126: How to Have Awkward Conversations With Your Clients

So you’re looking to make a change that impacts your clients. Maybe it’s transitioning their work to your team members, increasing their pricing, or releasing them all together. These conversations can feel super awkward… so awkward that maybe you’ve been avoiding them all together.

Listen, I despise awkward conversations as much as you probably do, but I also know that going through the process of having these interactions helps us grow – and ultimately helps the other person too.

What’s in this episode:

• 4 steps to having awkward conversations
• How to deliver your message with confidence
• When fear is a sign you should pause 
• How to maintain great relationships with your clients

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EPISODE 126 TRANSCRIPT:

Hey everyone, Nicole here. And welcome back to the show today we’re going to talk about the most common awkward conversations you might be having with your clients and how to go about having these conversations in a way that makes you feel like you’re communicating what’s true and doing it in a way that supports both your company and the client as well. 

So the three different types of conversations that I find agency owners struggling with when it comes to their clients. The first is transitioning client work that they have been doing exclusively to having a team deliver that client work. 

So if you are starting out your services, let’s say you were an accountant and you were offering direct accounting to your client and you have now hired on an accountant to deliver that service, having that conversation with a client and transitioning them over. 

If you are a speech therapist and you have hired other speech therapists into your business and are going to be transferring some of the clients that you have to your other speech therapist. 

These are all different they’re changes, right? It’s changes that your client and yourself are going to be experiencing. And so how to not only, go through and actually make the changes needed so that it works out well. But then also being able to communicate that clearly to your clients so that they know what’s going on and feel as good as they can about it. 

The second type of awkward conversation that may come up is increasing your pricing. 

A lot of times when people go through my programs and really identify what they need to be charging in order to pay a team and themselves to. They find that sometimes they need to increase their pricing. So when this happens, this can feel a little awkward and there often is a lot of hesitation around it because when clients are used to paying a certain price point and then there’s an increase. 

A. There can be just some fear on the business owner side with having that -type of conversation. But also there can be questions that come up from the client around what’s changing and how it will help them. So we’re going to talk about that too. 

The third conversation that we’re gonna be talking about is how to release a client that is no longer an ideal fit for your company. 

So maybe you started out with this client. You’ve tried to delegate their work to a team. And it hasn’t worked out or you’re struggling to figure out how to delegate their work to a team and you’re realizing that they’re no longer a fit. How to have that conversation in a way that feels as good as it possibly can. 

I want to walk through things to think about when having any type of conversation with your client. I think the level of awkwardness. Will depend on the types of clients, you have your relationships with those clients. Your own comfort level with the changes that you’re making. 

There’s a lot that goes into feelings of awkwardness and how they impact you. Something may feel awkward to you that does not feel awkward to somebody else. So the levels are going to change a bit. 

But when it comes to these types of conversations, I want to give you some things to think about because although these are three different types of conversations, There’s a similar framework that goes into thinking about how to actually think through what you’re going to be talking about and how to prepare yourself for that conversation. And then execute that conversation. 

So the first thing to know is that all of these conversations are basically sales conversations. Okay. So if you are transitioning a client to your team, you are having to sell your client into why. They’re going to be working with your team. 

If you’re increasing their pricing, you’re going to sell that client on why you’re increasing your pricing and how it benefits them. If you are releasing the client and this is where you might be thinking this is definitely not a sales conversation. It’s still is a opportunity for you to understand what the client’s goals are and what may be a better fit for them. And selling them on that better fit. 

Now, whether or not they actually agree with you or whether or not they actually say, yep, sure, no problem. Or push back a little bit, that you don’t really have control over how they respond, but you do have some control over how you deliver the message and the different tactics that you’re using to deliver the message so that it lands better with them. 

I think the biggest mistake that I see agency owners making is that they will deliver the message without actually selling why it’s better for the client. So this is a sales conversation, however, in order to actually sell your client into a change. You have to sell yourself first. I’m going to repeat that. In order to actually sell your client on a change that will benefit them, you need to sell yourself first on why it’s going to benefit them. 

Okay. So I talked a little bit before about that comfort level and making the change and how it impacts the level of awkwardness. We first want to address that before any communication happens. So what I want you to do, regardless of what type of conversation you’re having is I want you to write down or go for a walk and talk to yourself, which is what I sometimes do and think about why is this change really beneficial for them. Why is this change really beneficial for us? By being beneficial for us, what are we going to be able to then do for our clients? Okay. 

So let’s say you are transitioning your client to not communicating with you anymore, but communicating with a team member, let’s say they’re an account manager. 

Why is that beneficial? Okay. Really? Really think about that, cause I think sometimes we focus in on the loss of the client. And instead of the benefit. And so the loss is that they’re not going to be communicating with you anymore, but why is that better for them? 

Oftentimes, if you were growing your business and you’re hiring and team members, it’s likely because you’ve become a bottleneck you’ve reached capacity. And so how will you be able to actually offer better service to them, with you not being the one to communicate with them directly? And I will say, if you’re someone who deals and sells and services other businesses, so your B2B, it is very likely that business will understand. Why you’re making a change, as long as you’re selling it properly. 

As a business owner, myself, I can relate to, wanting to make sure that customers or people writing into my email box are responded to in a timely manner, responded to with a high quality response. And if I’m at capacity, which many of you are there’s going to be a lack, at some point, of quality. And oftentimes this never really happens because the business owner is so focused on delivering a great client experience, but then the sacrifice is their own health and wellbeing and, hours of sleep and what they’re eating. And all of the other things that go into taking care of yourself. 

So maybe it’s not. It doesn’t show up at first on the client side, but it’s not sustainable and you will eventually burn out and it eventually will impact the clients. Think about as you’re transitioning your client to working with a team member, why it’s better for them and you don’t necessarily need to say I’m burning out right now and I can’t do this anymore, but instead think about, okay, if someone were to have a dedicated person responding to the emails, they’re going to get a better level of service. 

They’re going to have someone that’s reading their emails in a timely manner. That’s reaching out to the right team members to get support. That’s really facilitating that area. So that you can stay in your zone of genius, whatever that may be in your business. Maybe it’s running the business, maybe it’s strategy support for them. And other things. 

Same thing when you’re increasing the pricing for your clients. Why are you increasing the pricing? I had a client once. Send a draft. Inside of our community on what she wanted to send to her client about a pricing increase. And it was basically like, Hey, we’ve decided we want to be an agency model. And so therefore we have more expenses and therefore your rates need to increase. We haven’t increased your rates in three years. And that to me was not, if I were on the client side, I would not really love getting that email. If they were providing a great service, it’s not that I wouldn’t agree to it. But that entire email was all about the company and not about the client. So we need to be able to turn this around and share why it’s such a great. Change for the client. 

Why are you increasing your pricing? What are you going to be able to do? How is that going to impact your client? And you’re selling yourself on this first, before you have this communication. 

Same thing with releasing a client. This can be a little awkward and sometimes a bit nerve wracking, depending again, on your relationship with the client, but why are you releasing the client? What is it going to help you do? What is it going to leave room for probably more ideal clients. 

It’s probably going to be less of a burden for yourself and your team. It’s probably going to cost you less, right? I want you to really sell yourself so that you can then put together a communication plan from that place of knowing that this is what’s best for all parties involved. 

The next piece is understanding the client goals. And, if you think about, transitioning a client to a team member increasing the pricing. What ultimately is it that this client wants. 

I know that this may feel like a little bit of a hit to your ego if you’re used to working with clients like directly, but it’s very likely that the client is not working with you just because it’s, you. Sorry. 

And I know how this feels because I was a project manager and people loved working with me. They called me the project designer, the project fairy godmother, like all of this stuff. And I remember thinking, how on earth am I going to be able to replicate this and team members? And. When I really thought about it, I realized the reason why they want to work with me is not just because it’s me, Nicole. 

It’s because of the service that they’re getting. It’s because of the unique way that I deliver project management services. It’s because of the process that we go through, where I talk with all team members, I understand what the challenges are. I infuse that into the project plan. I’m very communicative. We have different touch points, right? All of these things are the reason why clients like to work with me. 

Along with our approach to project management and our personality and all of that. Okay. So that is really what the client is desiring and you happen to be able to deliver that for them, but that doesn’t mean that somebody else can’t. And as long as your agency foundations are in a great place, as long as you’ve infused the way that you do business into all aspects of your business, to make them actionable like your offerings and your delivery process and your communication protocols and how you hire team members, then that client is going to get the same, if not even a better experience. That’s really what we’re aiming for. 

And I’m just going to mention right here that if you do need support with doing this I have my next may round of the agency accelerator that I’m launching. And it’s actually open for enrollment right now. You can go to nicolejacksonmiller.com/accelerate to learn more. And this is really going to be taking everything that you’ve learned about your business and infusing it into your foundation. So into really determining your ideal clients to refining your offerings, to streamlining your delivery process and really revamping your financial structure so that you can grow better with team support. And that’s so important in order to actually be able to go out and have some of these conversations is to have confidence in that foundational structure. So I wanted to mention that real quick. 

Okay. So understanding what the client’s goals are, right. They want the service that you offer and they probably want it in the way that you’ve been offering it. 

So if that’s the case, how will this change help them? And so this is probably more towards the first two awkward conversations I mentioned, which is transitioning to team, and then also increasing the pricing. But even with releasing the client, it can also be true. 

So if this client you realize, you know what they actually do need very customized support. One-on-one support. I remember working with a client and I was having a really hard time transitioning them to working with my team. And I realized it was actually because that client needed an employee. A project management employee, not a contractor, which is what we were as an agency. So I was able to actually then take that. And go to the client. And say, listen. This is what we’re finding after working with you. We actually think that you would be better suited to be working with even a part-time employee. I don’t even know if they necessarily need to be full-time. This is the reason why. This is why I think it will support you. We unfortunately are not, in this position we’re contracted agency and happy to offer a transitional plan, but this is what I think will really move you forward. 

And I’m excited for this change and I’m sorry that we can’t provide the service that you need anymore. And I didn’t say it exactly like that, but that was the. It was really taking a step back and thinking about, okay, why is this not working? Why can’t I, for the life of me. Transition this client to my team. 

And I really sat with that for a little bit because this client was a good client. We had worked together for a long time and it was like, oh wait, like the way that they want to work, just doesn’t work with the way that we. Are working now and I would need to continue to be the one offering the service and I would actually probably need to become an employee of their company in order to offer it in a way that worked for them. So really understanding the client goals is what you’re after to be able to create this communication plan. 

That leads next into, speaking to those goals. During your awkward conversation, which hopefully at this point, now that you’ve started to sell yourself and understand the goals and understand why this will help the client, maybe it won’t feel as awkward, which is great. And if it still feels awkward, it’s okay. And you can do it anyway. But there are some things that when you have these feelings of awkwardness or you feel fearful or scared or hesitant, it’s important to pay attention to them. Because I think sometimes we see online “oh, feel the fear and do it anyway.” And yes, I understand where that’s coming from. But sometimes those feelings are like little signals that we need to pay attention and go inward for a minute and kind of figure things out before we speak. And then, once we’ve come up with this plan and it feels good and it feels true. Of course, there might be some discomfort because you’re having this conversation. Maybe you’re used to being really agreeable. And now this is the first time you’re making a change or speaking up or making a transition out of working with them and it feels awkward and uncomfortable. It’s just continuing to take the steps, even though you feel those things, but we don’t want to just completely ignore the feelings altogether they can be really useful signs. 

And then I always, most of the time, like to wrap it up with offering next steps. So now that you’ve announced this thing to them, what do they do? What are they expecting? What is the plan moving forward? 

So let’s say you’re transitioning the communication and flow with your client to an account manager. You would share why this has beneficial to them, your show, why they’re so excited and then you would say here’s what to expect next. I’m going to send an email, introducing you to your account manager and that email is going to come from this email address, make sure to save it and moving forward you’ll be communicating with this person around these areas of our work together using this email address. If for some reason you accidentally email me no problem. We’re actually gonna have it routed directly to that inbox anyway. 

So we’ll take care of it on our end. During our next call, the account manager will be honest so that you can meet them. We’re so excited. Of course hit reply if you have any questions, so you’re wanting to share this story, but then you’re also wanting to be very clear on what the next steps are. 

If you’re increasing your pricing you’re going to share with them what that looks like, right? This is why we’re increasing the pricing. This is why it’s amazing for you. Over the next 30 days, we’ll be making some of these transitions. And then within 30 days, we’re going to have our increase monthly rate. We’ll be charging the card that you have on file, whatever the details are. 

And with releasing the client, you have some options here. So if they are a great client and you might have a recommendation for them, for example, like the client that I had that I realized needed to hire an employee, I actually offered to support them with that. So I said, listen, I’ve been in this position for a while now. And my recommendation would be probably to hire an employee, maybe a part-time, maybe a full-time employee. If you need some support with this, I’d be happy to do a call or two with you just to flush this out. Let me know if this is of interest. It would be happy to do that by this date. So that it’s not just like this open ended thing. If that’s important to you. 

Now, if this client is a terrible client and you would not want to recommend anyone else working with them, then you don’t have to offer anything up. 

Permission granted. And this has happened to me a few times. It’s happened to me in my agency business. It’s happened to me in my coaching business and it’s okay too. Release the client and share with them what the next steps are for your specific scope. So you could say, this is what we’d be doing over the next two weeks to wrap it up. And as of this date, we’ll be ending our services and that’s it. 

Or, if you have any questions, let me know. You do not need to necessarily make a recommendation for them. However, if you do know what their goals are and they are a good client, and maybe there are a few people that. That might be able to help them. You could always give them some resources. 

And you could even reach out to those people. Ahead of time to see if they’re comfortable sharing their information or whatever that is, or you could gauge what the client’s reaction is. And then if they’re, open to getting in touch with these people, you could make those connections. So you don’t always need to offer recommendations, but if you think of them, it can be really valuable to the client and be really helpful in maintaining your relationship with them. As long as it’s a relationship that you determined that you want to continue to maintain. 

Okay. So just to recap, the first thing that you want to do when having any sort of awkward conversation with your client is to sell yourself on the changes that you’re making first. I understand your client’s goals. And why. The change will help them with their goals. We really want to speak to their goals as we’re communicating with them. And then we want to offer them next steps. 

Now, if this is a change that you feel like some of your clients are going to be uncomfortable with, there is a strategy. This is an advanced strategy that you can use where you rank your clients at different levels. So let’s say your, A clients are amazing. Your B clients are, okay, they’re pretty good. And your C clients are clients that you’re thinking might not be a good fit and that you want to get rid of. Anyway. You could, let’s say you’re increasing your pricing. You could reach out to the C clients first. And see what their reaction is, because there’s really not a whole lot of risk because you’re thinking that you might not want to work with them anyway and just see how the response is, and then you can also see how many people are staying with you, how many people are leaving, and then you can go to your B clients and then to your A clients. 

And that may feel a little bit easier in terms of rollout so that you’re not reaching out to everyone at one time. And then, having to deal with whatever the responses all at once. 

This is something that one of my clients did. And she. Shared that with me and I thought it was brilliant. So I think that can be a really good strategy as well, that if you’re more of a transitional person, I definitely am. And I think that could be a helpful approach to make it feel a little bit more digestible. 

I really think the awkward conversations are needed and I think the more that we can get comfortable with having these awkward conversations, the better off we’ll be. I do think that making them a little less awkward. It comes down to really understanding the why behind what you’re doing and having confidence in that. I think it comes down also to experience having awkward conversations. 

I remember when I worked in television, I worked in the procurement or purchasing department and our job was to negotiate deals with service providers for construction for set designs for technical equipment. And I was the kid growing up that didn’t even want to call the pizza place to order a pizza because I didn’t want to get on the phone. 

And so stepping into the environment where I am now at 22 or 23 negotiating deals with CEOs of multi-million dollar companies felt really intimidating. But the more I did it, the more comfortable I became. And the more confidence I had behind what I was sharing, the more comfortable it became. So I want to share that with you, cheers two awkward conversations. And they really do help us grow and evolve. 

And if you want support and feeling more confident, around the changes that you’re making inside of your agency. I highly recommend you check out our May round of my AGENCY Accelerator program. It’s all about how to upgrade your agency foundations so that they work better for both you, your clients and your team too. 

So maybe you feel like you’ve already done updates to help your business, support your team and your clients, but you’re noticing some growing pains. You’re are noticing that you have some clients that have a lot of questions or team members that have a lot of questions, maybe you’re struggling to pay yourself consistently, or you’re wanting to give yourself a raise. 

Maybe you are having trouble figuring out how to create a delivery process, where you can actually step out of that delivery process so that your team can handle it. And so if you are in this position, really taking a look at those foundations and getting support with upgrading them so that you can reach your goals over the next six to 12 months is so important. And so that’s why I created the AGENCY Accelerator. We have a May round coming up very soon, right around the corner. 

And you can go to nicolejacksonmiller.com/accelerate to learn more and I will see you next week.