In business, it’s truly inevitable that you will run into problems that result in critical clients. We’ve found there are two ways to handle a complaint or critical client as it relates to our agency:

1) Take the complaint or critical remark at face value and honestly inspect what is being complained about. Do not immediately push back with the client in an attempt to make yourself “right”. Investigate to see if you made an error or one of your people made a mistake. If you discover that you have, fix it immediately and turn the complaint into an opportunity to expand and get better at what you do. Every critical client or complaint has an opportunity attached to it. If you can use the critical remarks to strengthen your company, then take advantage of it.

2) If the client seems to be the type that complains about everything or is just critical in general – burn them, in other words, resign them and fast. Don’t keep critical clients around, they lower company morale which lowers production and therefore creates more problems for the company as a whole. We never keep clients that are critical and hurt the company morale. Only keep clients that are essentially working as a team with your company to solve problems together and are pleasant to deal with. I promise, this one rule will help expand your company tenfold.

No one likes getting complaints or dealing with a critic but if you apply the above two rules, you can turn both situations into an opportunity to expand your company. Give it a go.

- Robert Cornish

CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group

We recently introduced our Pay Per Performance model which takes all of the risk off the clients and strongly motivates our team to produce results. While discussing this over and over with many prospective clients, the question of a lead vs. a reach has come up frequently and so I wanted to write a brief note to clear it up.

While it’s easy to confuse a reach with a lead, they are distinctly different, one supremely better than the other. By the explanation below, I’ll let you be the judge to decide which one is better…

Lead: It’s just that – a lead. It’s someone that may have some interest. It’s a possible business connection or a possible business development opportunity.

Reach: It’s someone reaching, interested, with a relationship already established. They already know about you, have heard about you and have a general understanding of what you do and now they want more. It’s the diamond of prospective clients that you wish you had daily.

Now let’s look at the dictionary definition of each as taken from The American Heritage College dictionary:

Lead: 9. To begin or open with. To go first or guide. 3a. Information pointing toward a possible solution; 7a. The introductory portion.

Reach: 4a. To succeed in getting in contact with or communicating with. b. To succeed in having an effect on. 3a. Range of understanding; comprehension. 1. To stretch out or put forth; extend 3. To arrive at; attain

So from the above definitions, it’s clear that a lead is the start, an introductory part or a beginning and a reach would be much further along than that and in fact is closer toward the end of the cycle. A reach entails someone reaching out for something. The introduction and start have all taken place and now it’s at the point of stretching or reaching for more.

So as it relates to business development and new client procurement, which would you rather have?

Our agency exclusively deals with reaches for our clients … not leads. Our performance model is based on number of reaches which to me, is the most valuable thing to our company and and our clients companies.

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