This article was originally published on LinkedIn.
Allow me to set the scene. My friend Lilly and I are sitting on her couch with a glass of wine after an incredibly draining day at work for both of us. Lilly is a therapist, so draining days for her are ones where her clients share complex feelings, difficulties in coaxing clients to share, and having to regulate her own emotions to maintain a positive relationship with her client. I am an account executive, so draining days at work for me are the ones where…well, the same things happen.
Broadly speaking, client relationship management is the same, no matter the context. Whether it’s the relationship you forge with your therapist (the same one they try to keep with you), or the relationship you want to maintain and grow with your clients at work, we use the same skills to build, maintain, and excel in relationships. Your ability to utilize these skills is called emotional intelligence.
Not often listed in the required abilities of any LinkedIn job posting, emotional intelligence is, in my opinion, the most important ability to have within our field. With it, clients will rave about your stellar service. They’ll gush about how good at listening to them you are, how you always know just what to say to ease their anxieties, and that you’re always calm, cool, and collected, even during times of stress. Without it…well, you may find yourself asking where all your clients went.
Emotional intelligence is an ability that can be broken down into four slightly broad abilities:
Each of these abilities contains necessary skills that one must develop to build and maintain healthy, long-term relationships with their clients. Let’s talk about them.
We spend a lot of time focusing on the client. How are they feeling? How do they react in stressful situations? Does bad news derail the meeting entirely for them, or can we keep going? While understanding the client is important, understanding how you interact with the client is equally important.
Self-awareness and self-regulation are the skills that focus on you (groundbreaking statement, I know). Having these skills allows you to understand not just how you’re feeling but why. The why is important because knowing why you’re reacting will make it easier to avoid those situations or help you control how you act when you have those feelings. For example, self-awareness makes you aware that you are feeling frustrated because your roommate has once again left dirty dishes in the sink. Self-regulation is not taking that frustration out on the client because they asked for Oxford commas in the copy you sent. Self-awareness and self-regulation help you manage your emotions in front of the client, which will prevent any negative interactions from poisoning the relationship.
Empathy is a skill of sensing and understanding the feelings of others which is incredibly important in relationship building.
With clients, empathy is offering patience to an unresponsive client because they have a family member in the hospital. Empathy is understanding a client’s fearfulness around proceeding with a new, bolder creative concept they don’t fully understand. Empathy is being overjoyed and genuinely excited when your client closes on their Series A funding.
In moments like these, empathy helps to build trust between you and your client. You are connecting as people, not just as representatives of businesses, making your relationship more personal.
If you can’t communicate with the client, and they can’t communicate with you, the relationship’s over before it ever started. Social awareness is being able to “read the room”. Sometimes, your client might not be in the mood for chit-chat. So, you would be wise not to launch into a 5-minute story about your cat drinking out of the toilet, seeing as no one except you thinks it’s “absolutely adorable”. Being socially aware shows clients that you are observant and creates a sense of comfort with you and your client as you can tailor your language, tone, and body language to what they need at that moment.
Social awareness is also useful when you need to source a client’s opinions on the work they’ve been shown. We’ve all been in meetings where the client says they have no feedback on the creative, only to reveal later that maybe they weren’t as impressed with it as you thought. Had you been more socially aware, you may have noticed the slight grimace on their face or that maybe they were going to share their opinion, but after your team loudly proclaimed how proud they were of the work, they were silent. Strong social awareness makes you good at observing non-verbal cues, so you can understand your clients even when they’re not talking. This gives you insight into team dynamics, the client’s tastes, and even how they feel about you.
Increasing your emotional intelligence will help you build relationships with your clients and will allow any stressors to be molehills, not mountains, by creating an empathetic and trusting space between you and your client. But that’s not all! Emotional intelligence will make communication with your coworkers smoother. It will deepen the intimacy you have with your friends. Emotional intelligence will make you less likely to act rashly when your teenager is screaming that “you just don’t understand” them (remember, you were one too, and probably worse).
So next time you’re in a meeting with the client ready to throw a book at them, and you’re wondering how you’re gonna save this, ask yourself:
“What would my therapist do?”
A native Torontonian, Ellery did not develop her love of agriculture until she found herself at the University of Guelph, where her inability to smell anything became a super power with all the livestock on campus. When she’s not sitting at her desk working, you’ll find her sitting at her desk playing video games with friends or buying shoes online.
