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1.We are Equals. With this sentiment of equality in a relationship, I felt like this seemed like a good place to start. ... 2 Think Positively about your Partner. ... 3 Spend Time Together. ... 4 Express Affection. ... 5 Say You're Sorry. ... 6 Find Compatible Partners. ... 7 Fall in Love Every Day.
1.We are Equals With this sentiment of equality in a relationship, I felt like this seemed like a good place to start. From a business perspective, I’m not saying that if you are a small agency the only way to establish a true partnership is to work with small clients. Rather, the angle from which I am thinking aligns more in terms of attitude. If your client is treating, you like a “paid subservient” then you are not working as equals towards a solution.
2. Think Positively about your Partner This can often be a tough one. In any relationship personalities and points of view can encounter some friction. Similar to a courtship, it means that over time you find things about your client that may irk you which if left unaddressed can then be a point of distraction. As these bumps in the road happen, it is imperative that they are seen as opportunities for improvement.
3. Spend Time Together While it is not fully clear who is responsible for the famous quote: “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” , I can say for sure that he or she never had a bi-coastal relationship much less ran a user experience agency. In the few hundred years since this quote first came into modern consciousness, everyone from Sigmund Freud to Dr. Phil would attest that the best way to foster a relationship is through face-to- face interaction.
4. Express Affection Ok, let’s not get too weird here… Just like a romantic relationship, I am not suggesting you go tell your client that you love them right away (wait until at least after a couple of dates and the check clears :-)), but I would encourage that you go out of your way to show how excited you are to be working with them. At Motivate Design, our core values stress the importance of this mindset
5. Say You’re Sorry As previously established, things don’t always go smoothly in life and everything is not always going to be hunky-dory. Having been in my fair share of relationships in the past, humility was a hard-earned but extremely valuable lesson that I’ve since adopted in my life. As a user experience professional, you need to be mentally and emotionally prepared to pivot so that when issues arise you have support systems to lean on and you don’t do or say something that will sour the relationship irreparably. As a general rule of thumb, we try to establish ground rules at the outset through kick-off meetings so that everyone starts off on the right foot. Then, abide by them and be prepared adjust and recognize mis-steps when appropriate in order move past the issues together.
6. Find Compatible Partners Ask any love expert and they will say that chasing after the wrong type of person for you is the first mistake of any soon-to-be relationship. All of the points covered above can only lead to something successful if we start relationships with clients that we are compatible with and for the right reasons. The first step in doing this is something that the team here at Motivate Design has been working on which is based on the ancient Greek maxim “know thyself.” Over the span of a person or business’ lifetime, it is important to take into account who you are and what you represent. In our case, Motivate Design has gone through great change in the nearly seven years of its existence. We needed to identify how we had grown and if what we had been trying to do was still reflective of our values.
7. Fall in Love Every Day We’ve all seen them, the television segment every Valentine’s Day where a local news broadcast spotlights an 80 year-old couple that has been married for over fifty years.