When your client is wrong about everything

Most of us get approaches from clients who think they have a problem we can solve. 

They might also believe they know what’s causing it.

Like a patient going to her doctor demanding treatment for her emphysema when she’s unwittingly contracted TB, your clients are not always right about what’s troubling them.

• Your stressed-out mum client might think their kids are causing daily anxiety, when it’s her own unresolved childhood trauma
• Your business owner client might think he has a sales problem when it’s actually an offer problem
• Your HR manager client might think she has a lazy workforce when it’s a simple failure of leadership
• Your CEO client might tell you they want anger management training when they actually need a proper wellbeing policy
• Your coach client might think they’re not qualified enough when they’re actually not positioning their services well enough

So what’s the answer? 

Be prepared to reframe the client’s initial statements with nonaggressive questioning. 

• I wonder if there’s something else going on?
• What’s the evidence this is the main issue?
• What assumptions are we making here?

What happens then is often to mutual benefit.

The client sees the issue is not quite as simple as they thought, and needs more work over a longer period.

You get to stick around, get paid more, and they get a solution that actually works. 

Win-win!

Love you lots
Jonny