I have worked with some ‘interesting’ clients in my time. The great thing about running your own business is that you can choose the people to work with. Life is too short not to enjoy your working day and get on with your clients. If you enjoy what you do, the results will speak for themselves.
I do have sympathy for poor Ben though – our Hacked Off Flack has listed a few client moments that have nearly pushed him over the edge.
Top five client annoyances – courtesy of PR Moment http://bit.ly/uylxTg:
1. A client asked us to arrange for Tony Blair to attend his webinar. Seriously, I’m not joking. Teflon Tony was, funnily enough, too busy.
2. We arranged a journalist to call a client to discuss a new initiative at a time the client had suggested. When the journo called, he was surprised to be told by the client that he was sick and tired of interfering journalists bothering him all the time. The client then decided to rant about why he thought all journalists are scum.
3. We were asked to ensure that the Financial Times wrote a story about our client, because it has just won an industry award. Hmmm 4. Talking of awards, when another client went up to collect an award recently (for effective communication), he decided to give an unprompted, unwanted and very drunken speech. Not such an effective communicator after all.
5. After a client behaved rather inappropriately with a journalist at a business briefing, he asked us to arrange a one-to-one with the same journalist the next week. She wasn’t quite so keen.
