How to Deal With Clients and Customers

This week, what can you do when the demands of others prevent you from doing your work.

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Episode 282 | Script

Hello and welcome to episode 282 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein and I am your host for this show.

Do you have a boss or a customer that expects you to be available 24/7? Perhaps, your boss always wants to know where you are and what you are doing or they rely on you to get them information because they are too lazy, or unable, to look up the information themselves. 

These demands and distractions are a common intrusion and do prevent you from getting on with your work. It could be you are being invited to meetings you have little to contribute to but feel you must attend because your boss sent the invitation. 

And on the other side, there are clients and customers who expect you to drop everything in order to serve them. 

It’s these interferences into our carefully curated schedules that cause a lot of our time management and productivity issues. You are willing, but outside forces prevent you from getting on with your most important work. What can you do? Well, that’s the issue in this week’s question. 

Now, before I hand you over to the Mystery Podcast voice, I’d just like to mention that My Ultimate Productivity Workshop is returning in August. For the four Friday evenings in August I invite you to settle in for a ninety-minute intimate workshop with myself where we cover your calendar, task manager, communications and the daily and weekly planning sessions. 

In all, this workshop will give you the know-how to build your own, personalised productivity system—a system that will grow with you over many years. 

And not only that, when you register for the workshop, you get free access to my mini-course bundle as this will be important for getting the most out of the workshop. 

I hope you can join me, and if you are unable to attend one or more of the sessions, do not fear, you can email me any questions and I will answer them in the session and you can get the recording of the session almost immediately after the session ends. 

Anyway, back to this week’s podcast question and that means it’s time for me to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. 

This week’s question comes from George. George asks, Hi Carl, I’ve tried to implement a lot of what you teach but always come up with a problem. My manager expects me to answer her questions immediately and that stops me from being able to focus on my core work or use time blocking. How have you overcome managers like this in the past? 

Hi George, thank you for your question. 

You are not alone. This is a pernicious problem I see with a lot of companies these days. And it’s not just micro-managing bosses, but can also be caused by demanding customers and clients who expect you to be available whenever they have a question. 

Fortunately, I have experienced these types before, and over the years developed a number of strategies to prevent the interruptions and demands. 

I’m surprised this is still happening. I am frequently reminded that companies these days are more considerate about their employee needs and welfare, yet at the same time, old-fashioned managers who feel they need to know what each of their direct reports are doing and where they are are still employed. 

If you are a manager who needs to know what their team are doing at all times, then you have a trust issue. Either you are unable to trust your team, or you are employing the wrong people. Either way, the problem is with you. If you want your team to flourish, grow and produce the results you employed them to produce, you need to let them free and get on with it. Trust they will do their part of the work. 

Now, in your case, George, you have identified the problem, which is a great start. From that start, you can now begin to come up with some ideas that may reduce the interference from your boss. 

The first step, and the one that has always worked for me, is to have a sit down conversation with your manager. Ask her what she expects of you, where she feels you are not performing and what you can do to change that. Never point the finger at your boss, let her tell you what she expects and where she would like to see improvements. 

The first things she tells you will not be the real problem. The real problem will be the second and third issues. We all feel uncomfortable criticising other people, so we tend to begin with the gentler, less negative issues. Push her to continue, ask questions about why she feel that way and listen carefully to what she tells you. 

This approach will be uncomfortable for you too. Nobody likes to hear criticism, particularly if you pride yourself on being organised and productive. You do not have to accept all the criticisms. A lot will not be fair or true. But it is important for you to listen. 

The final few items will not be real issues. We add them to pad out our criticisms, and to make the list, if you like, appear bigger than it really is. 

Once you know where your boss feels there are issues, suggest remedies. Think about how you can change things so these issues disappear. Use the If I… Will you.. Approach. 

This means when you make a concession, (If I…) you ask for a concession in return (will you…) 

For instance:

If I commit to updating the CRM system at the end of each day, will you allow me to focus on my work from 10:00am to 12:00pm without disturbing me? 

Now you may find you have to negotiate a little. For example, if your boss does not want you to ’disappear’ for two hours each morning, try one hour. 

Once your boss begins to see results, she will concede more trust to you. She will give you greater freedom to organise your own schedule. But, it takes time and the onus is on you as much as it is with your boss. 

Now, to a related matter. What about clients and customers. How do you deal with their demands? This is an expectations issue and one that can be easily resolved through good, clear communication. 

When I worked in law, the barristers we worked with (that’s legal counsel in the UK, not coffee brewers) made it very clear they were in court between 10:30am and 12:30pm and between 2:00pm and 4:30pm each day. We knew we could not contact them between those times. We were the client for these barristers, yet I never remember any barrister not telling us when they would be available. I suspect it was part of their legal training to make sure clients were informed when they were not available. 

That has always appeared to be a common sense approach to me, it just made sense. Yet so many people when working with customers and clients cause themselves problems by promising the world knowing deep down they could never keep that promise. 

It’s far better, when starting a new relationship with a client or anyone else related to your work, for that matter, to inform them of your availability up front. Tell them the best way to contact you and when. Explain there will be times you are unavailable and what you and they can do in those situations. 

I live on the opposite side of the world to the majority of my clients, which means I am between 17 and 8 hours ahead. When it’s 10pm at night for me, it’s 9am in New York, 2pm in London and 6am in LA. To overcome any communication issues, I inform all my clients to email me any questions and promise to respond within 24 hours. 

In order to comply with my own ‘rules’, I need to allocate an hour of my day to dealing with communications. That’s blocked off in my calendar and so I know when it’s 4:30pm, it’s time to sit down and respond to my messages. This means whenever a client wakes up, they will see my reply in their inbox waiting for them. 

It’s not sustainable to be always available at a moment’s notice for your boss or customers. That’s how things get missed, backlogs build and ultimately your performance at your job will suffer. You need to find time to focus on your important work.

Abraham Lincoln is attributed as saying” Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” It makes sense, yes? You are going to be more productive chopping down trees if your axe is sharp. Well, I’ve noticed that the most successful people in business do something similar with their time. 

Stella Rimington, the former head of the UK’s Security Service would arrive in her office at 7:00am each day in order to get two hours deep focused work done before the day began. She would read the overnight intelligence reports and use the time to prepare for her work day. 

Time Cook at Apple, does something similar. He also arrives in the office early (some say 6:30am other claim it’s 7:30am) and uses the time before the work day begins to get a grip on the day and to ensure he has everything prepared. 

 Now, if you work purely for the financial compensation, this will not work. For you, working an extra two hours or ninety minutes each day would be sacrilege. But if you are developing a career, using your employment to learn and grow yourself, then this is something worth considering. Perhaps begin your day thirty or sixty minutes earlier and use that time for focused work. 

It gets you ahead of the day, it means you have time to process all the information needed to make the most of your day and you are not going to be disturbed. It’s surprising how much you can get done in just a couple of hours early in the morning. 

So there you go, George, a few ideas you can use to take control of your day. The most powerful one is to have that conversation with your boss. Reset expectations and use the “If I… Will you…” approach. Tell everyone when and when you are not available. You can even put that into your email signature. 

Demanding bosses can be ‘controlled’, just like customers and clients can be controlled. I don’t mean control in a dark and evil way, I just mean in terms of their expectations. Don’t make promises you cannot keep, and be ruthless in the way you apply your rules. 

It will be uncomfortable at first, but you will be surprised by the amount of respect you receive and the results you start to get. 

Thank you for your question, George and than you to you too for listening. It just remains for me to wish you all a very very productive week.