The Customer Isn't Always Right (Especially After Watching YouTube)

There's an old rule in business: "The customer is always right."

No, he isn't. Sometimes the customer is spectacularly wrong. And if you're being paid for your expertise, doing exactly what he asks may be the worst service you can provide.

This has become more complicated because clients now arrive educated. Or, more precisely, informed.

They've watched YouTube. They've read Reddit. They've listened to podcasts. They've asked ChatGPT. They know about creative financing, tax strategies, refinancing tricks, LLC structures and seventeen ingenious ways of doing something you've been doing professionally for thirty years.

Sometimes that's great. An informed client asks better questions. And sometimes the conversation begins: "I watched this guy on YouTube..." And you already know you're going to have an interesting afternoon.

The problem isn't necessarily that the guy on YouTube is stupid, dishonest or inexperienced. The problem is that YouTube rewards visibility. And visibility rewards novelty.

Imagine trying to build an audience with a video called: “Real Estate Financing: The Same Boring Principles That Have Worked for Decades.” Nobody's clicking that.

So somebody has to reinvent the wheel. "There's a NEW way to finance properties." "Five things lenders DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW." "This strategy CHANGES EVERYTHING." "Everything you've been told about real estate is WRONG."

Sometimes there really is something new. But if you're competing for attention, there's constant pressure to make an old subject sound revolutionary. If you simply repeat the boring truths that experienced people have known for decades, nobody watches.

So sooner or later, somebody has to make an outrageous claim. Or invent a procedure. Or take something that works under very specific circumstances and present it as something everybody should be doing.

Then it gets repeated. Then other people make videos about it. Then your client walks into your office convinced that everybody knows this except you.

But here's the thing: just because something is visible doesn't make it true. And now the client wants you to implement it.

That's where being a professional becomes uncomfortable. Because professionals have a very strong financial incentive to say "yes". Yes closes the deal. Yes keeps the client happy. Yes gets you paid. No creates friction. No makes you look difficult. And saying no may simply send the customer down the street to somebody willing to say yes.

Then comes the ultimate argument: "It's my money." Absolutely. But presumably there's a reason you're paying me to sit on this side of the desk. 

There's an important difference between being a vendor and being an adviser. A vendor gives you what you order. An adviser sometimes tells you that you shouldn't order it. And there's very little glory in doing that.

If I prevent you from making a $50,000 mistake, you may never know I saved you $50,000. From your perspective, I was simply the stubborn old bastard who wouldn't do what you asked.

Meanwhile, the guy down the street who enthusiastically agreed with everything seemed wonderful. At least until six months later.

But professionals shouldn't let themselves off too easily, either. Experience can become arrogance. “I've been doing this for thirty years” isn't proof that I'm right. Sometimes it means I've accumulated thirty years of useful knowledge. Sometimes it means I've been doing something the same way since 1996. And sometimes the annoying client with YouTube open on his phone has actually found something I don't know.

So you listen. You check. You ask questions. You explain why you disagree. And sometimes you change your mind. That's part of being a professional too.

But if, after all that, you still believe what the client wants is a serious mistake, there comes a point where taking his money becomes the less professional option. Sometimes the best service you can provide is: “No. And if that's what you want to do, you should probably do it with somebody else.”

That's the strange responsibility that comes with selling expertise instead of merely selling a product. The customer doesn't always need obedience. Sometimes he needs an explanation. Sometimes he needs an argument. And occasionally he needs somebody who's willing to lose his business.

(Where do you draw that line? At what point does respecting a client's decision become helping him make a mistake?)