How to handle Difficult Clients as a Spiritual Business Owner
How people pleasing, co-dependency and subconscious beliefs may be sabotaging your online service business
It is unfortunate I even have to write this article, but the truth is we all deal with it sooner or later. That is, ungrateful clients. The clients who can’t seem to take enough of your time, energy and ideas, and yet they still walk away with complaints, negativity and worst of all, bad reviews!
Finding Empathy for Difficult Clients
As a spiritual business owner it’s important to look at the situation from a deeper, spiritual-psychological point of view. The ungrateful client most likely has underlying anger, resentment, self-worth issues or any myriad of things. Who knows, maybe they are having a bad day, week or year. Maybe they are buried with grief from a recent loss or divorce. We can speculate all day long, but that truth will only (maybe) win us a bit of compassion toward them. That’s a good start, but let’s take a deeper look at what may be going on.
Diving Deeper: How I experienced difficult clients
When I first started my publishing business, I opened up a special program at a heavily discounted price to the first seven women who accepted. It was a joyful offer, at an unbeatable price, with loads of value. I was totally overjoyed when seven women accepted the offer and gleefully began their book writing journey with myself and my team. I intentionally attracted all spiritual-based business women. Many I had known for a year or more and I knew they were heart-centered, compassionate, hard-working women.
Time and time again I would go above and beyond what I had initially promised. I would throw in extra support calls, extra trainings, bonus files…I just continued to add value. When the initial timeline for the program ended, I generously extended it by three months! That was three more months of support at no additional cost. If that weren't crazy enough, I added three more months after that, Yup, I took a three month program that was already ⅓ of the actual cost, and then added 6 additional months of support to it without charging a dime. In my mind, I was being kind, generous and a very empathetic business owner. Energetically however, I may have been projecting a very different story.
One by one our lovely class of writers began completing their books as well as the publishing process. More than once, myself and my team were totally shocked and horrified when we heard complaints that we weren’t doing enough.
I felt so small.
I cried more tears over this program than I have over all my ex-boyfriends combined.
My team was working far beyond their scope of contract, delivering amazing results, and our clients were complaining about this and that. Nitpicking all of us until we felt exhausted and totally undervalued. As a leader, it felt like I had failed - not just the clients, but my teammates and myself. I felt like a total idiot for attempting the entire idea.
But then I’d wipe my tears, take a deep breath, and go for a walk. At which point my head would clear and I’d receive major clarity. I wasn’t a failure at all. We were making these women’s dreams come true! They were becoming successful published authors because of us! The truth was that our entire team was top-notch professionals providing top-notch results. I couldn’t think of another publishing path that would be so empathetic, so supportive, so professional and so darn affordable! What was going on here? Why were our clients still not happy?
Unfortunately, the answer took me a few years to figure out. It would appear to me in the deep recesses of my subconscious mind, while I worked on healing my codependency and people-pleasing tendencies.
Uh-oh. As it turns out, my deepest, darkest, subconscious fears were all around feeling like my efforts weren’t good enough AND feeling like I was being taken advantage of. Oh snap.
As I worked through untangling these fears with my counselor, I realized that because of these fears I had a major tendency to overgive and overdeliver – as a means of trying to prove my worthiness to others.
On the outside, I was an overachiever, super-giving, giant-hearted, go-getter type of woman. Internally though, I was still a small child, aching to be seen and heard. Energetically I was projecting this on my clients, subconsciously begging them to see my enoughness, which is something they couldn’t do. We and we alone have the ability to validate our self-worth.
When we search outward for validation, we are consistently let down, and the cycle repeats itself. It should come as no surprise then, that the more I seemed to give of myself and my expertise, the less my clients seemed to respect me and the more they seemed to take advantage of me. This would trigger my deep-rooted self-worth issues, which then gave me two options: I could either dive deeper into healing this false belief, or I could cry, ignore it, and stay in the cycle.
Guys, this is how life works! Our souls are here to learn certain lessons, but we have the free will to decide if and when we will actually learn them. We have to learn to respond differently if we want to break the pattern and create a different reality for ourselves. This is truly the bottom line of manifesting. It boils down to your subconscious beliefs about yourself.
So, if you are attracting clients who walk all over you, neglect to pay you on time, are constantly draining your energy and just overall feel ungrateful for your expertise, time, energy and services – don’t be so quick to judge them. You may want to look inside yourself and ask the hard questions.
Is there a pattern throughout my life of attracting this type of person?
What, inside of me, if I had to guess, causes me to attract this type of situation again and again?
What needs to shift inside of me in order for my self-worth to be energetically communicated at a higher level?
I totally recommend doing this work with a counselor or therapist. I also very much recommend Lacey Phillips work, To Be Magnetic. Start with her podcast and if it feels aligned, definitely join the Pathways Membership. It’s been the most transformative work of my life and career – hands down.
Additionally, if you feel you have people-pleasing and/or codependent tendencies, I recommend the following books:
More Language of Letting Go, by Melody Beattie (also, anything by her and follow her on IG too for helpful daily tips.)
Codependent–No What? By Lisa A. Roman (definitely follow her on Instagram too!) This book is so powerful most people read it twice. It comes with tons of exercises for deep healing.
In the Moment: How to Handle a Difficult Client Situation
I sincerely hope you never have to experience the heartbreak of having an ungrateful client, but realistically you probably will. The trick is to see it as an opportunity to grow personally and break unhealthy relationship patterns across all areas of your life. Even with this outlook, in the heat of the moment, these situations can be extremely painful and triggering. I know this feeling sucks, but there truly is a beautiful opportunity on the other side of it. Here is my best advice for handling a difficult client situation at the very moment it happens.
Remove Yourself from the Conversation
First and foremost, you will have to fight all of your people-pleasing tendencies and politely remove yourself from the situation. This will be easier said than done, because most likely the client will be yelling at you, complaining, or voicing her concerns.
If you are a pro at staying calm under pressure, feel free to sit quietly and listen. Most of us, however, will become emotionally triggered and no business conversation ever ends well when it is full of high emotional energy. The best thing to do, therefore, is to remove yourself from the situation.
You can affirm the client’s needs are being heard but say you have another appointment you need to get to. (Your next appointment is with yourself, so you are not lying.) Tell them you want to hear more about this issue they are facing and will send them a feedback form to do so. You can ask that they please write out their frustrations so you can review it with a clear mind and with the eyes of other team members. This will help the client slow down and maybe even take a deep breath, but more importantly it allows you a safe and steady exit.
Feel the Feels
Once you have left the situation, let all of your initial emotions come through. For me, I always stay calm in the chaos, and then immediately burst into tears as soon as I’m alone. If you need to cry, cry. If you need to scream, scream. If you need to punch the heck out of a pillow or punching bag – by all means – let it out sister.
Note: It is vitally important that you do not skip this step. When we suppress our emotions we devalue ourselves and can actually cause physical or mental illness to our bodies. Do not rush to the next steps. Take time to feel whatever you need to feel for as long as you need to feel it. This is the BEST thing you can do for all parties involved.
Soothe your nervous system after experiencing difficult clients
Once you have fully felt all of the confusing, painful and uncomfortable emotions that this situation is bringing up for you, it’s the time to soothe your nervous system. Most likely you have gone into fight, flight, freeze or fawn mode. This is your instinctual way of dealing with this type of situation and probably dates back to early childhood when you experienced a similar situation. Don’t be hard on yourself. Give yourself grace and compassion.
In order to gently soothe your nervous system so you can feel safe, calm and empowered again, you have a few options. I have done any and all of these things after painful emotions arise, and sometimes I even do a combination of each of them.
EFT Tapping - My favorite way to release stress in my body in a quick and relaxing way is to use EFT or “tapping.” Personally, my go-to girl is Sherry Lukey on YouTube. I pick the topic that resonates the most for me, and in 6-7 minutes I feel better. Many times I do two videos in a row to make sure I truly relax and move back into a safe feeling inside my body.
Meditation - This one can be a helpful way to go deep into relaxation after a triggering event. I typically go to YouTube for this as well. Usually I type in “calming meditation” or “soothing guided meditation”. I also often use the Safe DI inside of the Pathways Membership.
Yoga- Yoga is extremely beneficial in that it both relaxes your nervous system while also allowing movement in the body. Moving your body allows energy to move through you in a wonderful way. This means we will be less likely to physically hold onto the anger, hurt or shame we are feeling. This practice is especially beneficial if you struggled to let all of your emotions out in the previous step. I recommend Boho Beautiful yoga videos on YouTube.
Dancing- This may very well be the most fun recommendation. When I need to move energy out of my body while also relaxing back into my natural state, I love to shout out “Hey Google, play Selina on Spotify!” Whether I feel like it or not, within minutes I find myself dancing the cumbia around the kitchen while I laugh at my own dance moves. Another one I playful stumbled upon was the “Livin’ la vida loca” playlist. That was a fun clearing journey a few days ago!
Again, any or all of these techniques can be very helpful to help move your body back into a calm state, where you feel safe, emotionally neutral and untriggered. If you still feel emotional or triggered, keep soothing. It may take time. In fact, at times this step has taken me a full work day or longer. That’s okay, we can’t move forward until we are calm, centered, and emotionally neutral or better.
Look at the trigger underneath (in yourself)
Again, I’d like to emphasize that this step should only take place AFTER you have fully and completely soothed your nervous system to the point of feeling emotionally neutral or emotionally positive. This is very important.
When you have achieved your natural homeostasis, then and only then can you begin to look under the hood for what’s really going on inside of yourself. A nice, gentle way to enter this process is to start with journaling. Try out the following prompts:
How did this experience make you feel?
How did your physical body react?
Have you found yourself in similar experiences in the past?
Does this type of experience seem to be a repeat situation in your life?
Can you remember the first time you were in a situation like this? Hold old were you? What happened? Who was involved? How did that situation make you feel? How did you respond physically? Emotionally? Mentally?
Take a few deep breaths and maybe even stand up and shake your body around before you return to your journal.
Review your responses. Are there any particular insights that stand out to you? Is there anything that came up that surprised you? Write out your findings now.
If you did uncover some deeper patterns and emotional issues, I highly recommend sharing this information with your coach, therapist or a trusted spiritually mature friend or partner. You will need support and community to truly work through this in a deeper, lasting way.
Taking responsibility for your own healing is no small feat. It will be painful and difficult, but it is the only way to truly heal and break this pattern. I fully believe that this work, more than anything else, is how you will be able to grow a truly fulfilling and successful business that is in alignment with your full self.
Addressing the Situation
Now that we’ve gone to the root of the issue and hopefully are taking actions to create lasting healing, we still need to address the original situation with grace and compassion. I recommend waiting a day or two before moving into this step. It’s important to make sure you are fully untriggered and unemotional when you re-address the client and their complaints.
Understand there is a deeper wound in them, and that’s not your responsibility
First and foremost, understand that your client is human too. She’s on the same journey as you. He or she has been through life and has gotten hurt, rejected, maybe even abused in some way. They have their own healing journey to take, and that is not your business nor your responsibility. Release them to be who they are at this moment.
It may be helpful to do a visualization on this. You can imagine yourself cutting the energetic cords between yourself and this client. I also like to imagine bright white light flowing from my heart to theirs, ensuring them that they are loved and held and I have no ill-will toward them. If you use Reiki as a spiritual practice, you can also send healing Reiki energy to them to send them positive energy. (Do these things on your own, not while you are physically with the client in person or on Zoom. This is a private practice.)
Observe the Situation from an Objective Place
Next you will observe the complaints of the client form as objective of a place as possible. This may be helpful to do with a trusted friend, partner, coach or counselor. You can also journal through the following questions and then share your results with a trusted individual.
What were the actual complaints about? Look at it from a black and white perspective. Try to remain emotionally and logically neutral as you observe the complaints of your client. It may be helpful to write them down in bullet point form.
From an objective mindset, is there something you need to take more responsibility for?
Is there anything you need to apologize for?
Is there a higher level of self-worth that this is asking you to step into?
Is there any complaint that you don’t feel is justified (from an unemotional standpoint)?
Review your findings and notice anything surprising or revealing in your results. Work through an action plan that feels fair and equitable to all involved individuals.
An Unjust Solution: Thinking like a Publicist
As a side-story, I’d like to share one of the toughest situations I had to experience as a very young Public Relations professional. PR is all about the public image of a business. Sometimes the best thing for the image of a business doesn't feel good to the person behind the business. Not always, but sometimes, that’s the best thing to do for the good of the business as a whole.
When I was Chamber Director (a very PR type of position), we had a huge raffle for the community members. It was a cold December night, but a joyful one. We had just finished the annual Christmas parade and now people were gathered around the radio station, noses pressed to the window where I was inside with a hopper full of ticket numbers, a few of which would win some awesome cash prizes. I loved this part of my job! The excited mob of people filled the streets around the downtown area, while others gathered in participating downtown stores; all of which were tuned into the local radio station, anxiously listening to my every word.
We raffled off cash prizes of $50, $100, $250 and lastly the grand prize of $500. In rural Oklahoma 2014, that was a lot of money. I was publicly announcing the winners on the local radio station as the names were being drawn from the hopper. When I drew the name for the grand prize winner I announced the name and then I paused. “Wait one second, ya'll'', I deciphered.
That person had already won the $250 prize. I quickly looked at my Vice President, who was recording the results next to me. I explained the situation and together we glanced at the rule sheet that was posted all over town. It was just as I suspected, toward the bottom of the page, there was a single line that read, “one prize per person or family.” The ruling was simple, then; I had to draw another winner.
Getting back on the microphone, I announced that this person was disqualified due to the rule and that we would be drawing another grand prize winner. Energy filled the crowd as everyone pulled their tickets back out and leaned in for the name of the next and final winner. The Grand Prize winner was over the moon excited. She was a very deserving individual, who I happened to privately know. I knew she needed the money for her family and I was grateful that she had won. The contest was most definitely not rigged, but I truly felt she was chosen by God at just the right time in her life, when she needed this prize the most.
I thanked all of our sponsors once again, congratulated the winners and signed off the live broadcast. Cheerful Christmas music filled the studio and the streets as my team and I packed up our belongings and prepared to leave for the evening. It was close to 9:30pm already and I had been hard at it since very early that morning. The event had been a total success, I had a warm fuzzy feeling in my heart and I was eager to go home, unwind and rest up before the next work day, which I knew would be the one where I recorded all of my notes, finances and results of the event; put away all of the decorations and sent out the concluding press release. Days after events were always just as busy as the day of or the days before. I knew I needed to rest up to finalize all that went into creating this wonderful event.
Unfortunately, we didn’t make it out of the studio before the false Grand Prize winner threw the door open and began vehemently yelling at all of us, especially me. She accused us of unfairly choosing the winners, of rigging the contest and of cheating her out of her prize money. I blankly stared at this woman as I took all of this in. I was honestly shocked. Not only had she won the $250 runner up prize, but it was also well known that her family had plenty of money and were in fact quite wealthy. I wasn’t sure how to respond. I previously had thought of this woman to be very nice, pleasant to visit with and even a quiet soul. I’d known her for years and never seen this side of her. Where was this anger and ungratefulness coming from?
I looked at my board president and vice president, who were nearby. They two had total shock covering their faces. I took a deep breath, realizing that this was what they hired me for, and I calmly explained to the woman that the rules were typed plainly in black and white and that there was nothing we could do about it.
She spoke loudly over me, arguing with my logic and continuing to demand her prize. At this very moment I noticed she had two small children with her. They were hiding behind each of her legs and looked terrified. My heart broke for these sweet innocent faces. Mentally, I thought through the situation as she continued to argue her position.
The Chamber was a non-profit organization. We were barely scraping by financially; even my salary was very meager. The money for the prizes had been donated by generous business sponsors around town. This woman was demanding $500 worth of prize money that had already been given to the rightful winner. I wondered where she thought we were going to come up with an additional $500. I also felt strongly in my bones that the answer was black and white: one prize per family. She had no argument to stand on and that was that. I exhaled deeply and suddenly realized I had a craving for a big glass of red wine – at home.
When the woman left the studio she was no less enraged. My team and I quickly gathered our belongings, locked the door and decided to hurry home for the night, praying that everything would blow over by the morning.
The next morning, an hour and a half before I was scheduled to be in the office, I received a phone call from my board president. Not only was the woman still livid, but she had made several very upsetting and untrue accusations against the Chamber on her personal Facebook account. She had also recruited her mother to do the same thing, as well as a local business owner. The local business owner called my president first thing in the morning and chewed her out, saying they wanted justice. I listened as my president explained all of this to me and told me to get to the office as soon as possible for a private impromptu meeting with the angry business owner. I rolled my eyes, as I heard all this, again thinking – the answer is so simple. It’s in black and white. There is nothing to argue about. One prize per family.
When I got to the office I painfully smiled and nodded as the angry business owner shared a million reasons why we were dirty dirty dogs for not letting this family win their second prize. When she was finished, she left my office and my president, vice president and I discussed our actions. My stance was firm. One prize per family. The End. My president also felt this way. But my vice president had 32 years experience in Public Relations. He agreed with us both and then explained why we had to do something different anyway.
You see, we were a small organization in a small town of less than 4000 people. We couldn't afford to lose the trust of the public, let alone other business owners whose donations, sponsorships and membership dues were the only thing keeping our doors open. He suggested we take $500 out of our savings account and pay the woman anyways. My gut wrenched. Pay her even though she’s dead wrong? He nodded. This was purely a matter of small town politics and we had to protect our image first and foremost. I logically understood, but my stomach was in knots. We took a vote. It passed. I calmly printed a check and wrote the most PR- infused apology letter I could muster up, and handed it to my vice president. He would deliver the envelope to the woman and kindly ask her and her mother to remove the derogatory Facebook posts in return.
When he left, I sat back at my desk and felt the nausea rising up inside of me. This wasn’t right. We all knew it, and yet the woman had won this battle. Within the day, I got lots of Facebook pings from the woman and her family, praising our institution and saying how wonderful we were. My heart hurt. I know we did the right thing, but this experience was one I will never, ever forget.
In the long run, I know that this PR move was exactly what we had to do, to keep a positive image in the community and secure our future as an organization that poured life and vitality back into the very community we served. Sometimes, the hardest things in business require us to go against our pride, our instincts, even our heart – in order to stay afloat. I’m not saying your grumpy client is always right, I’m just sharing an anecdote for you to consider the concept of your public image as a business.
Bless and Release
Finally, when all things have been settled, do not forget to bless and release your client. I usually send more bright light to their heart from mine. I ask God to pour blessings over their head and then I silently ask that energetically, emotionally, mentally and physically this person be released from myself and my business. I imagine the chords being cut and I gratefully release them back into the universe.
Closure is important. Your job is not to continue graveling to the client, but to continue moving toward more love within yourself.
I hope these tips have been helpful. I’d love to know in the comments what additional advice has worked for you in these situations. Have you experienced ungrateful clients? How did you respond? What did you feel? Let’s talk below.
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