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Want to know the dangers of working with non-ideal clients? Have you been thinking about taking on a questionable client? Does your gut say “Don’t do it” but your head is saying “The revenue would be great for the business”? If so, this blog post is for you! Keep reading to find out the dangers of working with non-ideal clients.
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Some reasons why business owners say yes to working with a non-ideal client
Before I share the dangers of working with a non-ideal client, I want to first talk about how you might find yourself in the situation in the first place.
Reason 1: Money
The biggest reason small business owners agree to work with a non-ideal client is because of money. I’ve seen this happen at many stages of business. There are the business owners at the early stages of business who feel the pressure is on to make money. Enquiries are low and so they feel compelled to have to turn every enquiry into a sale. Then there are the most established business owners who have found themselves in a slow period (whether that be usual in their business cycle or for an unknown reason) who then panic and start saying yes to everyone who comes their way.
Reason 2: Not clear on who your ideal client is
In some cases, a business owner might find themselves working with a non-ideal client because they haven’t got clear in the first place about who their ideal client is. They might have done no work on it or have a very wishy-washy idea. In this situation, it is easy to end up working with a non-ideal client.
Reason 3: You believe working with the client will open other doors
This is a rare reason, but it does happen. The potential client could be a celebrity, well connected or have a large audience. You know that the client isn’t your ideal client but think this is a way to start a relationship and that relationship will lead to future opportunities or help you get seen by the right people etc.
Reason 4: You want to help the other person
When the potential client is a friend or acquaintance you can feel that you want to help the other person and you desire to help them blurs everything else.
I’ve shared these reasons to help you understand how it is easy to end up working with a non-ideal client. I believe that most business owners know they should be only working with their ideal client and therefore my role isn’t to remind you to only work with your non-ideal client. By highlight why business owners stray from the path and work with non-ideal clients hopefully, you’ll be able to spot if you are in that situation in the future.
Now that you know how you can end up working with non-ideal clients it is time to talk about the dangers and why you really shouldn’t work with a non-ideal client.
THE DANGERS OF WORKING WITH A NON-IDEAL CLIENT
1. They’ll drain your energy
As your business owner you have a responsibility for protecting your energy and the clients you work with have a major impact on your energy. I’m sure you can imagine the difference between working with your ideal client and working with your non-ideal client. This is especially important for service providers who are working with clients for a number of months or even years. When you work with a client as a one-off then it isn’t massively detrimental, but if you have a client that you are going to be working with for a considerable amount of time you want to make sure they aren’t draining your energy.
When you work with your ideal client business feels easy (or at least the right type of challenging). If they throw you a bit of a curveball your enjoyment of working with them will compensate for the extra work you might have to do. However, when a curveball comes from a non-ideal client it feels like just another request that means more work for you. Over time it is easy to feel resentful, to dread working with them and even worse to start questioning whether running a business is the right thing for you.
2. They’ll push you out of your Zone of Genius
When you work with a non-ideal client there is a high likelihood that you’ll end up being pushed out of your Zone of Genius. If you’ve never come across the term Zone of Genius before it was a concept I was introduced to in The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks (You can read my review of The Big Leap here). He believes that when it comes to work, we have four zones that we can work in:
1 – Zone of Incompetence
2 – Zone of Competence
3 – Zone of Excellence
4 – Zone of Genius
As a business owner, you want to be maximising the amount of time where you are working in your Zone of Genius (which is where you are exceptional at the work you are doing). Now in reality most business owners will spend most of their time working in the Zone of Genius and the Zone of Excellence. However, when you work with non-ideal clients it is very easy to end up working in your Zone of Competence or even the Zone of Incompetence. This is because they’ll make innocently requests and you’ll then feel compelled to deliver.
For example, say you are a VA who offers web management services, and your ideal client is a service provider. You have great knowledge and experience across WordPress and Squarespace since they are the two main website platforms for service providers. However, you decide to work with a product-based business owner and they use Shopify. You’ve accepted the client so they assume you are comfortable with the platform, but in fact you aren’t and some super simple request actually end up being a lot of work for you.
Now you might not be too bothered about working in your Zone of Competence or Incompetence, but if you are working in that zone it is likely to take you longer to complete a task than someone else (and something else that is in your Zone of Excellence/Genius). Also, the service you deliver might not be to your usual high standard. This can leave a lasting negative impression about you and the service you provide. As a business owner building and maintaining your reputation is key so why risk it for a non-ideal client?
3. They’ll refer you to other non-ideal clients
Referrals can make a massive difference to the success of a business. When you have past clients out in the world singing your praise and recommending other people to you, life is great. For many businesses, past clients are the biggest advocates for a business and they can generate a constant stream of new enquiries. This is great when you are working with your ideal client, but what about when you are working with a non-ideal client. If you work with a non-ideal client there is a high likelihood that they’ll refer other non-ideal clients your way. For example, imagine a financial coach who says they specialise in helping millennial women. However, a Gen Z comes their way whilst business is quiet so they agree to work with them. The client has a wonderful experience working with the financial coach and start telling all her friends (90% Gen Z) about the financial coach. Now the financial coach has more enquiries from clients who are Gen Z and is left deciding whether they should or shouldn’t work with these individuals.
Turning away potential clients is not an easy thing to do, especially if you aren’t fully booked. Personally, I would much rather turn the first non-ideal client down than end up having to turn down all of the people that the first non-ideal client could potentially refer.
4. They are taking a space that could be filled with your ideal client
Last, but definitely not least, I want to talk about the fact when you are working with your non-ideal client you are limiting the number of ideal clients you can work with. In most cases, business owners will work with a non-ideal client when they have lots of spaces for clients. Business is slow so they have the mentality that any client is better than no client. This is the wrong mentality to have, especially if you work with clients for weeks, months or years basis.
Imagine for a second that you are an accountant who has clients signed up on an ongoing basis. At the moment, you are a one-person business and can take a maximum of 20 clients. Early on in your business you accepted some non-ideal clients to get your business up and running, but business quickly picked up and you are now fully booked. Your ideal client gets in touch and you have to turn them away. You look at your client roster and there are 5 clients who are definitely not your ideal client and you are frustrated that you are working with them rather than the ideal client that contacted you this week.
This happens in business all the time. In the early stage you take whatever comes your way and then as you get to fully booked you regret those early choices. Now obviously there are ways out of it. Depending on the contracts you have with the clients you might be able to stop working with some of your non-ideal clients, but it might take weeks or months before those working relationships can end. In that time how many ideal clients have you had to turn away?
Now if you are working with clients over a shorter period of time this isn’t as big an issue, but if you work with clients for months, years or indefinitely please think carefully before accepting a client as they can be on your books for a long time. Ask yourself this question “Would I work with this client is they were taking my last available client space?”
There you have it! You’ve now the dangers of working with non-ideal clients.
Working with non-ideal clients happens to most business owners so if you’ve found yourself in this situation don’t feel bad. Learn from the experience and avoid it in the future. Now the fact is even by focusing on working with your ideal client a few ‘bad’ clients still might slip through. But if you are actively avoiding working with your non-ideal client then it should drastically reduce the number of ‘bad’ clients you work with.
In the comments, I would love to hear what your biggest takeaway was.
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I work with solopreneurs and (super) small service-based business owners to get clear on their business goals and then implement the right growth, marketing and sales strategies to achieve build a thriving business that supports the lifestyle they want.
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