You’re going to make mistakes. I can tell you this right now with absolute, 100% certainty. It’s just a fact of life as a human being. So stop trying to be Little Miss Perfect Pointdexter. They may not be convenient… they are often messy and untidy, but mistakes and imperfections are the patina of life. At the very least, you have to accept this. You might even embrace it and have it work in your favor.
Talking about mistakes and how those situations are handled can be really useful in any truly authentic consultation discussion. In fact, as crazy as it sounds, talking frankly about mistakes actually puts clients at ease. They trust you more because you aren’t making far-fetched promises they know in their heart simply aren’t feasible. Someone who says they never make mistakes is full of it (or delusional). No matter how attractive fantasies and wishful thinking are, we recognize this at a very basic level. And so you become someone much more trustworthy and believable in their eyes when you admit the truth of the matter.
That’s not to say you should be telling clients, “Yeah, I’m gonna make mistakes left and right, all day long!” Um, you wouldn’t be competent or worth working with if that was the case. The point is that while you should absolutely be at the top of your game and always giving your best to clients, there are going to be occasions when you misunderstand or mishear or lack information. Sometimes you know to get clarification, sometimes you don’t. Whatever the case, there are simply going to be occasions (and they should occasions, not the routine) when either external or internal factors foul you up. You want to get a feel for how a prospective client will handle those situations as well as how you expect to be treated at all times. Talking about these things upfront helps you weed out potentially wrong-fitting clients and bring everyone’s attitudes and expectations to a more conscious level of awareness and understanding.
What I like to tell prospective clients is basically this:
“I am exceptionally good at what I do. I can absolutely, confidently declare this. I’m also human and once in awhile, I am going to make a mistake. I very much need and want to know when I make a mistake so that I can fix it and work to ensure it doesn’t happen again where that’s possible. I welcome your input and feedback. To make sure our relationship remains happy, mutually respectful and most importantly, helpful to you, I look to work with clients who aren’t so quick to be upset, but rather will trust and have confidence in the fact that I will make things right once it is brought to my attention. And I will always strive to earn and maintain that trust and confidence. At any time that I fail to maintain your trust and confidence in my service and abilities, I would fully expect that you’d want to end our relationship. In any situation, I always, always expect to be treated and spoken to respectfully, in the same way as I always endeavor to speak to and treat my clients with respect. “
This, of course, is always delivered conversationally, but those are the main points I like to cover. We then have a discussion about their thoughts on the subject. Based on their tone and responses in this discussion, I can usually tell (or at least simply decide) if someone seems like he’d be a good client to work with, one who will be likely to maintain calm composure, respect and professionalism towards me on the occasion that I’ve made a mistake.
[Important Side Note: You naturally want clients with whom you can have great relationships. Plain and simple, it's just not profitable or energizing to work with poor-fitting, abusive clients. And so you choose clients well as best you can. That's all any of us can do, and it's one of the reasons for conducting consultations. But if it turns out a client isn't so great to work with, you always have the option of ending the relationship. You are never stuck. Remember that.]
Often in discussions about mistakes (and setting those expectations realistically in advance), I like to use proofreading as an analogy. Because unrealistic expectations are often rooted in impossible ideas of perfection. I tell clients that the value of a proofreader is not that he or she is going to be perfect. We should never proofread our own work because we can’t see our mistakes much of the time. And even if you give it to five other people, each of those five people is going to miss something. Guaranteed. So while all of us (including clients) might work and strive for perfection, we always need to keep in mind that it’s not “perfectly” attainable. Likewise, the value in great proofreading is not that the proofreader will never, ever miss something. Even if they are pretty darn close to being perfect, the real value is that they have command of the language and rules of grammar to know what to look for in the first place. Skill is important, but without that knowledge and sensibility at the core, there would be no skill.
So this is part of the conversation I have with clients during our consultation to help shape their expectations and feel them out with regard to how they deal with mistakes (or any other situation for that matter) and what ideas they may have about perfection. The more you conduct consultations, have these discussions and work with clients, the more you’ll develop your own green and red flag intuitions for deciding who is likely to be a great client and who is more likely to be a demoralizing soul-sucker.
Hint: Prospects who have realistic expectations about mistakes and give all indications of being able to maintain an even keel and professional demeanor towards you tend to make for better clients. 
