The Great Client Partner: How Soft Skills Are the True Currency in Client Relationships

Practice not saying any of the Seven Deadly Verbal Sins. Review that list until you know it intimately. Pay attention to the spirit of those statements so you always put the client first, letting them know they’re in good hands.

Stay for four. If you stay for much less than four years at a job, especially in the services industry, assume you did not make enough of a human connection for someone to advocate for you in rooms you are not in. Stay for four. Stay for four. Stay for four.

Understand that the value of walking the halls at the client site allows you to have a better feel for the business you are working so hard to represent.

My core advice is to ensure your firm’s review system creates some level of confrontation to weed out your 6s. A scale that I have seen work is a simple one-to-five scale. This creates a true decision-making moment and forces a critical conversation to be had with the employee if they are a three.

FROM a leader who harps only on the negative, TO a leader that looks for superpowers in those around you and leans into those.

When evaluating a key client relationship, take out the Alignment Triangle and do a brief audit to see how well you are aligned financially, emotionally, and from a focus perspective.

Clients want partners, not simply service.

Listen to yourself when you speak and read your writing. Are you using unnecessary jargon? Regularly make a list of unnecessarily complex words you might be using too frequently and practice simplifying your communication.

FROM being a leader who looks for wins from only your perspective, TO always thinking about mutual alignment.