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It‘s OK To Be “Not My Cup Of Tea” – 23/05/2017

Note the inverted commas here……being called “not my cup of tea” doesn‘t necessarily mean you are not good at what you do. What does the person classing you as this define this by? Did they feel their needs were not met? Did they think you didn‘t follow through with what was quoted? Did they think they didn‘t get value for money? Did one of these reasons call them to label you as “not my cup of tea”?

Now turn it on its head……did this person have clear instructions as to what they should be expecting? Did you do 100% of the work you stated you would? Did you do everything you could to give them maximum ROI? If you can answer these firmly as yes, then it‘s not you that‘s “not my cup of tea”, it‘s them who isn’t your cup of tea!

Sometimes, it doesn‘t matter how clear you make it, the other person doesn‘t always listen. Human nature tells us to pick out the bits we like and listen to those and sort of half listen and ignore the rest. Unfortunately in the world of business, this can lead to confusion and people feeling hard done by…..even if they‘re not. Expectations of people are high, everyone expects top service that‘s delivered on time and to their liking…..what happens when you don‘t achieve that? That can mean negative reviews, compensation claims and bad mouthing of your business…..something you don‘t want.

So how do you avoid it? Well, the honest answer is, you can‘t 100%. It doesn‘t matter how much you try, you will always come across people who won‘t ever listen to what you have said and will have pre made expectations of you that will have always been higher than what you say you can deliver…….but you can take steps to try to avoid this as much as possible. Steps include:-

1) Don‘t rely on your verbal meeting, back it up with a follow up email stating key things you have talked about so there is no confusion over what to expect.

2) No matter how small a job, send a full detailed quotation…..make sure you cover all loop holes and make it easy to understand so they can‘t misinterpret it.

3) Keep tabs on their thoughts and expectations…..drop them an email, call, visit every so often to see how they‘re feeling about your work.

4) Tackle confrontation head on, if you are comfortable knowing you have done exactly what you said you would then politely put them in their place so to speak. Don‘t apologise for things you haven‘t done, instead ask them why they feel that way and try to explain where the confusion has come from.

5) Listen to your customers……no matter how hard we try to do everything correctly, there is always something we can improve on so find out what that is and build time into your business so you can develop these issues raised.

6) Know that somewhere along the line, you will get one of those customers where you just can‘t please them. I‘m sorry to say but it does happen, you can put 110% into everything and feel really pleased with the outcome but it won‘t match what they wanted. It‘s a steep learning curve but knowing you are going to meet one of them somewhere in your business career will make it easier!

Enjoy your work, be proud of your achievements and take the kind words you get from loyal customers with you for the journey!