This article will discuss the difficulties from the transition between employee to employer and help those wanting to make that leap from the grind, to creating wealth.

There is a very big difference between a career employee and an entrepreneur.

Sometimes, the desire to not work for someone else is enough of a push to start a business, but then we find ourselves in a difficult position.

Having to make tough business decisions that some employees might not agree with because they can’t see the big picture.

Only the owners and executive managers of a business can see this big picture.

As an employee, small nuances can make one unhappy. They get disgruntled easily, and do not like change.

Changing someone’s job description or changing an operational role can completely destroy one employee’s moral, and cause them to quit a job.

But not making that change as an owner could cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars, a huge client, and countless jobs for the other workers in an area or region.

How does someone balance the scale between wanting to be a “cool boss who understands” and an owner who understands that no matter what, the client is what pays the bills, allows the owner to create jobs, and allows the business to thrive and prosper?

The employee would never see this big picture, so they get angry because of subtle inconsistencies, or changes in job roles to fix a temporary client issue in an attempt at damage control.

As an owner, you want to be empathetic to your employees problems, and think like an employee. But sometimes, this can be the nail in the coffin with your clients, because perception is what matters in client / business conflict. Not what is actually happening.

I’ll give you an example:

A client has been having subtle issues for over a month with a new vendor contract. They just signed on with a new vendor, and are regretting the decision because of small nuance issues that are normal to the new vendor, but not to the new client.

The vendor understands these issues, attempts to explain that this is normal with a new service contract, and tries their best to diffuse the situation.

A big manager / vendor meeting is held within the first month. A huge red flag for the client, and something the vendor was sincerely trying to avoid.

Services are reprieved, client issues are talked about and supposedly tackled and resolved.

But issues keep happening.

Service complaints keep coming in. Discrepancies keep happing.

Is the vendor being too scrupulous on their rules or is the client not following them?

It doesn’t matter.

Perception at this point has been skewed and your service is a daily internal conversation with the client.

What do you think happens next?

If you guessed –

The client cancels services and moves to a new vendor –

You’d be correct.

Regardless of whether or not you were right or wrong or whether or not the client understood the agreement is completely inconsequential.

You lost a big client.

You lost a lot of money.

Lots of people lost their jobs.

All because you were unable to stop, look at the issue, and take proper action.

We set a meeting, everything was fixed…

This is a beginner owners thought process, and one that will lose them clients over and over again.

If you had a meeting, you’re on the chopping block. Period.

Time is money.

Getting everyone in a company together to discuss issues and complaints with a service vendor is a big undertaking.

Never think that if a meeting is called, and you and your services are the focal point of that meeting, that after the meeting you are in the clear.

You are nowhere near the clear.

You are now under a microscope.

Everything you do after that meeting will be looked at and dissected until trust and rapport can be built back up again.

Building Rapport

Rapport is a good sense of understanding and trust.

If you have good rapport with your neighbors, they won’t mind if you kick your ball onto their property every now and then.

If you have rapport with someone, you two communicate with trust and sympathy.

If you have good rapport with a client, that means they will come to you freely with problems, and give you the benefit of the doubt when discussing issues and fixes.

Rapport is built over time. It is not given freely, overnight, and without merit.

As an owner of a company, you need to realize that with every new relationship, rapport must be built.

Trust must be earned, and if it damaged, you must double down to earn it back.

The Basics of Ownership

The basics of ownership can be explained in just a few words.

“The buck stops here.”

Did I lose a contract?

My fault.

Did an employee steal from me?

My fault.

Is there a client issue?

My fault.

……………………..

My fault. My fault. My fault.

That needs to be the answer for anything that comes up in your business, and what outcomes happen because of problems and decisions made about those problems.

All successful business owners make mistakes. It’s how we handle those mistakes the first time around that makes us successful.

If an employee steals from you, a poor business owner will blame the employee.

A good business owner will blame themselves and implement changes to ensure the issue can never happen again.

A poor business owner runs into the same challenge, over and over, and never takes responsibility.

A good business owner runs into a challenge, fails, and puts systematic changes in place to ease those challenges going forward.

What Matters Most

There are several parts that make up the nuts and bolts of a business, but there are two factors of a business that make the business run, and prosper.

1.) Sales / Account Management

2.) Operations

These are the two building blocks of any business. Without sales, you have no growth, no revenue, no way to pay employees or yourself.

Without operations, there’s no support for that growth.

But there is one thing that matters most – The client.

Without the client, there are no sales. Without the client there is no operations. Without the client there is no business. Without the client, your business isn’t a business.

It’s an idea.

And ideas don’t make money.

The business that surrounds the ideas do.

Client Management

So you have a problematic client.

The stakes are high.

This client is fickle, hasn’t understood their initial contract very well, and initial onboarding isn’t going as smooth as expected.

An employee would only do their job, only provide services for what they were being paid for, and argue semantics at any point to do less work, for more money.

But losing this client would cost them their job, medical insurance, and financial safety net for them and their families.

An employee doesn’t get the big picture.

They want to complain about small nuances that otherwise would build trust and keep a client happy.

In the short term, concessions cost pennies vs the amount they would lose over the long term for just going a little bit above and beyond what’s expected to build rapport.

An employee would lose the contract because they don’t understand building rapport and building client relationships.

An owner would see an issue, act swiftly, and provide above and beyond services no matter the cost to ensure the long term happiness of their client.

Math doesn’t lie.

Giving a bereaved client a month of free service, or providing services that fall outside of contract guidelines will create long term happiness for your customer, and long term wealth well for you.

Citing service agreements and telling your client why they are at fault for service perceived as poor will only give your customer more ammunition for cancelling services and move to the plethora of other vendors in your service industry.

An employee makes excuses for bad service, and doesn’t understand rapport and customer satisfaction.

An owner gives exceptional service at all costs. Period.

The Difference Between being Proactive and Reactive

Employees are reactive. They see an issue. react to it, and then attempt to fix it.

They don’t see the big-picture-damage that is happening with a client relationship that is building by being reactive to their issues.

They don’t put themselves in their customer’s shoes, and don’t understand that an issue causing the client strife, is another check mark in the “poor services” column.

They get a call. They react. Give a resolution. And take the next call.

They don’t try to figure out the problem, and come up with a solution to ensure the problem can’t happen again.

They are just doing their jobs.

A good owner doesn’t just take the call, they ensure the call never even happens.

A good owner realizes the time and effort it takes in dealing with problems.

How many times have you been stuck on hold, dealing with a product or service issue with customer service or a vendor?

How frustrating is it?

How frustrating is it that during your work day, you need to deal with vendor related service issues?

How frustrating is it to repeatedly have to deal with the same vendor related service issues?

A good owner sees this happening, and makes swift and immediate changes to service to fix these client issues, no matter the cost or time needed to do so.

A good owner is PROACTIVE.

An employee or bad owner is REACTIVE.

When to Be Strong and When to Bend

There’s a time in every vendor – client relationship where hard standards need to be given, and expectations need to be set.

Sometimes a client has to be gently driven into understanding your products and services, and how you might be different than past vendors they have dealt with.

Perhaps service standards or contractual changes were made after signing on with you that need to be pointed out and adhered to ensure that the vendor isn’t getting taken advantage of by a customer who doesn’t understand the service they have purchased.

The time for these adherences, however, is not immediately after poor performance by the vendor, which caused a break in trust and rapport with their client.

A good owner knows when to bend their rules and standards to give their client a reprieve and build back trust.

A bad owner thinks like an employee, and only provides the services they think they should provide, without taking into account past service issues or customer dissatisfaction.

Risk Vs Reward

When dealing with a client’s issues, a good owner always asks him or herself – Is this problem worth losing the client over?

Sometimes, you have good clients, and sometimes you have bad clients.

Good clients are understanding, provide great feedback, and assist you in providing great service to them.

Bad clients expect everything to be given to them, without taking into consideration cost or contract agreements.

Good clients give the people they work with the benefit of the doubt, and help them implement new policies and changes to assist with a smooth transition when changes occur.

Bad clients expect the vendor to bend to their will no matter what.

Sometimes, bad clients need to be let go.

You must ask yourself, is the headache worth the money?

But if you have a good client, and it’s you who is providing the headache, then if a client issue comes up, you need to ask yourself –

Is this problem worth losing the client over?

If the answer is no, then all excuses need to be thrown out the window, and you need to do what it takes to make the client happy, because you never know when the next issue with them might be your last.

Which brings me to my next point.

The Straw that Broke the Camel’s Back

Sometimes we as owners need to make small concessions with our clients to keep their business.

Especially with larger clients, who are spending large amounts of money.

They expect a little more than the “general service contract agreement” you offer, and expect their complaints to be heard, and acted upon.

This goes back to our discussion about rapport.

Many times, it’s not one issue that destroys a client / vendor relationship, but many small things over a small timeframe.

If the client has many small, but repeated issues with a vendor, an internal “tally” begins.

This tally of issues begins to grow, especially if there is no reprieve and no time between those issues happening.

While seemingly insignificant to you, as it’s normal day to day business, the client gets exceedingly frustrated with the the vendor, and eventually cancels services over a small issue that broke the camel’s back.

Regardless of who’s fault it is, you lose the customer.

Perhaps it’s over one small customer complaint, or perhaps over one email perceived as rude or dismissive. Perhaps it’s over miscommunication over a contract detail.

Normally, if good rapport was built, these issues wouldn’t cause any strife.

But because rapport has not been built, or has been damaged by poor service, these small issues turn into mountains, and cancellations and loss of customers occur.

A bad owner failed to identify the issues and make corrections to give the client reprieve, and loses the customer.

Because of their inability to identify ongoing problems, and make ample adjustments to their service to build back good rapport, they just lost out on what could have been a huge long term win for the company.

Good owners see this early, and make adjustements accordingly.

Bad owners blame the service agreement, the client, or it’s subsidiaries for those issues, and lose business.

Good owners listen to client feedback and make changes to give better service.

Employees vs Company Wellness

Many owners want to be a great boss, and make their employees happy.

Why wouldn’t they? Happy employees make a happy company.

And while all owners should attempt to look at all issues from all sides, there really is only one perception that matters.

The Customer’s perception.

A good owner knows how to look at things from their client’s perspective, and make changes to products and services that will decrease client anxiety and build better trust.

A bad owner or employee thinks that creating issues for their customers is normal business, because “that’s just how it is”, and does nothing to fix these issues.

A good owner knows how to change things to help fit what their clients need and don’t create an “us vs them” mentality when issues arise.

Bad owners never take responsibility and will take employee happiness over the happiness of a good client.

A good owner understands that without the client, the employee would have no job. And neither would he.

If your services are perceived as sub par, it doesn’t matter who’s fault it is, or how normal those issues are in your industry.

A good owner is proactive, sees things before they happen, and makes changes before they ever become problems for their clients.

A bad owner goes on like business as usual, and loses customers.

Perception is Key

Stop trying to make excuses for service misunderstanding, and make adjustments to save client relationships.

Nothing is more important than retention of long term service clients.

Nothing.

Not your service agreement, not the happiness of one employee who doesn’t want to go the extra mile to keep a client happy, and certainly not your inability to be fluid to ensure client happiness.

Employees think perfection isn’t possible, so they never attain it.

Owners strive for perfection every day, and make changes to achieve it.

Every problem has a solution. Be proactive in your search for these solutions, remember the big picture, and most importantly…

Think like an owner. Not like an employee.