DTDigital prides itself on its brilliant, long-standing client relationships. Recently I've been thinking about what makes a great client relationship – and what you can do to turn around a relationship that isn't going so well.
I think a good starting point is to think through the relationship from your client's perspective. How well do you know your client as a person? It's a given that you should understand their business objectives, but what about their values, key challenges, and approach to getting things done?
I recently attended a course sponsored by the STW Group, DTDigital's parent company. It gave us a great framework for thinking through how personality types impact client relationships, and how understanding this can be critical to a successful partnership.
We started by thinking about ourselves. We looked at a page with images of a square, circle, triangle, rectangle and squiggly line. We selected the shape we most identified with. Then we learned how the shape we chose is probably a good reflection of who we are. Here's a summary of different personality traits typically associated with the following shapes:
- Analytical, rules, policies, process
- The right way to do stuff
- Resistant to change
- Great planners, organised & dependable
- Avoid conflicts
- Great communicators, very social, love people & conversations
- Caring, sensitive, organized, happy, fun-loving
- Similar to a square, organised and extremely focused on achieving goals
- Enjoy making decisions
- Like to be the boss and in control
- Lacking focus, not sure of their place
- Comfortable with clutter
- Transitional shape, forgetful & inconsistent
- Creative thinkers, love to do things against the rules and outside the square
- Don't like doing paperwork, believe in what they are doing
- Hate routines, witty, innovative
So how do different 'shapes' work together?
When you start thinking about how different your clients can be from each other and yourself, you realise how important it is to adjust your approach to working with them.
Let's say you are a 'triangle' – someone who is very goal-focused. When you approach a client who's a 'squiggly line' – who's creative and likes to do things against the rules – you're likely to clash if you don't adjust your style.
Go ahead and try to identify what shape you and your clients are. For the relationships that work well, and for those you'd like to improve, are you the same shape, or is there a mixture of shapes? Most importantly, how can you adjust your approach to ensure yours and your clients' 'shapes' are working in harmony?
Simply by taking a step back and looking at our clients' views of the world, their personality characteristics and how they like to get things done, we can make great strides towards finding the best ways to partner with them.