Children are brilliant negotiators. Ask any parent who has just been persuaded to part with yet more money for another ‘essential’ toy, gadget, gimmick, or snack. We can learn a lot from them in our adult world if we are prepared to listen.
As tiny babies, we learn to manipulate the world to get what we want. We may not have a large range of techniques, but we know to cry for food, affection or comfort until we get it. Then as we grow, our repertoire of negotiation skills grows. Children are weaker physically and economically but, because they don’t care too much what they look like or how they behave, they are fantastic at doing whatever it takes to get what they want.
Any parent will recognise the following list, but even if you are not a parent, remember back to when you were a child. I bet you are familiar with nearly everything here. Why? Because the chances are, you’ve used pretty much all of them yourself! Read More
Now, consider the customer who is not a good fit. First of all, they might ask you to make adaptations to what you do. Immediately you are in the reals of the uncertain, the new and the potentially costly. Will you have to spend money to meet their expectations? Will your inexperience mean that your service delivery suffers, or the product is below par? How much time will you spend trying to work all this out? And how many ‘ideal’ customers will pass you by because you are focussing on this toxic customer and you miss them? This type of customer is not generically bad, but they could be bad for you.
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