When Your Advice Falls Victim to That of Well-Intentioned Friends

I have several clients, some of whom take my advice without question and some who run it by all their friends before making a decision. There are issues with both. I'm not perfect, so taking my advice solely because I'm in marketing takes my client's intelligence and vision for their business out of their hands. Great that they trust me that much, though. Not likely to argue with that anytime soon!

The second client is much more problematic. In a world where the lines between marketing, social media, and public relations are smudged and blurry to most clients, there's a good chance they hired you thinking your expertise extends further than it does. After all, their friends give them solid advice about all manner of things, so any professional must know more than they do.

Unfortunately, in the current marketing climate, particularly if you're adding a social media campaign, timing is of the essence. Thinking that the opportunity to showcase your skills using a specifically targeted campaign will always be there, or can 'wait a week or so' while the client thinks about it, is foolhardy. Nothing kills a business faster than a little indecision.

I'm sure I am not the only one with clients who get input from friends. During these conversations with clients, I always think of my parents, who encouraged, begged, and even pleaded with me to think for myself and take responsibility for my decisions. Fast forward to today. I have a conversation with my client. I lay out all the pros and cons, what the plan is, dates, what I need from said client to make it work, and if the pieces are contingent upon one another, how crucial the timing is. Client says 'Great! Do it!' and I leave the meeting to execute the plan. Going well, right? Please hold.

Two hours later, if I'm lucky, I get a call from client. Questions about how this works, what if we do this, why are we doing this. Fair enough. All goes well, until client says 'I talked to my friends and they say this does/doesn't work'. Then the conversation becomes very predictable.

Me: Oh, okay. So you'd like to do this instead?

Client: Yes. My friends tell me they've seen this done a lot and it works.

Me: Great. Do you know what kind of business it worked for? Is it a business that operates the same way yours does?

Client: I don't know, you're the professional. But my friends are sure this will work. It's the latest/hottest/coolest thing.

Me: Okay. In your business this isn't generally used because it doesn't tend to work, but we can give it a shot if you'd like. Let me re-work the plan and incorporate your changes.

Client: Well, I'd like to try it, so let's do that instead of the other stuff. My friends say that doesn't work.

Me (by now, biting tongue and wondering who the ubiquitous friends are and what they might do for a living): So, you want to scrap the plan you agreed to earlier and do this instead? We can incorporate this idea into the current plan and get the best of both worlds. Do you want me to pull together some numbers so we have an idea about the ROI for this new plan?

Client: No, let's just try what my friends suggested. It can't hurt, right? We can do your plan later if this doesn't work.

Me: Well, it was built around this event/season/need, so it may be too late. We can do both.

Client: Well, you think your plan is better?

Me: I did research the plan we discussed this morning and, as I said earlier, what your friends are suggesting has not worked in your industry, so it's your call, but my advice is to stick with the original plan.

Client: Okay, well, let's just try their plan. They've seen it work.

I'm sure you know how this goes. At the end of the campaign, client is frustrated and wondering why the marketing isn't working the way they want it to. I am equally frustrated, and wondering when a good time to fire my client (and their friends) is. Client wants to know why they didn't get the leads or generate clients for their business. I wonder to myself when my advice, the advice they pay for because I do this for a living, became less important than their friends, and if they blamed their friends for the failure, too. Don't worry, I'm not deluding myself, I know they aren't blaming their friends.

What's the lesson learned here? Those friends that my parents used to worry about influencing my decision making, are still here, and they are talking to everyone's clients and influencing their decision making. And while you may be getting paid for executing a bad plan after coming up with a brilliant one, it doesn't make it feel any better. We all want to be successful, right?