Have you ever heard the advice on how to handle doctors who aren’t addressing your medical complaints?

 

You ask them to note in your chart that they’re choosing not to address the issue you brought up.

 

That’s because now, their decision to ignore input on how your body should be treated is formally documented. That makes it concrete. If something goes wrong in the future, it can’t be ignored.

 

Documentation has the power to shift a dynamic and something similar goes on with expectation management and your clients.

 

Fixing the Inadequate Proposal

 

I got a question about this question on Twitter. I’m not going to share the exact details, but here’s the gist:

 

• Client asks for a proposal for social media. They’re obviously under the impression that this is what they need to fix their marketing challenges.

 

• Freelancer offers social media services, but knows the client’s issues run a lot deeper. Their website is a mess.

 

• What they need is social media, but also website work so that the social feeds into something that actually converts.

 

So what do you do in a case like that? You have a couple of options.

 

You can let them know up front that their raggedy website is going to kill any money they put into social. Honestly though, it tends to take more to get people to really hear what you’re saying.

 

In this situation I’ve created a proposal that gave them a few options, with a written (and gently-worded) comment that the option they originally suggested would only address a limited problem. (It’s not a bad idea to hype up the preferable option too.)

 

Some people will still charge forward, but at that point, they can’t say they weren’t warned and that you didn’t go above and beyond in your duties as a business partner.

 

So next time you get stuck considering work you know isn’t going to work, remember the “OK, but this is what’s gon happen” clause. It’ll smooth out a lot of rough edges.

 

 

Megan