Setting Boundaries: Hard, but Worth It

The life of a freelancer is full of pitfalls. It’s also a wonderful way to work if you are determined and strong. In yesterday’s post, I talked about guidelines for taking on a job. I missed a lot of the warning signs and had to quit a job. Today, I’m talking about boundaries necessary for a freelancer to establish a healthy relationship with a client.

I have many wonderful clients in my life; I’ve been fortunate to have a long line of great clients. But the freelance relationship needs boundaries to make it work, and when I don’t enforce them, I wind up in trouble. Here are some rules I’ve learned to set. Sometimes I’ve learned them over and over again.

1. The best a client is going to treat you is when they want you to take the job. If they are angry, shifting blame, or unclear then, it will only get worse. Smile, thank them, and leave. Fast.

You can build your own boundary, of your own design. It has to work for you, it's not meant to work for others. It does have to be fair. Image from coolboom.com

2. Set boundaries early on. Boundaries help keep your hands and decisions clean. Be clear. “I don’t work on weekends, so getting me the team materials on Friday afternoon and having it due on Monday won’t work for me.” You get to choose and set your boundaries. Your boundaries should be fair, simple, and clear.

3. Expect push-back on your boundaries. The client may think all freelancers work from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. each night and both days all weekend. The client may want to treat you as an employee, but without the benefits. The client absolutely doesn’t understand how freelancing works–that you get paid only for times you are working, and waiting doesn’t count.

The client generally doesn’t understand that you have other clients for whom you are also doing rush work, and can’t push it aside every time they phone. Everyone always knows his job better than anyone else, and you know freelance.

Your boundaries have to reflect your reality. Often it’s like explaining to a horse what a hamburger tastes like–an exercise in futility. That why boundaries are practical–they require enforcing, not explanations.

Surveying the boundaries to keep them in place. Image: enterconstruction.com

4. Don’t change your boundaries. Even if you want to be nice. Even if you want to please the client. Even if sucking up is in your DNA. Once you change the boundaries, the client will know they are paper boundaries, not brick boundaries. Boundaries protect your strength and your ability to work hard when you are working on that project. Backing off on the boundaries encourages the client to engage in scope-creep (asking for more and more for the same price and deadline). Pretty soon you’ll be giving up your kidney.

5. It’s OK to stick to your rules, even when the client doesn’t like you. The client doesn’t like you because you are sticking to your sensible rules. You chose them because they are sensible and healthy. Expect accusations like “you aren’t a team player!” or “I’m really disappointed in you!” or “You are not professional!”  or “That’s industry standard.” When those accusations are hurled at you it’s a good time to remember that we often accuse people of faults we have ourselves.

Stand your ground.

Create your own list of non-negotiable demands and boundaries. Make them fair. Then stick to them. If you get bowled over, outvoted, and threatened with public disgrace, take those threats seriously. You may have to walk away from the job.

Quitting or firing a client lets you leave a lost battle before you get burned. If you stay, you’ll not only get burned, you will also have to dig through your charred remains, searching for your soul.

Quinn McDonald sets boundaries, but will always need practice in enforcing them.

Busting the Myth of “Never Give Up!”

Winston Churchill said it, so did Ross Perot. Never give up. Never, ever. It’s downright un-American to give up. Suck it up, soldier on. No matter who tells you you can’t, do it anyway. For me, there is a difference between being determined and being stubborn. Half of being smart is knowing what you are dumb at and not doing it. The other half is knowing what you are smart at and doing that, instead.

Winston Churchill, from NobelPrize.org

So, just to set the record straight, what Churchill actually said was:

“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never, Never, Never, Never give up.”

The capitals are Churchill’s. Notice the small part we seldom see,”except to convictions of honor and good sense.” And those are the ones I didn’t see either. Churchill was determined, but he was no fool. And I was. I should have memorized the “except . . .good sense.”

Freelancers (full disclosure: I’m one of them) actually have excellent reasons to give up. My failing is that I seldom do give up when I should. No, I will cause myself harm in order to please my client. It’s simply not a good idea.

Here’s what happened, and it was totally my responsibility: I took on a job that was missing five of the seven non-negotiable demands before taking on a job. What was I thinking? (What did I learn from this?)

1. Read the Statement of Work (SOW). All of it. If the client says, “the other three pages are just budget stuff that you shouldn’t see,” a sticky-note-size red warning flag should start to wave. If the client says, “Here’s the paragraph that is about writing, I’ll just tell you about the rest of it so you don’t have to read it,” the red flag should double in size. Maybe more, the size of a placemat.

2. Know your team. If you haven’t met the team, don’t agree to anything. I’m not a big fan of teamwork because past experience has proven (often) that 20 percent of the team does 80 percent of the work. At the very least, get the team members’ emails, and ask for a meeting well before the project starts. If you don’t get any answers, call them. If you still don’t get answers, the red warning flag is now the size of a table cloth. You are in Dismal Swamp territory of work.

It's a choice. Sign from linguagreca.com

3. Know the exact pay and how it will be paid out. Just because you have worked for the client for years for the same amount does not mean the amount didn’t get cut in half last week. Ask. If the amount is much less than usual, ask to think about it overnight. Do not nod your head because you want to be nice. Nice is wonderful, but think over your decision.

• Can you afford to be nice?
• Are you being nice just to be a people-pleaser and you are already feeling resentful? Not fair to anyone.
• Does nice pay your mortgage or buy enough groceries?

4. Know the project leader. If there is no leader, run. The idea that any idea is as good as the next idea, or that no leader is needed, or that any process will do, just doesn’t work. Don’t Twinkle, Block. The red flag is now big enough to cover a king-size bed, with room for pillow shams. (Yes, I deliberately used “sham.”) If the leader is weak or over-stressed, you are in way over your head.

5. There must be a kick-off meeting. Without a kick-off meeting that includes the team leader and all the team members, no work can start. Kick-off meetings clarify roles, set priorities and deadlines. Everyone must know them, hear them from the team leader. Red flag is now the size of a tarp on a baseball field in the rain. 

6. Know the deadlines.The biggest warning sign of all is a starting date that

Know the deadline and how firm it is.

has been pushed aside by the client several times, with no corresponding shift in the completion date.

7. Ask to see the pre-work, or existing materials before you start. A client may say, “Half of this is done already,” but if you don’t see it, that half may be just in the client’s magical thinking list.

It’s easy to ignore the rules if you have worked with a client for a long time, if you are an inveterate people-pleaser, or if you afraid of being disliked. If you break your rules, you will be stuck with someone else’s rules. There is a time to quit, and that’s when the signs point to disaster that you can’t fix, adjust or avert.

And that’s what I did. With five of the seven signs flapping in the tornado of disaster, I told the project leader I couldn’t continue. I was disappointed in myself and then learned why I set boundaries. More on boundaries tomorrow.

Oh, as soon as I said I could not meet the deadline under the circumstances, and was told I had agreed to it, and I was breaking the contract (I hadn’t signed one), and shamed; as soon as I walked away, the deadline was moved weeks into the future. Because, you know, it wasn’t possible to meet it.

–Quinn McDonald is re-reading the seven non-negotiable steps to taking a pressure-riddled job. Because she needs to.