Boss Responses
Want to know a secret? Your client isn't always right. But how do you tell them that without ruining your relationship? You give a Boss Response.
When you approach your clients from a position of mutual respect and power, you develop a positive working relationship that turns your client into one of your best resources. I believe every business owner can grow their business when they step up and run their business like a Boss.
But how do you successfully navigate tricky client questions and difficult situations to create superfan clients? Boss Responses comes to you with five episodes a week packed full of Boss Responses, real-life examples, and interviews with successful business owners who share their best and worst client management and communication stories.
Boss Responses
#56: What to do when the Project is TOO Much with Sarah Greesonbach
What happens when a freelance project becomes more complicated than imagined? Join Treasa Edmond and guest co-host Sarah Greesonbach as they answer a questions for Zach, a graphic designer who's found himself in over his head after he accepts a dense, technical biotech project. It's good to stretch ourselves and learn new skills and niches, but when is up-skilling during a client project a bad idea? We stress the importance of honesty over the false comfort of "faking it till you make it," and explore how open conversations and leveraging client resources can help us complete difficult tasks. We also look at when a freelancer should renegotiate terms when projects outgrow their initial scope, so you can still provide great quality without taking a financial hit. Listen in for insights and strategies that freelancers and business owners can use to turn complex challenges into successful outcomes.
About Our Guest
Sarah Greesonbach is the founder of B2B Content Studio and a seasoned expert in B2B marketing content. With over a decade of experience writing for Fortune 100 brands and top executives, Sarah specializes in transforming complex ideas into clear, compelling content. She has worked with industries ranging from SaaS and HR tech to retail and higher education, helping businesses showcase their unique value to prospective customers.
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Welcome back to Boss Responses. Have you ever been put in that situation where you accept a project from a client and it ends up being way more than you thought it was, or it's above your level and you thought you could upskill fast enough, but then you run into issues? Sarah Greesonbach joins me for her second day on the Boss Responses podcast and we answer a question about this very topic. Have a listen and let us know what you think. 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.
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 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-hosts embrace their role as the boss of their business. Welcome to Boss Responses. We are back for day two with Sarah. Sarah, what's the question for today?
Sarah Greesonbach:Zach writes. I'm a graphic designer and I've recently landed a contract with a new client in the biotech industry. During our initial discussions I felt pretty confident and we talked about creating infographics explaining complex scientific processes, thinking it would be similar to some other graphic work I've done. Now I realize the content is more technical than I anticipated. I'm struggling to understand the concepts well enough to visualize them and I'm worried I won't be able to deliver the quality I promised. Should I be upfront with the client about my limitations or try to quickly upskill to meet their needs?
Sarah Greesonbach:Now that I'm looking at this again.
Treasa Edmond:Sarah, I was hoping you would answer this question first.
Sarah Greesonbach:That's cool. An answer came to me while I was reading, but I want to hear what you have to say.
Treasa Edmond:My thoughts on this are twofold. One never lie to your clients. You can yeah, you can absolutely tell a client I'm learning this new skill and I will give it all I've got and I can deliver what you want, but you don't lie to them. You do not ever. The whole fake it till you make it thing is a sham. You do not fake your expertise, you just don't. You can say I do this thing and not tell them how well you do it. You don't say I'm an expert in this thing unless you are. That's just that's used car salesmen. Don't do that people. However, you can also upskill to meet their needs. I would have an honest conversation with my client at this point, because you already understand that it's more technical than you anticipated, and just say that. Tell them this content is much more technical than I anticipated. I'm struggling to understand some of the concepts and I want to make sure I visualize them the way you want them visualized. Would it be possible for me to talk to an in-house expert and have them explain this to me in the way you would explain it to your clients, because they have the people and they will loan you the people.
Treasa Edmond:It's a matter of asking for knowledge. Don't just assume you can what's the word? Fudge your way through. Don't make things up. Go find expert help or find an expert and pay part of your fee for them to translate this for you. I'm huge on. If you promised good quality, then you have to deliver good quality, and sometimes you use all of your fee figuring out how to do that and then you never make that mistake again. But that's my big thing. Don't fake it until you make it. Have an honest conversation with your client. Tell them you have no problem with the graphics, work on the design and all of that stuff, but you need someone to translate it for you. And most clients aren't even going to blink about that. They're going to say sure, we've got a person.
Treasa Edmond:So, what would you do, Sarah?
Sarah Greesonbach:Yeah well, two things kind of jumped out as not warning signs, but like blinking lights the words upfront and then quickly upskill. That kind of sends me into a mind space of worrying that Zach feels like he's not capable to do this or that it's somehow his fault that this came up. And I just want to quickly zap that out of the way, because when we take on a project or even a client, it is not a marriage commitment right off the bat, even after you have signed a contract, as long as we are respecting everybody's finances and time and everything. At any point in that you can withdraw consent and say, hey, I realized I made a mistake, I didn't understand blank. Or this is going to be a scope increase because of blank and blank, and the vibe I'm getting from this is like it's going to take a lot more work than he thought. Am I on the hook for that and am I going to lose money on this now that I've promised something that actually it's quite difficult and I've done that several times, especially with white papers If I get assigned to a project at a standard rate and then I start to get into it, listen to interviews and realize whoa, this is very technical.
Sarah Greesonbach:This is in biotech or fintech or something with AI and it's literally going to take me like a day to just figure out what is happening. And I'll go back to the client and explain the situation and say could we approve a technical fee for this to cover some of the extra stuff that I'm gonna have to do to make this perfect? And no one's ever said no to that, honestly, and no one's ever fired me for that either. And you can phrase it in a way that asks and says I would like to do blank. Is that something you can approve?
Treasa Edmond:And I don't know 80, something you can approve, and 80% of the time I think they're going to say yes, especially in the biotech industry. They're going to want it done right and well and they already trust you, so that's just going to need this extra step. They would much rather have that than you not provide what you promised. I mean, that's just across the board If you can take the weight of solving the problem on yourself, even if it requires an extra fee. That's why they hire us. They want us to be able to deal with the problems and just deliver them the final product and if we see there is a problem and we're proactive. I think that's the big thing In situations like this and you mentioned white papers that's the only time I've ever ran into something like this was on a white paper and it ended up being this so complex topic and I'm like this is gobbledygook.
Treasa Edmond:I can't even translate this, and I can translate foreign languages, that's. I went back to the client and I'm like this is well beyond the realm of comprehension for any normal person. I need to dumb it down or I need to translate this into language that everyone will understand. I need a person to help me do that and they'll just do it or they'll pay to have it done.
Sarah Greesonbach:Yeah, an absolute worst case. They're going to write back I'm sorry, we can't approve that fee. This is the extent of the budget. And then you still have permission because you work for yourself, so you can still say I'm so sorry. I can complete this first one, but the rest are going to be out of scope. And let me refer you to someone who I think could do a marvelous job with this. Yeah, things happen. You're not their employee or their parent or their child, like you're not in a lifelong relationship.
Treasa Edmond:No, and usually if you're working with a company that has a very complex process or there's scientific knowledge involved, yeah, they're pretty upfront about asking people, or asking for people who have some knowledge in that field, or they're just looking for you to be an expert in your field and if expertise in that other field needs to happen, they will provide that. And I'm interested in this one as well, because I've worked with graphic designers as a content writer and they don't translate the content. Usually, the content's translated for them and then they just do the graphics. So it might be a case of they've missed a step in-house and they need to tell you a general idea of what graphic they need for each section of the infographic. But there are a lot of things at play there.
Treasa Edmond:Like Sarah said, zach, it's not on you to solve all of the problems and you shouldn't have to upskill in the scientific processes at the last minute to get this done. They should either have a person who does that, or they should be able to help with that process, or you just need to walk away from the project. But I will still say don't lie to your clients and have an honest conversation with them. So it's not necessarily just being upfront about your limitations as nothing to do with your limitations. It's communicating with them that there's an issue on the project and then working together to solve that problem.
Sarah Greesonbach:I let out a gasp of dismay because you're absolutely right, a graphic designer has nothing to do with the words, quite literally. So in all the ones that I'm doing, I'm creating the document of 400 to 600 words in a chart laid out for the graphic designer, and then they decide on the data visualization or flow and all that stuff on the data visualization or flow and all that stuff. So to actually take content, even a finished, polished resource, and then turn it into an infographic is a two or three person job.
Treasa Edmond:Yeah, so somewhere a step's been missed. It's not anything to do with your limitations, zach, even if you had that conversation and said that you could do it and you were really confident about it at that point in time. That's still with the understanding that they're giving you what you need to do your job, and I don't feel like they have in this situation. I think that's it for me, anything else to add to that, sarah.
Sarah Greesonbach:Not that I can think of.
Treasa Edmond:All right, that's day two with Sarah. Come back tomorrow and we're going to look at how you collaborate with someone else to bring in higher value contracts.
