Gently 'Critiquing' Clients

When running a business one very quickly learns how flipping important your clients are.

Without them you simply don't earn money, you can have the best 'processes' or business idea in the world but without some prospective clients to push in at the top of your marketing sausage machine all you will get out is air not an income - obviously this is horrible analogy but you get the idea.

So in my honest opinion you really shouldn't moan about clients but in the interests of education today I am going to break that cardinal rule but only for the sake of ultimately helping them out.
But first let me dissemble slightly. My clients are generally pretty good - courteous, good to deal with and largely, they don't create too many problems.

Something seems to happens to both clients and prospects when it gets warmer. They start thinking about barbecues, summer holidays and sport (insert preferred item here from : World Cup/Wimbledon/Tour De France/Test Match/Common Wealth Games ad infinitum). As a result they do one of two things or both. Firstly they begin to focus on getting tiny, annoying issues off their desk before they disappear on holiday - I know I am the same.
This means for me the low level, easy to solve but  time consuming niggles begin to appear and eat into the day.

Secondly and far more frustratingly is that no one will sign and return an application form - I have literally never been so busy but clients will simply not send back their forms regardless of my gentle cajoling.

So here's a message to clients around the world, some of us are also going on holiday too and we need to sort your case out before we disappear so that your cover/contract/service agreement is in place when you go away on holiday.

Let me give you a case in point. I set up a plan for a client for 1st of June 2014 start date. The form came in fine and the plan is now up and running fully. He called me this morning at 9.30am to check he was covered for a leg injury he just suffered whilst away on holiday - I was able to re-assure him that as cover was in place there would be no problem and he can claim on his return.

Imagine for a moment that this person was one of the eight or nine clients from whom I am currently awaiting forms to put cover in place from 1st of July or August. I'm really not whining because I want to get paid on your cases (OK so I am a little bit) but mainly, if things go wrong and your cover is not in place because you didn't return my application form then it really is the clients fault and no one else's.

On a more serious note, it really is important to ensure you're covered and part of my job is to chase up these things to make sure everything is sorted and we can all go away on holiday with the peace of mind that nothing will go wrong.