Why clients don’t always brief brilliantly
Thank you for looking in
Chances are you’ve come here because seen one of our posts about why the briefing process doesn’t always work as well as it could, and you’d like to learn more.
So would it be worth exploring? If you knew how to make the briefing process work flawlessly every time, would it make a big enough difference to your day-to-day working life, and to your career over the longer term?
We’ve a few questions for you to help you decide.
Do any of these resonate with you or members of your team?
- Do you sometimes have clients who can’t tell you what they want (but they’ll know it’s what they want when they see it)?
- Are there some clients who won’t set aside enough time to brief you properly?
- Do you sometimes get called in on projects at the last minute?
- Do clients sometimes move the goalposts midway through a project?
- Does the approvals process sometimes get stuck?
Maybe you don’t recognise all of these. Even so, is it possible that – unrelated though they may seem – nailing the briefing process could go a mighty long way to providing the solution?
How useful would that be?
Do these issues matter to you?
Chances are you’ve been living with at least some of these issues for a while (if not forever). Importantly, then, when you think about the ones you recognise, how do you feel?
What impact do they have on your reputation; your sense of fulfilment, and your general feel-good factor?
And how about the rest of your team? And your clients? And your organisation as a whole?
Chances are, it doesn’t feel that great. And maybe you’ve tried things in the past to address these issues. Or perhaps you’ve long been resigned to them, because this sort of thing just comes with the territory.
If it’s the latter, we absolutely hear you. There’s no point tying yourself in knots over problems which everyone else seems to have too – and to which there seems no solution.
Do they matter to your organisation?
Importantly though, they also have the potential to adversely affect:
- leaders’ confidence, reputation and impact
- employee well-being
- operating costs
- consumer and employer brand value…
…which suggests you could be a bit of a hero were you to solve them.
‘The IC Briefing System – 10 empowering insights’: a FREE guide
So, what if there was a way of understanding all those challenges you’ve inherited?
What if there really could be a key to getting people to always:
- bring you in as soon as possible?
- put aside enough time to brief you properly?
- identify their communication needs quickly, accurately and completely?
- stick with their original brief rather than messing with it later on?
And when you think about those issues, and the number of years you’ve already been putting up with them, would it be worth ten minutes of your time to understand their root causes?
Especially if those causes are ultimately solvable?
If it would, we believe you’ll find this download really valuable.