Treasa: 0:00

Thank you for joining us for day three with our guest co-host, . Today, Melanie and I are going to talk about scope creep. This is a topic that I know is near and dear to pretty much anyone who's ever dealt with a client. It is a topic that is polarizing, so Melanie and I are going to tell you how each of us deal with it, and we hope that will give you some inspiration on stopping scope creep in its tracks when your client tries to add more work to your plate without also adding more money.

Treasa: 0:38

If you're a freelancer, business owner or anyone who deals with clients, you're in the right place. I'm your host, Treasa Edmond. I've been dealing with clients and running my business for nearly two decades and in that time I've dealt with my share of doubt, imposter syndrome and not knowing what to say when a client asks a question I wasn't ready for. I created this podcast to empower you with the boss responses you need to grow your business. Each week, my guest co-host and I will bring you five episodes packed with practical insights. Monday through Thursday, we answer your questions, and Fridays we dive deep to explore how our co-host embraced their role as the boss of their business. Welcome to Boss Responses. We're back with Melanie Padgett Powers for day three. Melanie, what is the question for today?

Melanie: 1:34

The question is I have a long-term client who's great to work with, but they've been gradually increasing the scope of work for our retainer without adjusting the payment help. I didn't know how bad it had gotten until I was reviewing the original agreement. How can I address this to make sure I'm being compensated for the additional work without breaking this relationship?

Treasa: 1:55

Scope creep is the nightmare we all deal with. It really is. This has actually happened to me. I've been in a long-term retainer where I would agree to do one tiny thing and then the next month I would agree to do another tiny thing. Then you look back and you realize you're doing twice as much work as you agreed to do for that price. The first thing you do is you immediately say stop.

Treasa: 2:20

I have an honest conversation with my client and I say this was our original agreement. This is the amount of stuff that I'm doing now. We have two options. The first option is we go back to the scope of work in the original agreement. The second option is that we craft a new agreement that includes this new scope of work with this new fee. I'm very firm about that.

Treasa: 2:45

I give them the two options. That's the only options they get. If they are not willing to do that, or if they say, well, you've not had a problem with it for the last six months, then I say I totally understand where you're coming from. I should have stopped this earlier. This is what needs to happen now. We can either move forward or we can terminate the contract entirely. You have to be really comfortable to stand on your laurels and do that, though, but if it comes to breaking the relationship because they won't respect the work that you do for them, then break it. Otherwise, be very professional. Give them the options. Let them choose one and then go from there, but do not keep working for free. What about you, melanie?

Melanie: 3:29

Yeah, if I want to do the work that I've actually been doing for free and I'm happy to do that I approach it as an opportunity to offer to help them and increase that scope.

Melanie: 3:40

And so I would say something like in the past couple of weeks I've been helping you write your newsletter content or create social media posts. I would map out some of the things that I've done and say I'm happy to help and take some things off your plate, but this was not in our original scope of work. If you want me to continue to do this work, let me know and I'll email you an updated agreement with a new rate and just state it very factual that this is going to be charged. If you don't want to do that, you've discovered you're doing all this work and you don't want to do that I would just stop with the. In the past couple of weeks I've been doing this it's beyond our original scope of work and just end it. Sometimes I think we go on and try to explain and create, try to provide other solutions, but it's just like this is beyond the scope. I'm not going to do this anymore, right.

Treasa: 4:28

Yeah, and I never. I never justify why I'm doing a decision. It's what's best for my business. You don't need to justify it. They don't need to understand that. I really don't have time in my schedule for this. You just say this is outside of the original scope of work. We can move forward. I have availability in my schedule. It's going to cost this amount. I'll send that new invoice today, or we need to move back to the original scope of the agreement and that's it.

Melanie: 4:58

And I think this is a good place to remind ourselves don't apologize, don't say I'm sorry, we've gone beyond the scope of work, or I'm sorry, I can't provide this. You're not sorry, you didn't do anything wrong. So I never apologize unless I've actually made a mistake that I need to apologize for, and so sometimes I have to stop myself and start back spacing my email to take some of that language out.

Treasa: 5:21

No, I do that too. I will write an email and of course, now I've done this long enough that I have scripting for things, I can copy and paste it in and revise it, and I've taken out all that nice language. I'm very empathetic by nature, so I will write an email and my rule of thumb is I do not send it for at least an hour and then I'll go back and edit it and I remove all of the nice and leave the business. Nice is for phone calls, business is business when it comes to emails, and usually if it's a major scope creep, like if it's been happening for a long time, I'll jump on the phone with them or I'll jump on a zoom call so that they can see my face, so that they can see I'm not being a nasty person at this point this is something that's serious.

Treasa: 6:06

I really value working with you, but we do need to resolve the situation. Here are the options. Let's move forward, and sometimes you just it's a good excuse to say this relationship is no longer working out, bye-bye, but that's not someone you want to work with. This is one of those situations that can go a lot of different ways and you'll find out a lot about your client based on their responses and whether or not you want to continue working with them.

Melanie: 6:35

Yeah, that's a great point. I use the phrase a lot. Two phrases I use a lot is I'm happy to help or how can I help you. And then I say I'm happy to take things off your plates, or I've been helping you with this for a couple. I'm helping you, but you're going to pay me for it.

Treasa: 6:51

Yes, yes, yeah. My phrase is I've been pleased to partner with you on this project, or I've been pleased to work with you. I never say the word for it, work with. I use that language very consistently and then, moving forward, I bring it back to the business. But I do, I do a little bit of nice when it comes to that kind of a thing. You are communicating on behalf of your business, not your personal self at that point. So that's where I get a little bit more firm. This is one of those situations that, yeah, you can. If it's a long term retainer, like this person is saying, and it's been happening you also have to look at and maybe this will help you craft that stern response you have to look at the fact that you've been spending so much extra time on their work that you could have been earning from other clients. So how much lost income is that costing you? And if you think about that as you move into it, you're more likely to be able to just stick and say these are our options period.

Melanie: 7:53

This is where I'm a big proponent of time tracking too, because you might be thinking, say, the project is $3,000 every so often and you're like that's great, it's a great client, I get $3,000. And then, if you actually have the scope, creep, and then you break it down and you do the math and you realize your rate. You wanna make $100 an hour and you're making $50 an hour or $60 an hour. You're losing, and that's before taxes. You're losing money and you could go out and find those clients that pay more, and so that is where you've done it, where you've let it go on for a while. You've done that to yourself, but you need to stop and course correct.

Treasa: 8:33

Yep, and that's what happened to me with my client. I started off making a really good rate and by the time I stopped the scope creep, I was losing money. Luckily, they respected my boundaries and we were able to fix that situation, but the fact that it went on as long as it did. I never placed any blame on them. I willingly accepted the work that they sent me, so that was my fault In that situation. Don't go at your client. I can't believe you've been sending me all this extra stuff. You could have said no.

Treasa: 9:04

Right so this is your issue. This is one of those times it's your issue. You don't have to clearly state that. You just have to say this is the thing that's been happening, this is the result, and then move forward from that. So no blame, but you are to blame in this situation.

Melanie: 9:21

Well, and I think too, I've seen freelancers who assume that the client is doing something intentionally or maliciously, and I always give them a benefit of the doubt, unless they're just being really obviously nasty. But I give them a benefit of the doubt and I use it as an education. They have sent you work and you're responding to the emails and they're texting you at night and you're responding. Why would they think that's wrong if you are not telling them that's wrong? So it's a way to educate them, like on IRS rules or remind them about your scope or set boundaries. I never look at it as look at what they're doing. They're being jerks about this and they just might not know or realize it. They've got a million other things they're doing. They're not thinking about you all day long. So anytime you can educate them and bring them back on track, I think, as you pointed out in your example, you're not gonna lose every client. I might not be able to afford it, but some are just like oh, okay, yeah, let's renegotiate.

Treasa: 10:27

Yeah, and if it's an absolutely great client, they'll pay you more than they'll say. No, I really think I would like to increase it. Why don't we go ahead and add this as well? And I've doubled retainers doing that simply because I put the brakes on and I said I am really happy to support you in your efforts on this. This is outside of the scope of our original agreement. The new rate moving forward would be if we continue this or we can go back to the original agreement.

Treasa: 10:52

You're not being mean to them. You're not, and you're not saying how dare you send me the extra work. You're just saying I'm happy to do this if you wanna move forward. This is what it'll cost you, just like your original conversation. Yeah, this is a, and if they get nasty about it, then maybe they were just seeing how much they could pile on your plate without you complaining, because people will do that, but that's rare, so never assume it. I'm with Melanie. Give them the benefit of the doubt, tell them what you need to do to move forward and then go with it. All right, join us tomorrow for our final question of the week, and we hope you'll join us on Friday when we dive deep into how Melanie built and runs her business and how she manages her clients.