Treasa: 0:00

Welcome back to the Boss Responses podcast. Our co-host this week is the delightful Melanie Pagett Powers. Melanie is the owner of Mel Edits and she is also a podcast host. She hosts the Deliberate Freelancer podcast, which focuses on the business side of freelancing, and her newest podcast is Association Station, where she features interviews with membership association leaders about content and media. Check out both of those podcasts.

Treasa: 0:30

Let's go ahead and jump into today's question. If you're a freelancer, business owner or anyone who deals with clients, you're in the right place. I'm your host, teresa Edmond. I've been dealing with clients and running my business for nearly two decades. In that time, I've dealt with my share of doubt, imposter syndrome and not knowing what to say when a client asked 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 are in our first week with Melanie Padgett-Powers. Hopefully there will be more weeks in the future. Melanie, what is the question for today?

Melanie: 1:33

The question is I'm having trouble communicating with a difficult client. They want me to attend meetings and interact almost as a member of their team and I'm not comfortable doing that. How can I manage their expectations and maintain a positive working relationship?

Treasa: 1:49

This is a good one and my answer is it depends on where you are in the relationship. If it's a new relationship, it's time to put on the brakes and actually set boundaries and expectations. I do that with an email. I say that as a contractor, as a freelancer. However, you're representing yourself. I'm not an employee. I run my own business. I'm not able to attend meetings, I don't have the availability in my schedule, but I'm happy to communicate with someone on your team who can translate all of that information for me, however you want to put that. But making sure they know that boundary exists and making sure that they know that you're not available off the cuff.

Treasa: 2:29

Whenever you're working with a client, you are responsible for getting the assignment from them, essentially what project you're working on, all of the details for that, and then giving them a deliverable. They have no say over anything in between. How you work, where you work, what meetings you attend, that's all up to you and you can charge them for that. If it's a client I like and the meetings add value to the project, I will say I'm happy to attend that meeting. The fee for that would be would you like me to send you over an invoice and that usually stops that Right quick.

Treasa: 3:04

If it's a long-term relationship and you've let this go on for a while, you're going to have more trouble. I still put the brakes on. I still let them know that requiring that I attend certain things could shift me into employee status, which is an issue with taxes, and I'm not willing to go there and I don't want to bring any trouble on them because of classification, and then I move on from there. Sometimes you have to sever the relationship because they just won't respect those boundaries. What do you do, Melanie?

Melanie: 3:34

Yeah, I think that's all great advice. I'll just reiterate a couple of things you said the setting the boundaries you mentioned off the cuff. I think that's a lot of times where the problem comes. They just start emailing you questions and all of a sudden you realize, yeah, this might just be a quick email, but it's distracting me for something else, it's taking up my time, it's adding up. You have to think about it.

Melanie: 3:56

And that's really where they're treating you like an employee, where they're just sending you these quick emails and I love playing the IRS card because that usually scares people and it should. They shouldn't be treating you like an employee. They can get into a lot of trouble that way and sometimes I try to give them the benefit of the doubt that they just don't know. So I try to take the emotion out of it and really, as you said, just state it very clearly and use it as an educational opportunity, because they might not know, they might be the first freelancer or they might have had other freelancers that did all of these things you're doing and didn't push back. So yeah, I think those are good approaches.

Treasa: 4:34

Yeah, and most of them don't know Some larger corporations. They don't mind paying the $150,000 fee if they're caught, because it takes a lot to catch them, but that can really hurt you as a freelancer. So you don't wanna cross that boundary ever. One of the other things that I like to do is I have an onboarding packet that I send to every client when we start our relationship and all of my boundaries are very clearly laid out in there when I will communicate with them. So I answer emails within 24 business hours. I always answer them faster, almost always.

Treasa: 5:11

But setting that expectation that I'm not going to respond immediately and I'm not always available, that actually, I think, slows that process, so it keeps them from doing it. I also have a link in there. I don't just accept phone calls. So if you have an issue with the project and you'd like to talk to me, here's a link to my calendar where you can schedule a call and I'm happy to talk to you about that. But they have to schedule it. So, once again, it's nothing's reactionary, it's all very mellow. It makes it easier for me. I don't like the stress of hey, someone's calling my phone, but I find that also slows that roll on the client's end and it sets expectations that I'm a professional, this is my business, I will get back with you and this is very important to me, but I will get back with you within this set timeframe and it makes a huge difference.

Melanie: 6:04

I think setting those expectations is so key and that's where you have to really know yourself and think through what expectations you want, because some people love jumping on the phone I don't like the phone either, but some people that would be fine and so really knowing what works best for you and letting the client know that and sticking to that we might talk about this on another day, but the scope of work issue is if you haven't mapped out the scope of work and excruciating detail upfront, maybe it's a time to step back and really map that out and make sure that you're both on the same page.

Treasa: 6:40

Yeah, with client management, an ounce of prevention is definitely worth a pound of cure. Spend the time upfront. Set up the relationship so that it's structured, so that they know what's coming. I've had people say but that feels like I'm telling them what to do. You're not you're giving them guidelines, you're saying this is what I'm going to do. It takes all of the weight off of their shoulders and I think that actually helps most clients be much more comfortable with the relationship.

Melanie: 7:06

And you're setting the boundary that you are a business. When we walk into a restaurant or a lawyer's office or wherever we know or we learn quickly, what do we have to wait? Do we have to sign in? Do we have to talk to the receptionist or the host of a restaurant, Whatever their kind of rules and structure is? And we're setting that up for our business as well and it's good. It's a good subtle reminder to them constantly that you're a business owner. You're not this just quote unquote a vendor that they can use and be used to their best of their ability. It's just anything you can do to constantly remind them of that.

Treasa: 7:45

Yep, and I never. When I'm talking to them, I very seldom, if ever, refer to myself as a freelancer or contractor. I talk about my business. So this is the way I do business, or this is the business schedule. Please feel free to schedule an appointment, and I do that in my onboarding paperwork as well. I'm very personable, I'm very friendly, but it all comes back to what's best for my business, and creating that divide keeps them, I believe, from treating me like an employee, so I don't have to deal with it near as much as I did when I first started out. That was my very first major client ended up being an incredibly toxic client, and it was because they consistently treated me like an employee. Then it just escalated. So stop it before it starts. Make sure you do all of the work upfront and then you won't have this problem as much in the future.

Melanie: 8:34

Yeah, exactly said.

Treasa: 8:36

All right, thank you very much, Melanie, and come back tomorrow. We'll talk about another question.