What to do when a potential client cant take constructive criticism?

I would either drop the client or find another way to get your point across.

Most entrepreneurs are stubborn and don't like criticism from anyone. If it is worth the money and time then keep them but otherwise drop them if they keep giving you a hard time.

Tell him that he has to act normal if he wants this relationship to continue.

Realize that most people online are just socializing including business owners so rather than being direct and telling them that they failed, try socializing and offering suggestions to the problem they have.

I know what you mean, one day I search for cooperation with a dating website. I had many man, he had many woman. I did trust the website, but the website looked like a pure disaster. When we talked about the cooperation and I mentioned that I like to help him to improve his website (FOR FREE) he exploded of anger. He could I be so rude, to insult him, he worked for many years on it and it was his pride......

It never came to an cooperation as you can imagine, and after 4 years, his website still looks the same...

My advice, if they are very proud of what they did, let them tell you what they want to change. Compliment them with their work till now, and ask them: "what if you could change something about your work, what would it be?" So you give him the feeling that he is in control and you never have to be the first.

I would point out that the entire reason they are asking for advice is because they don't understand what's happening. Then tell them they can keep doing what they're doing if they prefer but that it won't work.

I've done that multiple times and the people keep trying it that way but eventually come back when they realize that it isn't working.

This is why I would never be a coach. You can't pay me enough to "deal" with people.

What you should have told him was 700 likes is nothing and he needs to add another zero before he can expect to have decent engagement.

If people don't take my constructive criticism, especially if they asked for it, i generally don't waste my time with them anymore.

This guy is a "potential" client of yours. Let go and move on so you can find someone who will appreciate your feedback and pay you to help.

Tell him to stop acting like a little b** ch!

If he asked for constructive criticism, he should have taken it, but the old adage holds true: it's not what you say, it's how you say it. If you came off as rude, aggressive, or snobby when you told him that his content wasn't attention-grabbing, you can see why he responded that way. (Unsolicited criticism isn't cool, however.)

It's a numbers game. Some small percentage of clients will take offense when you offer advice which contains any "negative" elements. Over two decades, I've gotten something like 2% to 5% of those.

As mentioned above, if they can't take professional advice why are they paying for your professional advice?

Last time this happened to me, the client was extremely offended and accused me of "lecturing him with bad advice" (advice a couple of non-professional friends of his, who wanted to side with him, didn't like).

I apologized, explaining that I had no intention of offending, only helping and that we didn't seem to be a good match for future work. In other words, I fired my client in as nice a way as possible. Of course he had already decided not to continue using my services.

Seems to me that almost everyone I deal with are very nice folks - reasonable and appreciative. There are just a few who are overly sensitive in various ways - and a very, very few who are even mentally unstable. I get one of those "a bit unstable" types from time to time through free directories like Craig's List.

Tell him that in addition to having boring content, his dog has fleas and his wife is ugly. Then he'll really have something to be upset about.

Yeah some people are like that... being all like please tell me your honest opinion.. and then you go like: "Yeah those pants DO make you look fat, you should definitely pick another pair if you want to look your best!" And they go... "THEY MAKE ME LOOK FAT!?!?!?" And then you say: "Chill dude, if you didn't want my honest opinion and help, why would you specifically ask for just that?"

It's a story as old as time itself.

Like other people have already said, you might want to consider just dropping him. If your job would be to help him improve, and he's not interested in improving, that would make your job impossible, and quite possibly he might ask for a refund or something down the road. Although for future reference you could try putting it even more nicely if you get a similar potential client.

All clients are like that - Try telling one you don't like their website and it will never convert - YES I did that with my first potential client and they did not become a buyer.

Its far easier to say to customer - I like what you have done and this is how we can build on your hard work and get you more customers, it works every time.

Buy a book on SPIN selling tactics and you will soon understand, what is the best way to deal with your particular type of customers


Good luck

Ya sorry to say but you should look for and market only to more ideal clients who aren't gonna break your back