What You Should Expect

Expected Expectations

Your dream client should expect you to pursue them over time. They should come to expect your calls, your emails, your invitations, and all of the efforts you put into nurturing a relationship. They should expect you to be unrelenting. They should not learn to expect you to disappear after a single touch only to return in 90 days.

Your dream client should expect you to create value before claiming any. They should learn something of value from you—even if they never decide to buy from you. You might feel that it’s dangerous to share ideas, but it’s more dangerous not to share them . . . It eliminates the perception that you create value.

Your dream client should expect that you’ve done your homework. They should expect that you’ve read about their company, that you’ve looked at their competitors, and that you’ve read their profiles on LinkedIn. They should expect that you have done the work you need to answer the most basic of questions before they sit down to speak with you.

Your dream client should expect you to know what they don’t know. They should expect you to help them with new ideas and insights based on the work you are doing with other clients. They expect that while you don’t have as deep experience in their industry that your broader experience gives you a different and valuable view.

Your dream client should expect you to know how you intend to help them move form the status quo to some better state. They expect you to know what the next steps you need to take together should be, and they expect you to be able to describe how you create value together by taking those steps.

Your dream client should expect you to help them make your case inside their company by helping them build consensus. They should expect you to meet with their teams, their peers, and their management to gain an understanding of how what you are proposing needs to be adjusted to fit their needs.

Your dream client should expect you to help them defend the investment that you are asking them to make. They should expect you to arm them with a killer value proposition. They should expect you to help them understand and explain their return on investment. They should expect you to help them understand and verbalize the risks of underinvesting.

Your dream client should expect you to ask for what you need in order to help them. They should expect you to tell them the truth, to be candid, and to fearlessly talk about the challenges of producing better results.

You Should Expect

You should expect your dream client to resist your efforts to open a new relationship. You should expect that they receive too many calls from too many salespeople who disappoint them with an inability to create value.

You should expect your dream client to resist your efforts to upset the status quo if they aren’t already aware of their need to change. If they are aware of their need to change you should expect them to have some ideas about what they want that won’t jive with your solution.

You should expect your dream client to have unreal expectations. You should expect them to suffer under the spell that they can have everything they want, better, faster, and cheaper. You should expect that they’ve been told this lie many times in the past, only to be disappointed.

You should expect resistance. You should expect delays. You should expect to have to start over. You should expect creating and winning an opportunity to take longer than you presently expect.

You should expect your dream client to be protective of your relationship. You should expect them to struggle with bringing in new and additional stakeholders for fear of losing control and not getting what they want. You should expect them to withhold.

You should expect your dream client to push back against the necessary investment needed to produce better results. You should expect them to compare your price to your competitors. You should expect that they believe you are a commodity, and that they will likely treat you like their clients treat them. You should expect their purchasing team and their executive management team to disconnect the value you create from your price and ask you to discount.

You should expect that the stakeholders in your dream client’s company will resist you. You should expect that they are skeptical of you and your change initiative. You should expect them to expect you to earn their trust.

You should expect your dream client to underestimate the real effort necessary to change their organization. You should expect them to underestimate the problems and challenges that will occur as you move forward. You should expect them to get cold feet, to feel stress, and to worry. You should expect to have to join them in the foxhole when the bullets fly.

You should expect your dream client to hold you accountable. You should expect them to believe that you are going to execute and that you are going to manage your company’s effort to deliver the results that you sold, that you promised.

Prepare to Meet These Expectations

There is nothing like knowing what to expect.

If you know what your dream clients are likely to expect from you, you can prepare yourself and your team to deliver it. You can prepare to meet those expectations.

If you know what you are likely to expect from your clients, you know how to prepare to effectively deal with it. If you are wrong, if your dream client surprises you, you’ve lost nothing by preparing.