Client Troubles

Dear HBR:

Harvard Business Review

Careers, Business/management, Work, Advice, Harvard, Help, Mentor, Workplace, Business, Management, Challenges, Entrepreneurship, Hbr, Office, Business/careers, Business/entrepreneurship

4.6 • 782 Ratings

🗓️ 25 July 2019

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Are clients bringing you down? Dan and Alison answer your questions with the help of Diane Hessan, the founder and chair of the marketing technology agency C Space. They talk through what to do when you have a difficult client, your coworkers are hampering your ability to serve clientele, or you want to win more business to advance your career.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to Dear HBR from Harvard Business Review.
0:03.9	I'm Dan McGinn.
0:04.9	And I'm Alison Beard.
0:12.3	Work can be frustrating, but it doesn't have to be.
0:15.3	We don't need to let the conflicts get us down.
0:17.8	That's where Dear HBR comes in.
0:19.9	We take your questions, look at the research, talk to the experts, and help you move forward.
0:32.4	Today we're talking about client dilemmas with Diane Husson.
0:36.0	She's the founder and chair of the Marketing
0:37.9	Technology Agency C-Space. Diane, thanks so much for coming on the show.
0:42.0	Happy to be here.
0:43.7	So the company that you founded and are now chairman of has hundreds of corporate clients.
0:49.0	You have a lot of experience in this area. What is the hardest thing about managing them?
0:53.3	Oh, gosh. A client once said to me,
0:56.0	you know, Diane, if this doesn't go well, you'll move on to your next client. But for me,
1:02.2	if it doesn't go well, I could be fired. So even with clients who are unemotional, there's
1:07.6	always emotion that goes on. The word client seems to me it has a level of service to it that makes it different
1:14.6	than a customer.
1:15.6	I get a little stressed out just when I hear the word client.
1:18.6	I think that's a great point.
1:19.6	The balance of power is not the same.
1:22.6	When you're a vendor, which of course is the worst thing anybody could possibly call you is vendor.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -2029 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Harvard Business Review, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Harvard Business Review and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.