Tough conversations in business are inevitable, but when those conversations involve clients, the stakes are even higher.
Unlike internal team discussions, where trust can be rebuilt over time, client interactions are often more limited, and a single misstep can lead to lost business.
In today’s episode of The Chris LoCurto Show, we’re diving into the art of handling difficult client conversations effectively—without damaging relationships or your reputation.
Whether it’s addressing concerns, fixing mistakes, or clarifying miscommunications, we’ll walk through five key principles that will help you navigate these challenges with confidence.
Why the Stakes Are Higher with Clients (00:03:22)
Unlike team members, you don’t have daily opportunities to rebuild trust with clients. If a client perceives indifference, it can be nearly impossible to win them back.
In this section, we discuss why client interactions require a higher level of intentionality and provide real-world examples of what NOT to do.
The Importance of Preparation Before the Conversation (00:13:03)
Going into a conversation unprepared increases the risk of miscommunication.
This section covers how to gain perspective before engaging with a client, avoid assumptions, and develop a plan for the discussion to ensure clarity and resolution.
Examples illustrate how a lack of preparation can escalate a situation unnecessarily.
Active Listening and Clarifying Questions (00:21:40)
Clients may feel emotional or scattered during a difficult conversation.
Asking the right questions can help uncover the root of their concerns.
We share practical examples of how to ask clarifying questions that make clients feel heard and respected while guiding them toward a constructive resolution.
Communicating Clearly and Resolving the Issue (00:26:27)
Clients don’t expect perfection, but they do expect responsiveness and accountability.
Here, we outline the key elements of effective communication, including summarizing concerns, setting clear expectations, and following up on commitments.
We also highlight how proactive communication can turn a negative situation into a trust-building opportunity.
Following Up to Restore Trust (00:35:11)
Resolution doesn’t end with the initial conversation. Following up shows clients that their concerns matter.
This section covers how to update clients on progress, confirm their satisfaction, and take proactive steps to strengthen the relationship moving forward.
A powerful example demonstrates how the right follow-up can make all the difference.
Next-Level Leadership LIVE Event 2025 (00:32:24)
If you’re a business leader feeling overwhelmed by all the responsibilities on your plate, the Next-Level Leadership LIVE Event is designed for you.
This three-day event will equip you with tools to lead your business confidently and reclaim balance in your life.
Secure your spot at chrislocurto.com/liveevents.
Additional Resources (00:37:44)
Looking for more strategies on handling difficult conversations? Check out these past episodes:
Episode 379: Leading Through Tough Conversations – Features role-playing scenarios to help you navigate high-stakes discussions effectively.
Episode 594: Face the Facts: Stop Avoiding Tough Conversations in Business – Part 1 – Packed with insights on conflict resolution and fostering a healthier work environment.
Conclusion (00:38:36)
Difficult conversations with clients are opportunities to build stronger relationships when handled correctly.
By preparing thoroughly, practicing active listening, communicating clearly, and following up, you can turn challenging interactions into moments of trust and loyalty.
Clients don’t expect perfection, but they do expect you to care. Take the time to get it right, and your business will reap the rewards.
If you found this episode helpful, please leave us a review and share it with someone who needs to hear this.
And as always, take this information, change your leadership, change your business, change your life. See you in the next episode!
612 | Mastering the Art of Difficult Conversations with Clients
Introduction (00:00:00)
Today's episode explores how to maintain trust, address concerns, and preserve relationships during tough discussions, emphasizing the higher stakes involved when dealing with clients compared to team members. All of that is coming up next.
Welcome to the Chris LoCurto Show, where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are.
Welcome to the show, folks. I hope you're having a fabulous day wherever you are.
Today we are talking about what it's like to have difficult conversations that are probably going to be inevitable in most, if not any, business when it comes to clients and how those difficult conversations with clients are.
Those are higher stakes than with a team member. Now, I know you might be thinking, how could that possibly be? Well, because your clients are your walking billboards. All right? Your clients are the ones that they recommend you.
They talk about how good or bad you are. They review you. Now, could team members do that? Abso-stinkin'-lutely. But team members are on the inside. They spend more time with you.
Culturally, they understand things more than clients will. Right. So we could have a difficult situation with a client, which 100% could be our fault. Absolutely.
And they don't understand cultural aspects or what's going on or. And, you know, what's behind the scenes.
So my caveats here as we get into this, and I'll probably share this again, if you've messed up with a client, fix the problem, okay? There shouldn't have to be a difficult conversation with a client.
If you've just messed something up and it's abundantly clear, solve the problem, solve it quickly, take care of them, go above and beyond, give them something free, take care of the client.
So as we get into the perspective gathering piece, that's something that we need to do, is to find out how we did mess something up.
Right. Sometimes we may not actually understand that, but if something is abundantly clear, we just screwed something up, fix it, solve it quickly, communicate quickly, and, you know, move on.
So we'll get into that. But today we're really looking at if we mishandle conversations with a client, then it could lead to losing the client. At worst case scenario, losing other clients because of their bad situation.
But usually what's going to happen is we're going to tend to lose trust. We might damage the relationship. Those are things that are probably more likely in the interim.
And again, unfortunately, it could lead to losing the client, and we do not want that. So we're going to walk through the essential principles of mastering these conversations.
So whether they're planned or they're spontaneous, whatever it is, so that you can maintain trust, you can resolve issues effectively.
Why the Stakes Are Higher with Clients
So key points that we're gonna get into, the first one is why are the stakes higher with the client?
Well, unlike team members, you don't have daily opportunities. At least I don't think you do.
If you're running a sandwich shop and you got a, you know, a customer comes in every day might be a different situation, but you probably don't have daily opportunities to rebuild trust with clients.
You have that with your team. If things go wrong, you can sit down with team members and rebuild that trust on a daily basis, hourly basis, if you had to. Right.
There's things that you can do to solve very quickly. And again, like I talked about, they're part of the culture, so they understand more than the average client would.
But when it comes to a client, if things go wrong, it is way harder for you to repair that relationship. If they've got something set in their head, like you don't care. Oof. That is huge for us is making sure that our clients, I mean, that's just who we are.
We care. We're incredibly caring team. We're incredibly caring people. But for us, if something goes wrong, you're not going to get a text message, you're not going to get an email.
You're going to hear our voice, right? If something goes wrong where it's like, oh, crud, we need to make sure there's total clarity. Then to solve that problem with that client, we're going to be on the phone.
We want them to hear that we are wanting to solve the problem. We are going to. I don't care if our team member, whoever's solving this, has 10% I in their DISC profile.
We're going to ratchet that up somehow and make sure that we're not coming across as stale, not involved, not caring, not being concerned, indifferent.
That's the last thing we would ever want is for a client to ever think that we are indifferent to them, their situation, whatever.
So, you know, let's say a client feels very undervalued because maybe there was a delay on delivering something and nobody addressed it right away.
I think that's something we all have experienced and we've all, you know, we can all understand. And failing to resolve this, you know, effectively could absolutely result in them taking their business elsewhere.
I'll give you an example. So we have a couple real estate-- We have a residential and commercial real estate company. Our residential company. We had to solve a-- a shower prob--. I had to replace a shower.
My wife was working on this thing to get this thing done and buy a shower from a big box store. I will leave the names out. We usually go with the other big box store. And this time she went with, you know, the other one because of what they had all that kind of stuff.
And it was supposed to be able to. For her to go down, pick it up, run it on over and drop it off and, you know, leave it so that the plumbers could do what they need to do and solve a problem. Right.
We've got a tenant that needs a problem solved. We need to solve the problem, period, as fast as we possibly can. Well, my wife ran into a problem when she went down to pick it up, and it hadn't been pulled yet.
And they told her, hey, this will be ready tomorrow. She went down there, it wasn't ready. So she went back into the area and trying to get this thing, and some gal was back there, and she's like, hey, I need to pull this order.
I need to get this going. And the gal says with attitude, well, you're going to have to give me some time. So this is how she's being treated.
She comes back up, she calls me, and I'm like, 'woman, have it delivered. You should have had this thing delivered. Get it delivered.' Right? Don't mess around with this stuff. And so she goes back up to the front to Customer Service.
The big words on the wall behind them, Customer Service, and starts to talk to a guy about, hey, how can we just get this delivered? We've got to get this over there.
And the guy's like, oh, you can. You should be able to do it. So instead of jumping on his computer and solving a problem, what does he say? You should be able to do that on your phone. Yes.
That's what he told the customer in front of him, who's paying him, his company, who's paying him, Right? You should be able to do that on your phone. So she's like.
She clicks on her phone and the dude takes a phone call. Now, if you are in this situation, this is the kind of stuff that we will take these situations and share this with our team and go, never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever treat a client like this.
These are the conversations we have with our team all the time. You know, we experience stuff in real life.
We bring that back. Our goal isn't to slam the company. Our goal isn't to smear the company. Our goal is for our team to look at the situation and go, don't you ever do this to a client.
We would never do that to a client ever. And if that does happen, I'm going to have. Well, I won't. But Joel or one of their leaders is probably going to have a very difficult conversation with the team member.
We don't treat people this way. You solve the problem and you do it right now. Right?
So that happened. Then she went back the next day because it's supposed to be prepared and it's supposed to be ready. Still not done. And the person who's supposed to be helping is not there.
And so finally some dude shows up who's new. He came from the other big box store, which is funny.
And so he sees the problem. He's like, well, yeah, this needs to get solved. He goes, interesting thing is at this company, you know, you've got a large number of these types of orders, these pickup orders, and they have two people handling it.
Because when I was over at the other place, there was 84 people handling this. And it's like, well, it sounds like that's something you need to change here.
He was great. He was fantastic. He took care of us, solved the problem, went and got it all, loaded it up, you know, all that kind of fun stuff.
Taken care of, took care of my wife, took care of our situation that we had with one of our units. Folks. The key is, you have to understand, the moment my wife walked away from there, she said, never buying from them again.
That was the response. Never buying from them again. Should have stayed with the other big box store. And that just screams how undervalued she felt, how, you know, lacking they were with their customer service.
And so here she is. If she had been taken care of, well, that comment would not have happened. If she could have just gotten over there, picked it up, taken it on over, been done, then she would have been all right.
She'd have been fine. She would have probably used them again. But here's what I could tell you about my wife. And you know, I 1000% agree with her. She won't go back there unless she abs0-stinkin'-lutely has no other choice.
That's what happened. They lost that client. A client that owns real estate companies and has use for stores that have products for real estate. So hopefully I'm making sense in all of this.
And I'm sure without using names and everything, I'm, you know, I know everybody's out there going, tell me which one it was. No, not going to do that.
But you need to understand that preparation is absolutely essential. Absolutely essential. Right for the situation. Make sure that you're prioritizing the needs of the client so that you can protect the relationship.
If one person would have stood out, you know, this guy at the, at the very end definitely stood out, but it was at the very end.
If one person in the beginning process would have stood out as somebody who gave a rat's patootie about my wife and her situation, then everything probably would have been fine.
Jump in, take it, solve it. Show the client that you care. You know, this last guy was apologizing, and he was brand spanking new. There was a, a gal that was handling this that literally had 18 years worth of experience.
I think it was, I think one badge said 18 years and one might have even said 25, but definitely over 18 years worth of experience.
And it was just. And she didn't do anything wrong. She didn't do anything bad. She just didn't solve the problem. Right. She didn't take care of it completely.
Now she was pushing, but she was confused. You know, she was pushing to try and get somebody to solve it, but she was confused on how to solve it herself.
So, long story to tell you that you have to realize you can solve a problem like that inside your team pretty rapidly. You can solve a problem like that and have a good conversation inside of your team.
Hey, here's what we do. Let's fix this thing over here, do this over here. That's not our culture. We don't do that. But when it comes to a client, and that's the way you resolve it, you lose the client, right?
You have some dude talking on a show, praise God, not mentioning their name, but, you know, saying it might be somebody who would do that. Mention the name. But that's a loss. That is a loss.
The Importance of Preparation Before the Conversation
So number two, the importance of preparation before the conversation.
So funny thing is, is while my wife is standing there waiting a conversation ahead of time to get all of the perspective before going out and standing in front of her and looking like, I don't know what I'm talking about would have been a good thing.
So going into a conversation unprepared is going to increase the risk of miscommunication. No ifs, ands, or buts about it, right? You, you know that, you get that.
So you need to understand the issue as much as you can. You need to avoid assumptions. Do not make assumptions whatsoever. Right? Gain quality perspective.
Approach the discussion with the, the right mindset. Ask a ton of questions to make sure that you're on the same page with the client.
So steps to prepare is one, identify what is the issue, what is the core problem that this client has? Identify it. Do it with the right heart. Don't do it with a defensive mind.
Don't do it with the client's probably wrong mindset. Find out what it is, what's the problem? You know, get to that piece of information before anything else. Before you try and tell the client they're wrong or before you try and tell the client.
Well, that's not how we do stuff. Before you do anything, get to the core issue of the client. If anybody would have just literally dug in and asked my wife, so what's, what happened as far as you're concerned?
We ordered this. We were told it was going to be ready for pickup. I drove down here and it's not ready. And so then I tried to deal with your customer service.
They didn't help me out. I tried to deal with a gal in that area. She refused to help me out. This is what's going on all of a sudden. Assuming that all of those things are true from the client, you have empathy.
Well, hopefully you do. You have the ability to have empathy for the client and solve the problem for the client. Oh, my gosh, I am so incredibly sorry.
We're going to fix this. This is going to get solved. No matter what. We're going to take care of this. I am so sorry. Do you know who that was? Do you remember the names of the people who did that?
Whatever. We're going to solve this right now. That would help that person to go, okay, now somebody wants to take it. They understand the issue, they understand the problem.
They're going to solve it. Great. I feel much better about myself. If you don't do that, unfortunately, you make a lot of assumptions, and many times people make assumptions that it's the client's fault.
Second thing you can do to prepare is anticipate emotions. You need to be. Listen, you're not a victim in this situation, right? Hopefully you're not a victim. You shouldn't be a victim in this situation, but understand the emotions of the client.
So many people have been screwed by so many businesses and companies and things that when something goes wrong, they can have a tendency to be just done with the situation, you know, just frustrated or upset.
Now, can the client, you know, act in a better way? Absolutely. But once again, let's try and have some empathy. What could the client likely be feeling in this situation? If you don't start with frustration, you are probably way off base.
Right. We need to understand this is frustrating. They might be angry, they might be responding to the last five companies that have messed them over, right? That have treated them horribly.
And so it is terribly understandable that standing here now, they may have an attitude, they may have some emotions. The deal is, how do I deal with, how do I understand? Empathize.
Doesn't mean I'm going to put up with yelling or calling anybody names or cussing somebody out. Doesn't mean I'm going to put up with any of that.
But if I will assume immediately what the client is feeling and even tell them what I assume they're feeling, you will be blown away at how fast you can de escalate somebody's emotions.
Mrs. LoCurto, I'm so sorry. You have to be pretty frustrated with how you've been treated. And I get that. And I mean, geez, I wouldn't, I wouldn't even be surprised if you're upset.
But here's what I need you to know. I will solve this. I will find out how to solve this and I will take care of it.
If you can anticipate and have empathy for what the person is going through and even let them know that, you know, you will be blown away at how that person can de escalate their own emotions, regulate their own emotions, get into a place of like, okay, here's somebody who cares.
The worst thing you see, and everybody's experienced this. And in this situation, I'm talking about my wife, she experienced this. The worst thing you see is the person who doesn't care.
Now, that's not even the worst thing. A terrible thing is somebody who doesn't care. The worst thing is when somebody has attitude back, right?
You've already your company, it may not be you as an individual, but you are a representative of this company, has messed up the situation.
The last thing you should be doing is having attitude towards a client. You should be focused on solving the problem.
But today I think we're so used to walking into places and experiencing people who just act like colossal victims. So let's make sure we don't do that.
Anticipate emotions, have empathy towards the client. Third thing you can do as far as preparing is clarify your desired outcome, right?
What resolution is the client seeking? What resolution are you seeking? What are we looking for, like, in this situation? Once again, I will solve this. I will get this done. We will get this to you. We will do whatever, right?
Clarify the desired outcome. Find out from the client. Hey, I am so sorry. I can only imagine how frustrated and even possibly upset you are with this situation.
We should not have treated you this way. We should have solved this for you yesterday. Even knowing that the product was even here, we should have solved this for you yesterday.
I will make sure this happens today. Let me ask you, with your current situation, the way that it is, where we are in this, this order, this, this product, this whatever, what would be your desired result?
My assumption is, is that we just go get it for you right now, put it in your, in your truck. Is that what you're looking for? But is there something else that you're looking for? Maybe.
I don't understand. They might come back and go, at this point, I'd rather rather you just deliver it to the place. It might be. You know what, at this point, I don't even want it anymore. I just want a refund.
There could be so many different outcomes that that person desires at this point.
If you've done the things previous to this, what I've said, if you've done those things, then you might be blown away to find out that the person's deescalated and like, yes, if you can just do that and get that, I'll be so happy.
So before calling a client about, you know, any type of, you know, miscommunication on a projected timeline or, or reviewing their concerns or your team's actions or whatever it is, or offering a resolution, spend time, spend time preparing to go into this conversation.
You know, identify the issue, anticipate the emotions, and clarify what you believe your desired outcome will be.
If you can do those things before going into the conversation, you'll be amazed at how much you just might help that client de escalate and you might even save the client.
Would they have saved my wife's business at that point? Possibly. I'll give it a strong possibly. But the way that they handled it, even the nice guy at the end, it was too late. She was already done.
She's like, nope, not coming back for this. So had they handled it that way on the front side, totally different story. There's a good possibility they could have saved their business.
Active Listening and Clarifying Questions
Number three, active listening and clarifying questions are vital. So clients, we just said clients may feel emotional, they may feel stressed out. You know, you're running up on a timeline. This has got to go.
My wife had a plumber coming and the next morning, so she had to have that stuff over there ready to go so that that plumber could just jump in and do what the plumber needed to do, right?
So they may be stressed, they may be scattered, they may be freaking out about this timeline because they have an obligation. So keep in mind the purchase created an obligation from the big box store to fulfill.
When that obligation was not fulfilled, it could cause my wife's obligation to the plumber to have stuff there and ready to go to not be fulfilled.
So definitely possibility for stressing her out, freaking her out, you know, putting her in a bad situation with the plumber, having to change things with the plumber. Who knows, it might even have cost, cost money on a cancellation or something like that.
So, you know, think about that. They may be stressed, they may be emotional, they very possibly could be scattered. If you are actively listening, active listening, and asking clarifying questions that can help you to uncover the root cause of their concern. Right?
So ask probing questions. It might not just be that, you know, we're. I'm using the example of not delivering on a product, right? But what if there's something else that we don't understand?
You know, a great probing, clarifying question might be, can you walk me through what happened from your perspective, asking the client, from their perspective, what happened?
You can even apply that to my wife's situation, right? You know, from your perspective, what happened? Well, what happened was, is I had an order, I was told it was going to be picked up, and once I got here, I was treated like crap, like I don't even matter.
I'm not important. I'm a bother to the gal in the back, you know, in that section, that's. That's how I was treated. Man, that's going to give you so much information, right?
But what if it's something else? What if it's a, you know, you've overcharged a client for something, right? We've been there when we, we had a situation years ago that we were switching something.
I don't know if it was a bank account or something. I can't remember what it was, but a client got charged twice and it was like, jump on it as fast as possible.
Now, we didn't really have to ask the question of, can you walk me through what happened from your perspective? We knew it, we solved it.
But what if a client's coming to you and you haven't figured that out? You. You didn't recognize it, you didn't get on it before the client knew.
What if the client's coming to you going, hey, I believe you guys have charged me twice on this, right? Or what if it's a, hey, I got this email from one of your team members.
And I got to say, I, I'm just blown away. I, I, everything, it just seems so rude. Well, can you tell me how you received it? Well, here's the email. Let me read through it and tell you how I received this. Right. This is my perspective of.
This is what your team member was saying. Whatever. Get in there and find out, if need be, from the client's perspective, how did they perceive it? What's the perspective? How do they receive the situation? Whatever.
Get as much information from that as you can. Another good question would be, what would an ideal resolution look like for you? Now, don't say that until they understand that you're on their team. Right.
If you start that off in the beginning. Okay, so there's a problem here. What would an ideal resolution for you look like? It can sound very condescending. It can sound very indifferent. Right.
So make sure that they understand that you understand them, their situation, their perspective, their emotions, all that kind of stuff. And then when you say, what would an ideal resolution for you look like? Oh, fantastic, now I get to speak into that.
Right. So if a client calls up and says, again, you know, there's a billing error instead of jumping to conclusions. No, we, you know, that's automated. We don't have any problems with that. Whatever.
Listen to their story, ask for specifics, and then validate their frustration before offering solutions. If you will do that, if you will make sure that you're listening to them and asking clarifying questions, you'll be blown away at how that turns out.
Communicating Clearly and Resolving the Issue
Number four, communicating clearly and resolving the issue again. Is every one of these is vital. Keep saying it's vital. Yes, this is vital. Too heavily important. Clients don't expect perfection. They just don't. Nobody is.
Well, let me rephrase that. Most clients don't expect perfection, but they do expect responsiveness. They do expect accountability from your business, from you, your leaders, your team members, everybody across the board. They expect it.
So ensure that they know that you're taking the concerns seriously. They need to understand that. And by the way, it doesn't need to wait to get to you as an owner, as a leader.
The front lines need to understand everything I'm talking about right now. They need to be communicating that they're taking the client's concerns seriously.
You know, they have to. If it, if it rolls past that team member and the client thinks that team member isn't taking it seriously when the dude is, you know, telling my wife here, you change it on your phone, I'm going to take a phone call here.
Wow, that doesn't seem serious at all. When the gal on the back says, well, you're going to have to give me time. All that's communicating from both of those people is, I don't care about you right now.
I don't want to deal with you. I don't care about you. I'm indifferent to your situation.
So key elements of communication. Summarize the concerns to show that you understand what they're saying.
Repeat back to them. So what I hear you saying is you're frustrated because you put in an order. You were told that it would be ready for pickup, and it obviously was not.
And you had to leave because it wasn't going to be ready. Whatever, you know, repeat it back to them. This is vitally important in many ways. One, if the person has a value of. And by the way, if you have not done your DISC and Values, get to chrislocurto.com/store.
Do the DISC and Values. Do it for you. Do it for your entire company. Watch the video, get the video. Talk through this stuff. You will be amazed at how much this will remove chaos and communication.
Get it done. Just get it done. What you may discover in a situation like this is somebody might be highly aesthetic or they might be highly individualistic. And they need to know that you hear them right?
Those are those two value systems in a person. If they don't feel like they're being heard, then it. They will shut everything down. So a great thing that you can do is summarize the concerns.
And it doesn't just have to be those two value systems, right? It's. But you better be doing it with them especially. But for everybody so that they know that you're hearing them. Summarize it, Tell them, show them that you understand.
Another thing is. Is outline the next steps clearly. All right, so here's what we're going to do. We're going to go back there, we're going to pull this here.
We're going to get this, you know, whatever. We're going to pull all these things together. We're going to bring them out to your vehicle. Here's what we're going to do. Boom, boom, boom, boom. You know, let's say it's a billing error.
Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to get it with accounting right now. Find out if we can reverse the charge if there's any problems with reversing the charges.
If there is a problem, then what we will do is we will issue a check right away, you know, whatever it is, solve the problem, let them know what the next steps are and make sure that it's clear so that they understand it.
Another thing you can do, if this is applicable, and I would make it applicable on all situations. You know, if somebody would do this with my wife right now, I wonder how she would respond.
She probably still wouldn't go back and buy, but she'd feel a heck of a lot better. Set expectations for you to follow up with the client.
Hey, I'm going to call you at 3:00 today and make sure that everything has gone through, everything's okay, everything's been changed, everything has been, whatever.
I'm going to call you tomorrow after the plumbers install and I just want to make sure that everything went well and I'm going to do whatever to follow up.
That extra mile will keep clients like you will not believe, especially High S and High C personality styles. If you can go that extra mile and show them, hey, we are not only going to take care of you, but I'm going to make sure everything went well.
There is a chance you can save that. It will go a long way. I can't promise you that it's going to save the client, but I can tell you it can definitely keep that client from, you know, jumping on Google reviews and putting something bad in there.
So it's definitely worth the time to follow up. What are you losing? You're losing a phone call. Come on, you know, five minutes. Come on, do the job.
So, you know, for example, something that you can say is, I understand that this delay has caused frustration. Here's what we're doing to fix it. And I will personally follow up with you by Friday with an update, you know, or by 2:00 with an update or whatever.
Make sure that they understand that you're communicating clearly, that you're resolving the problem and that you're setting expectations for them.
So before we get to the last key point, this is a good time for me to say all these things that we are discussing today. Every bit of this is something that we absolutely want you to take to the next level and you definitely can.
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This event's happening April 2nd through the 4th of 2025 this year.
And it is packed with tools and strategies that you need to lead your business with confidence and get your life back. Let's be real. Leading a business shouldn't mean that you are the busiest person in the room. It really should not.
You deserve to step back, trust your team and still see your business thrive. Right at this event. We're going to show you exactly how to make that happen.
Things you're going to learn lead smarter, not harder. Giving your team the tools to step up so that you don't have to do it all. Find balance.
You're going to get practical tips to lead at work and at home without sacrificing either. Also, you're going to be a part of an incredibly supportive community.
You're going to connect with like minded leaders who understand your challenges and are ready to share their experiences.
This is not a place. It's not like you know, your, your cousin, your friend, your whoever who keeps telling you how to run your business and they've never run a business before.
Or who keeps telling you how to lead people and they've never led people before. This entire event is full of leaders and owners that have been through a lot of the stuff that you've been through as well.
Some are going to be ones that you can share your wisdom with. It's a powerful community and here's the best part. You walk away with actionable steps that you can put in place.
The moment you get back, there's no more guessing what to do next. You'll have a clear plan for your business and for your life. Now I know some of you are thinking, Chris, I would love to, but I don't have time for this.
Here's the truth. If you keep running yourself ragged, burnout is inevitable. So invest a few days in yourself and your business will benefit for years to come.
So join us at the Next-Level Leadership LIVE Event, April 2nd through the 4th, 2025.
Registration is open, so go to chrislocurto.com/liveevents that's chrislocurto.com/liveevents to learn more and secure your spot.
Folks, don't wait until you're burnt out to try and solve the problem.
Following Up to Restore Trust
All right, key point number five, following up to restore trust. So resolution doesn't end with the initial conversation, right? Circling back demonstrates that you value the business and are committed to resolving the issue.
So things that you can do. Update the client on the progress, share what changes and actions were taken in the process. Confirm that they feel satisfied with the resolution.
Think about this. Had this happened with my wife, then it's possible they could have won back some business.
Hey, Mrs. LoCurto, next time you come here, I want you to come see me, email me, text me, whatever. But next time you come, I will take care of you personally.
I want to make sure that you are taken care of right doing something like this, you know, after resolving a, a service complaint or you know, or whatever it is, send an email summarizing the steps you've taken and thanking them for their patience.
Thanking them for, you know, trusting in you to solve this and ask for more feedback, but let them know that they can come to you to get served.
You might be the place that they can't get what, what they need from somebody else and they really don't want to come back to you.
But if you give them the ability to speak to you directly, to text you, to email you to let them know how they feel about everything, you just might save that client.
So things you need to do, prepare. Make sure that you take time before any difficult conversation to understand the issue and make sure that you're getting to your desired outcome as you're preparing, what do you want it to look like?
Then you're going to go in and practice active listening. You know, commit to hearing the client fully before responding. Find out what their desired outcome is as well.
You're going to clarify and summarize. Make sure both parties are on the same page before moving to resolution. You know, that I've heard you help them to know solutions, things that you're offering.
All that to make sure you're both on the same page. Follow through, execute your plan of action and circle back to confirm that they are satisfied and document lessons learned. Super important. Use these experiences to refine processes.
Use these things to prevent future issues. Use these things to have tough conversations with team members. Somebody should be talking to the people that treated my wife the way that they did and going either fix this or you're out. One or the other.
Additional Resources
Additional resources that we have for you guys. Episode 379, which is Leading Through Tough Conversations. This is a great episode.
Joel Fortner and I actually act out scenes so that you can have greater understanding of how to navigate tough conversations so that it can be beneficial for both sides in the tough conversation.
Episode 594 | Face the Facts: Stop Avoiding Tough Conversations in Business – Part 1
So this episode is packed with actionable insights and practical tips for leaders looking to improve their conflict resolution skills and to create an absolutely healthier work environment. Powerful.
You'd be amazed at how much learning how to have tough conversations the right way makes your environment healthier. Even though you're having to have the tough conversations, you'll be blown away how that that works out.
Conclusion
So folks, difficult conversations with clients are actually opportunities, opportunities to strengthen relationships, especially when they're handled well, obviously, right?
And you do this by preparing thoroughly, by active listening, by following through, making sure that you're intentional, you're proactive.
If you do all these things, then you can turn negative situations into moments of trust building. You might save your clients, you might build better relationship with your clients.
So remember, clients don't expect you to be perfect, but they do expect you to care and they do expect you to get to resolution.
So take the time to get it right and your business will absolutely reap the rewards of loyalty and respect if you don't. What's the other option?
Not doing all of this stuff and wonder why people keep walking out the door. Well folks, that's all the time that we have for today. I sure hope this has helped you, helped your business, helped your team.
Do me a favor. If you are enjoying this information, if this is helping you, helping your team, leave us a review.
Share this, Give us some, you know, hopefully five stars. We would love that. But also help to get this information to people who need to hear this.
That is how we continue to grow our reach and helping people change their the businesses in our lives. So as always, take this information. Change your leadership, change your business, change your life and join us on the next episode.