Page 191 - Executive Warfare

Outsiders with Influence

Otherwise, those angry clients only would have gotten angrier because
they would have had the whole weekend to stew about it. By Monday
morning, they would no longer have cared about anything I had to say.
They would have picked up the phone to call my boss.
When a client is angry, try to keep the problem off the boss’s desk, but
make sure you keep the boss in the loop. You can’t trust that your client
won’t make that Monday morning
phone call anyway. A sophisticated boss
understands that things go wrong but WHEN A CLIENT IS
doesn’t like being kept in the dark and ANGRY, TRY TO
possibly seeming out of touch if the KEEP THE
client does call. The fact that you’re tak- PROBLEM OFF THE
ing care of the problem on your own— BOSS’S DESK, BUT
and on a weekend—but keeping him MAKE SURE YOU
informed about it is all to your credit. KEEP THE BOSS IN
The third way to keep clients happy THE LOOP.
is to serve as a consigliere to them. They
may be spending $5 million or $20 mil-
lion or $50 million with your organization. Part of the transaction is that
they get your time and advice in return.
For example, maybe your client hates her bosses and is considering
changing her career. Let’s call her Emily. Naturally, Emily can’t talk to
many people inside her own organization about it.
By all means, take her to dinner. It’s been several years since I left John
Hancock, and I still have former clients who call me and say, “You know,
I’m having a problem with my career. Can you help me think this
through?”
On the other hand, never discuss your organization’s internal issues
with a client, ever, ever, ever! If the client turns on you, it can be used
against you.
If you have a chance to meet Emily’s boss, try to say something nice
about her without its sounding calculating.

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