Common client classifications
Individual personalities have a lot to do with a client's behavior and agency relationships. A smart, strong, confident client will work with an agency in a smart, strong, confident manner. An anxious, scared, weak, or worried client will drive an agency crazy. An ambivalent, chair-warming bureaucratic lifer will stall, misdirect, and baffle an agency. A flighty, tentative, ADHD client will spin an agency in circles.
In working effectively with clients, it's critical to identify and understand each individual's personality. And while it's fun to play amateur psychiatrist and speculate about how and why they are they way they are, it's much more important to zero in on how they operate. Focus your powers of observation and your energy on interacting with them in productive and mutually beneficial ways. The myth of the "client from hell" arises because agencies don't identify and respond to the personality factors that drive the agency-client relationship.
Several species of clients occur time and again across industries and functional verticals. They might represent the dominant evolutionary mutations of personality types in organizational settings. They might also be standard behavioral pathways acted out over time and geography. In any case, there is a very high probability that agencies will encounter these archetypical client types, each of which has unique operating and handling characteristics.
Let's take a look at these common client personalities and evaluate how agencies can best cope with their wide-ranging quirks.
