Dealing With Tough Clients Who Tell You What To Do— Role Play ep. 11

There was once a man that lived to be 300 years old. He had proof of his birth and there was no debate as to old he actually was. Scientists and thinkers from all over gathered and asked him what his secret to long life was. They invited him to a gathering to discuss what his secret was and to hear him speak. They were shocked to hear him say, "The secret is easy. I never argue with anyone." They mumbled among themselves and argued back and forth. The leader of the scientists stood and said, "Sir, that can't be it. There is no way that that is the secret to your long life." The man quietly replied, "You know, you may be right" and walked off the stage.

I love the "sharing mentality" of Chris. Sharing your ideas and beliefs or invititing others to enter your world is just a more powerful approach than forcing others to do so. Actually, you can never win a debate if the opponent is an ignorant/emotional driven and reactive person. He/She are just not willing to accept defeat. I think of it as an infinite verbal UFC-Match. #tongues are sharper than swords since they never seem to get dull. A wise person on the other hand will just back off, avoiding useless confrontations that only worsens the situation.

Role play is always so valuable!! Tone and attitude is so on point here. The level of zen is admirable. Fortunately, my days don't look like the logo conversation anymore (in part thanks to the Futur for helping me towards achieving the career progression I wanted) and look a lot more like: Fortune 500 company client needs an app and is super on board with the agency's outcomes-based process. We have done research, user-testing, etc. and now they want to dictate visual design of the app. The work that we've done in the past has been really strong from a UX perspective because we put a lot of weight into testing that and it can always be supported by numbers, but we find ourselves working with internal design stakeholders at these companies who want a large say in how the visuals turn out—which is fair. The company has a brand. These individuals are largely in charge of that and are responsible for the preservation of the current brand. But what happens when their visual eye isn't quite up to par and their visual taste seems to be dated/not so great? It's harder to make as sound of a case for visual design because it's so subjective. As a result, I always find myself scrambling to find any statistic or study I can to support my visual choices in prep for client meetings. It doesn't seem appropo to just cite "proper design principles" because it feels like a jab at their internal design roles. We want to work WITH the client and make them feel as included as possible, but we also don't want to end up having to launch an app that looks like shit. TL;DR Role play client design review style, anyone?? :D

Basically, Chris knows peoples love/business language and acknowledges that in conversations and once they feel understood he schools them on what his business language is and at that point they both understand each other...boom! So boss! Easier to move forward from that point.

Melinda is growing more and more FEISTY!! hahaha. I love you guys' wayward chemistry. It's like Lightning McQueen and Cruz in CARS 3. lol

The expression on his face at 13:42 🤣

I LOVE THIS SERIES!!! This is one of my favourite eps, on the side of it is less structured and we get to see Chris in another light. Melinda rocks!!

Chris gave me hope that there are ppl in this world who are successful, creative and very smart .. when he talked about talking about his beliefs with others and that really made him more believing, that actually happened with me .. and when he talked about ppl telling him to do things in a different way because maybe he's wrong and he listened, that is also me .. i certainly need to improve a lot at many aspects to be "successful", but Chris really give me confidence and hope .. this is when i subscribe :D

It's really awesome to see Melinda's growth through this great series. Really inspiring! Thanks for sharing

This is great! Clients are not used to understand design as a part of branding and branding as the core of business. So is difficult to guide them in the process of thinking strategically, but at the end they understand everything is connected and work toghether.

Dude I am so totally loving this exchange. Not only has this series justified a lot of my thoughts it’s actually motivating me to take action on those thoughts thank you both so much for sharing your insights.

Awesome. Keep these role-play videos coming! At about 9:00, you said Melinda didn't played the role of an open client and give Chris a lot of options to work with. But, in fact, that's how most of the clients are: stubborn. They are not too willing to compromise or for for another solution presented - and if that's the case, Christ sent them away, which is, exactly, what should happen many times - and I like to see that role play when the client is sent away as well.

Just amazing! I really love these roleplay conversations, bringing so much value to us! Confidence sparkles out from Chris miles away. Such a strong and established talk (defense) with the pushy client (btw. Melinda was great as well!).

The last second of both was the best part of the video. Both going deep thinking about how small we are... Gold!

dayum guys, this is gold, from an artist point of view but also on a personal level, really feels like a good 'life' lesson

Melinda is great at listening more accurately now, expressing the communication of feedback well. That improve my understanding, Thanks Chris Do.

Many of these 'discussion with clients' are dealing with a single 'owner' figure. Would you be able to expand into dealing with 'panel' type clients where you have to convince a group of people?

I shouldn't be surprised since the channel is about the business of design, but you guys have the best thumbnails on all of YouTube. Every time I see one in my feed it stands apart from all the other videos.

I think Melinda got pretty close to being the debate soulmate towards the end of this video lol 😏

Where has this channel been for my entire life and past lives? Awesome video and helpful.