The Yellow Flag

Transcript

The yellow flag means driving conditions are dangerous due to an accident or debris on the track. Slow down. Here's a good exercise. Write out a list of every single client you have ever worked with over the years, whether you still work with them or not.

And then filter them or rank them in terms of who was the most ideal client, who had the biggest budget, who treated me with the most respect, who was the most enjoyable to work with. And then look at that list. I'll bet you there are a couple green flag clients on the top and most of the rest are going to be yellow flag. That's fine.

It's not bad. The tricky part is figuring out how to work with a yellow flag client and to turn them sometimes into a green flag client, or at least a good yellow flag client with a little bit of nudging. Yellow flag clients are the ones who were burned in the past but are willing to try again. Aren't familiar with your process but are willing to follow.

They're nervous, but they're trusting that you know what you're doing. They're frightened by how much you're going to charge them, but they believe that it will probably be worth it. They might say things that seem a little bit silly because they don't really get it, but they're willing to work with you and you can persuade them to trust you. Potential yellow flag clients are the ones who require... I'd say you can work with them, but you should proceed carefully. Move a little bit slower. These are the folks who don't quite understand the process, or they're not exactly sure what they want, or they're working with bad information, or they may need to save up some money before engaging with you.

My advice is when you meet a yellow flag client, don't reflexively push them. Think about it in terms of a Cold War analogy: trust but verify. Yellow flag clients say things like "Can't we just use our current website? We just paid a lot of money for it." "We need this ASAP." "Yeah, we already tried that. It didn't work." "Whoa, that's what the last guy I hired said." "Can you work with my cousin on this?" "Sounds good to me, but I need to talk to my business partners."

It's funny, in a world where people talk about red flags all the time, I've never heard anybody talk about yellow flags. And I encounter people who I would consider yellow flag clients all the time. I'll give you a great example of a yellow flag client. Twelve years ago, this is a true story, I met with a woman who ran her own business, and we talked about building her website and marketing. And at one point in the meeting, she looked me right in the eye and said, "Don't fuck with me."

I thought this is a mistake. I do not think I should be working with this person. But the funny thing was I tried to figure out what was making her so serious. And we talked, I asked a bunch of questions, and we figured out a price and a project scope that worked.

She's one of my best clients. Now, twelve years later, we still work together. If I had reacted harshly to that initial interrogation, or what felt like an interrogation, that would have been mine to lose. What I learned was slow down, calm down, ask questions, find out what's going on. In her case, what I didn't know is she had had a CPA that had recently gone to jail for fraud, who had embezzled. That makes perfect sense why she had her guard up and was interested in working with me but was afraid of getting hurt. We talked, she relaxed, and it's been a great relationship ever since. And she has referred more people my way than any of the other clients that I've had.

We laugh about that initial comment now because it's funny. But what I learned from that is calm down, slow down, be careful, and don't reflexively reject people, even if they present a confrontational front, at least not at the very beginning. See what you can do to work with them. Yellow flag clients don't know what they don't know, and it's your job to help them become better clients.

There's an analogy some people use sometimes about bridging the gap or putting a bridge over a chasm. If you're on one side of a canyon and the client's on the other side, if you want to work with them, it's your job to build the bridge to allow them to come over where you are. That's what the yellow flag client is all about.