A recurring theme at CherryDTV is our goal to provide support for ‘colleagues’ in the Adult Entertainment industry to deal with difficult clients, regulation and resources every other employee and entrepreneur in Australia has available to them.
If you spend any time on LinkedIn ~ and you should by the way that’s another story ~ you would see countless of helpful articles and posts about dealing with various issues in the workplace. But how do those helpful tips, tricks and life hacks transfer to our industry?
The answer, surprisingly, is pretty smoothly.
The setting might be different but the format is pretty standard and the nurturing of quality of working relationships is key across the board.
When we shift perspective and frame ourselves as the small business owners we actually are, it’s easy to see that customer service is a huge part of the day to day admin side of our business.
Any CEO will tell you that relationship management skills to deal with difficult clients and can literally make or break a business and this rings true for sex workers, other than any other industry. This also means that when work gets complicated it hits harder, and can be even more challenging.
If you’ve been caught out like this before or you’re looking for tips on starting out in the Adult Entertainment industry these suggested responses could literally change the game for you:
- don’t take it personally: separate out what’s actually happening with the incident in question from any other issues you’re currently dealing with or past emotional weight you’re carrying
- examine the facts: try to take emotion and opinion out of it and if you’re communicating through anything other than face to face contact don’t turn up the heat on the conversation by attaching tone of voice to someone else’s written words, or second guessing facial expressions over the phone
- stay present: anxiety is the result of our thoughts racing ahead of time; it tends to creeps in when conflict kicks off and needs to be nipped in the bud as it’s the nemesis of swift and smooth resolution
- own your part in it: accept that we can’t//don’t always get it right; we’re allowed to make mistakes, we just need to own then with good communication and resolve them with integrity
- check yourself: “before you wreck yourself” ~ sound advice from Ice Cube that covers the mental health self care element of dealing with difficult clients; simply put it means get perspective on the bigger picture and don’t overthink the issue to the point of making yourself sick about it. Instead eat well, sleep well, keep it moving, and set yourself to have enough energy, patience and compassion to do what you need to do each day that you’re dealing with whatever the current challenge is.
The important thing to note is that avoidance causes the cracks in relationships to fester. So don’t do nothing, but don’t waste vital energy you could be channeling into to your business on being sucked into the negative side of dealing with clients.
Remember clients are human, just as we are, and equally likely to be flawed. Potentially dealing with baggage from past relationships, working or otherwise, both of which can be a factor in tricky client relationships in our industry.
Have you run into sticky situations with clients in the past? How did it affect you, and your business? And with the benefit of hindsight what would you go back and do differently now?
Share your experience in the comments below ~ we genuinely love hearing what’s happening on the ground and coming up with solutions for the community.
