Creating your perfect client

Der Kathy Breitenbucher over at the Fordyce Letter wrote a blog post on Creating your Perfect Client. I agree with her that they don't exist. If you ever have the impression you got such client, wait until a change of HR manager, a search gets cancelled, or their financial situation requires you to lower your fees. The perfect client is like a blissful, but always temporary state of mind. Perfect clients do not exist, and unlike good clients, they cannot be created.

Good clients, like good relationships, a beautiful garden, a good looking figure  or nice hairdo are all subject to the second law of thermo dynamics: without putting energy (work) into them, they go to waste.

To create a good client imagine what type of client you would not want to work with. These are clients you will avoid like the swineflu; you will graceously cede them to your competitors  because they will suffer an acute headache of epic proportions. In the emerging markets zone, you have plenty of them: they do not read or respect the contracts they sign, they do not pay or try to renegotiate fees after you made your placement, they treat candidates like commodities, napkins, doormats, or worse,  horse faeces. They are not inclined to treat the search consultant as a genuine partner and participant in a process that creates value for their business.

Clients that under no circumstance accept to pay a retainer to fill a critical and sensitive position neither will, or want to understand the importance of a partnership with the consultant to create a significant business value. Usually these companies do not have a proper form of governance and are neither institutionalized.

In my humble opinion good clients are demanding but fair, pushy but respectful, value good service, have high availability and are responsive. They seek long term relationships, and highly value integrity. The key decision makers are usually modest and humble individuals. In short, they are, or genuinly want to become real winners.

Seek always to create good or great clients, as much as possible.  Just expect to put in a lot of work. Perfect clients are like perpetual motion machines. And such machines do not exist because, besides taxes and death, entropy is one of these things in life no one can escape.