Scenario: Your champion at a client’s firm is pushing back against changing their marketing automation strategy, even though your research and discovery clearly show their approach isn’t effective. Instead of being receptive to your ideas, the idea of changing too many processes makes them uncomfortable, especially since they personally built many of the old processes. What should you do?
- Suggest that you part ways amicably. A client who doesn’t listen to your suggestions or allow you to do your job won’t be happy, no matter how much you try to help. If they don’t acknowledge that they have a problem, you can’t do anything to help them.
- Be patient and tie your recommendations back to your client’s goals for the implementation. Change is difficult to handle, and pushback is a natural part of the process. Understand why the client is reluctant to change a particular process, and explain why you believe change would improve their experience.
- Drop the suggestion and move on. You’re better off focusing on ideas the client is already excited about. Even if you find a significant opportunity for improvement, remember that your goal is to focus on nurturing your business relationship with the client. By keeping them comfortable, you’re guaranteeing that they’ll enjoy working with you.
- Be patient and drop any idea that makes the champion uncomfortable. Undoing any of the previous work would make your champion look bad in front of their managers, and your priority is to build the business relationship. Focus on easier fixes that don’t fundamentally alter any of the systems your champion worked hard to create, even if they’re ineffective.