Article by Peter J. Normandia. Follow me on Twitter.

If you ever have had problems handling clients in business, or wish to sharpen some of your communication skills in life, then this Yin vs Yang post is definitely for you.

In recent years, I have become very adept at handling all kinds of people in life. Communication is definitely an area I have been able to excel at. I guess it has a lot to do with my past experiences.

My parents were both entrepreneurs since I can remember. My mother owns a nursery school for 18 years now. My Father owned a bicycle store in Brooklyn, and then later on, day camps all over New Jersey. Dealing with clients is something I grew up with.

When I was 18, my Father purchased an 86 Acre Day Camp in Millstone, NJ.  I was made the program director, a major position in the upper echelons of the camp hierarchy. This camp had over 250 employees and almost 700 children per year. Getting teachers in their mid-late 30s working their summer jobs to take direction from a snot-nosed teenager was an experience in itself.

Being part of the owner’s family, I always had to represent myself in the proper manner no matter how I was treated. This was not easy for a hot-headed 18 year old like me.  You see, I always had the ability to make good decisions (for the most part), but the way I went about communicating them was always wrong. If I was right, I thought it gave me the freedom to act like a lunatic. After all, I was right, and they were wrong. It should not matter how I act, right?

Wrong.

My parents probably laugh now that I handle most of the communication for my business because of this experience. Believe me, it certainly did not seem like that would be the case 10 years ago. I was a raving young madmen looking out for the well-being of my family’s business, or at least that’s what I rationalized every time I went off on a tangent.

A decade later, I am calm, cool and collected when dealing with the worst of clients.  There is nothing that they can really say or do that will throw me off my game. My skill set was further polished when I got into the mortgage business. Believe me, that is a lesson on how to deal with anybody. I was handling people’s mortgages during one of the worst credit crunch’s in history. Their futures hung in the balance as the bank’s tried to figure out if and how they could possibly close the loan. I talked to these clients every day, even though most days I had little or no news and everything was completely out of my control. No matter the results, I almost always left off on good terms with the clients because of the way I did business.

Through all of this I learned 10 major things that have helped me significantly service clients better.

1. Know What Your Client Wants

Clients all have different ways about handling themselves, just as different business owners do. However, the one common thread to every client is…

They are after a goal.

Your job is to identify what exactly the client is after without letting the client tell you how to do your job. If you are a painter, and your client hires you to paint a particular landscape, you do not let the client tell you how to handle each brush stroke.  The same goes for any other business.  During the process, never let the client take their eyes off of the big picture. They have hired you to handle the details. You know what they want, and you will use your expertise to help make that happen. When they try to get involved in the details, simply remind them you are the expert, and your experience has shown this is the best way to paint the big picture they desire.

2. Not every client is for you

When money is tight, especially in this economy, many of us can feel we have to cater to every client. However, sometimes in business, you make more money by walking away from a client. If you have to break your rules, than the client is not for you. Letting one client break a rule, and making another follow it causes confusion for your co-workers, and even yourself. After letting one person slide, you may let another. Soon after you may forget why you made that rule in the first place.  That is, of course, until the day the initial reasoning smacks you right in the face!

If necessary, don’t be afraid to walk away from a client while you still can. Your business system comes before anything else, even revenue.

3. Listen. Listen. Listen.

Some clients are rude, some are nice, and some are in between. All of them, however, are trying to communicate a message to you. You must ignore the tones, the snide jabs, or even the genuine sweetness, in order to be able to listen to what they are really saying. Not their words. Not their emotions. Listen for their message. The best ways to decipher that message:

• Put yourself completely in their shoes to see their point of view.
• Ignore all emotion in yourself, and from the client.
• Focus on what they want, not how they are trying to get it.

I have seen extremely rude people become my best clients and I have seen the nicest clients become my worst nightmares. Don’t get caught up in the tone. Listen, listen, listen for the message.

4. Drop All Expectations & Judgments

If all clients act differently, then how can you expect to know what they will do each time?  Each time you deal with a new client, you will learn more and more about them. Do not judge the way they act against how you would in their shoes. Just understand what makes them tick. This will help you adapt to handling them, rather then trying to force that client into who you want them to be.

5. Lose Any & All Emotion

Probably the most important point on this list. Emotion is defined as…

‘a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one’s circumstances, moods, or relationships with others.‘

Clients are the ones who tend to get emotional because things are usually out of their control. Instead of getting emotional with them, try to figure out why they are acting that way, and calmly ease their concerns. By remaining unemotional, you will find these initially emotional clients will quickly abandon this approach. Nobody likes to get all emotional by themselves. Well, almost nobody.

6. Take Your Share of Shit & Smile

‘Kill’em with kindness’ my mother always said. Truth is, it works. At my mortgage branch, there was a lady Realtor next door who nobody else would deal with. As the manager, I was left to handle her. My office would suddenly empty when she entered. My partner thought about killing her (only in jest), and my processor could not take her anymore. However, I decided to act as nice as possible.

She was used to people screaming back, cowering, or getting angry. By flipping the switch, I put her out of her element. She did not know how to handle someone who was unemotional and nice. It drove her mad, and eventually, she stopped bothering my office all together, and just let us handle the deals.

7. Stick To Your Guns

Some clients like pushing the envelope. They will ask for special services, little ‘favors’ that bend the rules, and all sorts of things to get the most for their money. Because of this, it is important to set the tone right off the bat. Know your rules, the reasoning behind them, and stick to them like glue. Remember, no business succeeds because of one person. It succeeds because of a system. Do not sacrifice the system to satisfy a client. If the client persists, explain that your experience has shown this is the best way to make sure they get the best possible service. If they continue, review #2 on this list.

8. Understand Your Priorities

Identifying your priority in business is essential. I work in the creative field. For our business, if the work is not good enough to add to our portfolio, then it is a waste of our time. Clients come and go, but for our business, we have identified the portfolio is our top priority. In the end, the client will be happy, because they will learn over time what we already know: they got the best possible work.

We make sure they know we are the experts, therefore we know what works best and what does not. If the client does not agree, we are not afraid to challenge them. We simply present our reasoning and back it up with examples. Better to deal with some minor unhappiness now and have a great portfolio piece, than just satisfy an ignorant client’s wishes.

9. Stay Consistent

Try to always stay consistent in your information with a client. Nothing is worse than telling a client something one time, and giving them a total other story the next. To avoid this, our company makes an effort to document everything important with a client. We use either email, or a great program from 37signals called Basecamp. (No i don’t get anything for suggesting it. We honestly use it.)

Keeping all of the important info documented eliminates the he-said, she-said and allows for more consistency among the entire staff. No longer do we hear, ‘I told you this’ from clients. They all know, if it’s not documented, it does not hold water. We set this tone right away in order to keep consistent with every client as well.

10. Be Honest

I can not tell you how many times I was dreading what to tell a client when I just sucked it up and said ‘Screw it’. Instead of beating around the bush, I told them the honest truth. Not once did it come back to bite me. In fact, each time, it completely resolved the situation. Whether or not they chose to do business with me again, they always respected me for my honesty.

All in All

Hope these ten tips help you out as much as they have helped me. Don’t be afraid to comment with any ideas, additions, or criticisms from your own personal experience.  It is what us bloggers live for .