So I’m talking to a client recently, and we’re discussing plans for training that I’d be doing for his team the following week.
Out of nowhere, he asks, “Have you ever had a dream you were mad at someone, and when you wake up, you’re angry with the person in real life?”
I said, “Not sure that I have… why?”
His turn: “I had this dream that you canceled on me—you had a good excuse that I couldn’t argue with, but still… I woke up and I was mad.”
A moment passed. I asked, “Are you still angry?”
He said, “A little. Yeah.”
Than I said, “I haven’t actually done anything though.”
“No.”
“You’re just mad because of a dream you had.”
“Yeah.”
“OK. Yeah, I got nuthin’ for you on that.”
Then we both burst out laughing because the whole exchange was so totally ridiculous and we got to work.
Which just goes to show you:
- Life is “profersonal.” Real world relationships don’t care about how you like to set your Facebook privacy settings one way for professional contacts and another way for personal contacts. Strong relationships know no lines.
- Relationships matter. Thank God I’m close enough to this client that he would tell me something like this. Otherwise, we probably would have had a stressful conversation, and our deal would have likely suffered as a result. For no real reason.
- Sometimes, when you’re reading everyone’s body language and voice inflections and trying to understand why certain conversations played out the way they did, you’re just wasting your time. You’ll never know.
- Roll with it. Life serves up some truly great stories sometimes. Enjoy them!
Your clients come to irrational conclusions about you, too, based on things that are totally out of your control. The question is, are you close enough with them that they tell you about it?
Or are you so busy classifying all your relationships and wondering about the ethical implications of befriending a client (or doing business with a friend) that you forget to build the relationship in the first place?
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I'm Jason. I make people shine. My mission is to help 1 million people tell their stories better. 
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“Profersonal”. I dig.
I’ve been teaching social media seminars this spring and the one thing I have to always stress is that you should be seamless online. There is no duo personalities (one for work, one for real) in the 21st Century. That was a product of the Industrial Age, because companies wanted factory workers to be “professional” – basically not talk and just get to work.
I think what’s important about your post is that when you are authentic at your job (like you) then people around you trust you. Because you don’t seem like an A-hole who is trying to “act professional.” So, not only did you solve the immediate problem (difusing the guy’s irrational anger), you also built a little more trust with the client. Imagine what would have happened if you gave the client some fakey-fakey answer. Or worse – what if you just tried to keep everything “professional” and simply changed the topic of discussion.
I recently had a phone call with a client, and he casually referred to my Facebook photo (which is silly fun and not at all professional). We had a good laugh over it, and I felt glad that he’d taken the time to look me up and that he’d felt comfortable enough with me to mention it. It was a real human connection and a relationship-building moment.
Dustin—I aim to please.
GenXpert—I have done the fakey-fakey answer thing, too, from time to time. You’re right, it doesn’t work. The insincere answer comes from a place of uncertainty, and when you speak from that place, others can sense it immediately. Whether it’s a whitewashed, corporate-speak response or a flat out lie, fake doesn’t work. Still, being authentic is hard. Being honest = being vulnerable; if people don’t like what you put out there, there’s no place to hide; they don’t like YOU. Fortunately for me, I’ve reached a point in my career where I’m OK with that.
Heath—Love it. I have a client who shared a very similar story with me. It’s the wave of the future, I think.