The difference between clients and customers

There’s a great book by Jay Abraham called Getting Everything you can out of all you’ve got. Jay is a marketing expert and one of the things he discusses is how customers should be referred to as clients. This is because he believes that Customers are people who buy from you but clients are people that you provide some guidance to or who are under your protection.

In the book Customers For Life, entrepreneur and author Carl Sewell has a similar philosophy where he treats his clients like he would a friend. Carl owns a few car dealerships in Texas and one of the examples he uses is that if client needs a jump start or flat tire changed, they send someone out to help – free of charge. His reasoning is that you wouldn’t charge a friend if they needed this kind of help, so they don’t charge the people who are the lifeblood of their business.

Making this simple change really does work. I’ve had instances where clients have made mistakes and I wasn’t contractually obligated to continue to provide services for them, but I’ve gone out of my way to help them remedy the situation. If you want a real shortcut to success, learn to turn these “problems” into opportunities.

Now in the event that you don’t own a business or have “customers” you can still apply this. If you work for a company, your boss and coworkers are your clients. If you’re in school, your professors/instructors/teachers and your classmates are your clients. If you’re looking for work, recruiters, hiring managers and the people interviewing you are your clients. Learn to solve their problems, and they’ll help you reach your goals.

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