Ah, you are living the dream life of the professional horseman. You own your own business, you help others learn to ride and find the horse of their dreams and the money piles up like snow in a blizzard.
You pour out all of your energy and hours to:
- Breed and sell top horses
- Teach outstanding lessons
- Train champion quality show horses
Your clients and customers:
- Fail to see lameness, crooked legs and poor conditioning
- Ask the same questions over and over
- Get easily confused over correct lead, correct diagonal and correct pattern or course
In a fit of frustration, you want to scream or have screamed, “Don’t you know anything about horses?!”
Of course they don’t know.
That’s why they pay you for your help.
Customers and clients are so tough to deal with some days aren’t they? But, don’t feel like the horse business is the only industry that suffers from client ignorance.
- The engine mechanic, staring at the seized motor thinks: Why did they ignore checking and changing the oil?
- The bank customer service rep. questions: What’s so hard about balancing the checkbook?
- The physician wonders: Why doesn’t the patient take the medication as it was prescribed?
All of these things occur because people tend to act just like people.
Those traits keep popping up: Forgetfulness, lack of focus, talking when they should be listening, lack of coordination, refusing to breathe properly, tardiness.
I’ll grant you that the above behavior can be tiring, frustrating and almost enough to put you over the edge at times.
But, the fact that most of your clients don’t know everything and admit it is a wonderful thing!
Because, If they did know everything, they wouldn’t be willing to pay you, the professional, to help them.
So, the next time your clients don’t remember exactly what you told them a few days ago, or make bad judgments or just say the dumbest thing you ever heard, remind yourself that they aren’t doing it because they are looking for ways to annoy you, they do it because they are human and need your professional help.