Hello, chain of ancestor posters, each saying the same shocking thing. I have been making things that work, and getting paid for them, for more than 20 years now, and I would like some advice on how to transition my career into making things that do not work, for which the customer has specifically been informed that they will not work, and still get paid for them--preferably paid more than I am currently getting for working things.
Is this just customer management? How do I find stupider, richer customers and convince them to trade the non-working thing they are currently overpaying on, for a non-working thing that I haven't even made yet, and then charge more for it? It seems very alien to my brain that anyone can function in this manner, but it is very important to me that I get some of this money that is apparently controlled by idiots, so that I can do sensible things with it, such as pay for food and housing. I am aware that this is somewhat hypocritical to take a fool's money and spend it wisely, but I promise that if I ever get enough, I will do something incredibly stupid with the excess. Please help.
It's a customer management thing. We can't change peoples minds we can only get people to act. If the client comes in with an open mind we can help, if they come in with a problem and a solution that isn't working we are kinda fucked, generally they won't accept a solution to the problem, they want their solution to work.
Here is the most common example:
Small business come up with their marketing strategy A and it works they are pretty happy so they invest more into the strategy and get more results, great! They keep doing this and make a small or large fortune doing it, eventually the law of diminishing returns kicks in and they have a problem, they want more results by doing more of A but that isn't working anymore so they come to us and have this conversation.
Client: We have had great results doing A and we want more.
Me: A is working well for you but if you want more results you need to do A and B.
Client: A has worked really well for us so really we want to do more A and get more results.
Me: But doing more of A isn't getting more results, if you want more results you need to do A and B.
Client: Why are you not listening to me? A works really well for us, it gets us good results in the past and we want to do more of it. How much do you charge to do more A?
At the end of the day the client knows for a fact A works and that they are happy with the results and want more.
I don't think it's possible to change some ones mind but I can defiantly target people in the right mindset and then encourage them to act on it.
If the client comes to a marketing agency and wants more A they will do more A, if the client wants more results they will do A and B.
Me: We can do more A for more money!
Client: Fantastic!
a few months later the client will complain they are not getting more results and we will have this same conversation.
Is this just customer management? How do I find stupider, richer customers and convince them to trade the non-working thing they are currently overpaying on, for a non-working thing that I haven't even made yet, and then charge more for it? It seems very alien to my brain that anyone can function in this manner, but it is very important to me that I get some of this money that is apparently controlled by idiots, so that I can do sensible things with it, such as pay for food and housing. I am aware that this is somewhat hypocritical to take a fool's money and spend it wisely, but I promise that if I ever get enough, I will do something incredibly stupid with the excess. Please help.