice and not the other way around.