That Client is a Pain!

Credit: Bill Gillespie

“They’re a pain. They’re too picky. They expect too much. They’re too much work. We don’t want to do that. We only want to do this.”

Have you ever uttered one of these phrases? Has one of your coworkers? Your supervisor? Ownership? If you’ve been in printing very long, you’re sure to have heard these statements or one of their cousins.

These comments prompt me to ask a question. “Is your toughest client actually your best client? Could your most demanding contact be making you better?”

It happened to me. Early in my career I found myself working with a luxury hotel chain. They had awesome properties in Atlanta, Florida, Southern California and lots of other places. Their collateral was awesome but, in the beginning, I didn’t earn much of it.

I wound up working with their corporate meeting department. I did kits promoting the venue to businesses booking conferences and meeting spaces. Because properties were different, the kits were different.

I had to figure out how to make the inside of a box feel like sand for an ocean front hotel. I cut sandpaper and lined the inside of the box. I glued a sea shell to the inside bottom. Finding the right adhesive wasn’t automatic.

None of my work was “this size, this many pages, this many colors, bleed, cmyk, varnish and saddle stitch.” Everything was a difficult, we’ve never been asked to do that before challenge. Estimating never greeted me with a “no problem we’ve got this response.”

I got a reputation for doing “trick printing.” That is to say, word got around that my company and I were resourceful. We could figure out the projects that weren’t giftwrapped.

Once I got asked to do 100,000 wire-o bound books. In our market there was only one bindery that could do the work. They were willing to do 1/3 of the order at an absurd price.

I asked where they bought their wire. I called their source and asked who else they sold wire to in our area. Turns out there was a notebook company a few miles from our plant. We turned the work and named our price because we could say yes.

Another time a soft drink giant called and asked, do you know how to do 3D printing? We want to print something where you need glasses to see it. Is this something you can learn how to do?

We knew nothing about it but got educated. We produced the project and once again, were able to name our price. We learned how to do something we could sell to others too. I’ve got tons of these stories.

This is what it means to selling. If you can solve the idea guy’s objective you’ll have less competition. Your price becomes the cost of delivering results not a competitive bid.

One time a brand manager called me to her office. She had a paper model of a 3D haunted house. She wanted to produce it display size. She wanted 2500 and expected to pay $15 each.

I borrowed the model, worked out the construction and calculated a price. I called her and said, “I can do 2500. The cost will be $35 each. She said “ok, it’s a go” in less than 10 seconds.

Here’s the thing. If it’s easy anyone can do it. You have to look for a way to stand out. You don’t want to be a low-price bid slinger.

Doing the hard stuff makes you different. Clients love these guys. The suppliers that say yes and figure stuff out can name their price and mix of clients.

Look at your mix. Do you resent and resist demanding clients? You might be missing a chance to separate from the pack.

The preceding content was provided by a contributor unaffiliated with Printing Impressions. The views expressed within may not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of the staff of Printing Impressions.