How to say “No” And Keep Your Client

Yesterday, I posted five situations in which you’d have to tell a client “No.” In the comments, Nancy said that she uses qualifiers with clients, and Pete noted that he often passed work on to other freelancers. This made him a problem solver and generous both, and brought him more clients. Dawn said she asked for more time and when the client was in a tight spot, often got the time she asked for.

The miller's daughter could spin stray into gold, but only with the magical help of Rumpelstiltskin.

Today, I’d like to offer three ways to say “No” without feeling like you are deserting your client. Even more important, this “No” will leave you feeling like you’ve done your best without succumbing to the people-pleasing trap that loads up your desk with Rumpelstiltskin-like impossible tasks.

1. Say “No,” followed by something you can do. This may be part of the job or the whole job in your time limit. You could say, “The Acme project needs to be done by tomorrow? I’m sorry, I can’t take it on as an overnight job, but I can take it on and finish it in 10 days. Would that work for you?  This is a mix of Nancy and Dawn’s suggestion, and it works well. You offer to help, but not in the way that makes you feel pressured or manipulated.

Don't get buried by taking on too much. "the Awakening" a statue once buried at Hains Point, D.C. and now in Oxon Hill, MD.

2. Say “No” to the job, but offer to do something that fits into your schedule or budget. “Marge, I really can’t take on the whole Acme project, but I can take on the other project that’s piling up on your desk. Would that help you?” Many clients that are trying to put out one fire don’t notice the second smouldering on their desk. I you listen carefully to your clients, you can hear both what is urgent and what is important to them.

3. Say “No,” but offer to help find someone else to do the job. This is Pete’s idea with a twist. You can offer to manage the job and sub-contract it out to a freelancer you know and can work with. This allows you to keep the job in your view and have someone else work on it. As a project manager, you will not be doing the process work for free.

You can also introduce your client to a freelance colleague and let them work directly. This depends entirely on your level of trust with your colleague.

You can see that each of these techniques has three steps:

• Be plain and clear about saying “Yes” or “No”
• Say what you are willing to do, and name the timeline that you can work with.
• Offer to manage the solution in a way that works for you (take on another project or suggest someone else)

You’ll feel better about being clear and feel relieved not to take on a project out of guilt. Offering what you can do instead of what you can’t puts you in a position of strength, and that’s a good place to be with any client.

—Quinn McDonald’s left brain develops, writes and teaches training programs in writing and communicating.

Adding White Space in Your Life

White space. If it’s not in your life you are missing something. You may feel overbooked, understaffed, and exhausted. Yep, white space. What is white space, exactly? If you’ve ever done design work, you consider both the space where there are words and images (message space) and the space that is empty–called “white space.”

White space is important. Too much copy and illustratrion, and you feel exhausted looking at the page. You often don’t read any of it. Too little white space and you feel lost and disconnected, not sure you understand what you are looking at.

From Larisa Thomason's article on using white space in design. Link is in article, below

If you know this already, you might explore “passive white space”–margins and spaces between paragraphs, and “active” white space, the space purposely designed to give your eyes and mind a rest.

If you are interested in how to use white space in design, read Larisa Thomason’s excellent article “The Use of White Space.” The image on the left is from that article.

I worked in ad agencies and book design, so I value the good use of white space.

So yesterday, when I was having a  terrible, no-good, horrible, really bad day (Judith Viorst knows about those days). I felt jammed up by 7 a.m., when the tree trimmer didn’t show up. The day got worse, and I was exhausted, angry, and useless by 10 a.m.

I made a choice that changed the day. Here’s how I did it:

1. I stopped doing my work. Put the phone down, signed out of email. I needed to distance myself and my anger from my clients.

2. I took a break. I got a glass of ice tea, looked out the window  and did some deep breathing.

3. I re-set priorities. This is the hard part. I had to call clients, work on projects,  sort out the muses for a blog post. But I knew if I forced myself ahead with the considerable self-discipline I am capable of, I would do more damage than good. I’d make mistakes because I was frustrated; I’d miss correcting those mistakes because I was rushed. I’d create more mistakes and less forward motion.

4. I added white space to my day. I cut out some items I thought I had to do. I added a few administrative tasks that were more noodly, didn’t require a lot of brain power, but needed to be done. I added a half-hour of reading a magazine between tasks. Another spot of white space. I ran some errands. At the end of the day, I had accomplished some necessary items, hadn’t ruined client relationships and felt less harrassed and frustrated.  I need to be clear here: I chose not to do some important things because the risk of doing them and failing was more probable than being able to push through them successfully. This is the key to success–put off the thing that has to be done, in order to save it. It is a hard decision to make, and exactly why adding white space is a life saver.

I now have a name for deliberately putting off work because I am emotionally incapable of doing it. This is very different from avoiding work, creating excuses, or not meeting a deadline because you didn’t get up early enough. You know the difference. My day was saved and ended well because I added white space. Try it.

–Quinn McDonald is a communication trainer. She develops and teaches workshops to help people communicate more clearly.

Slow Works, Slow Wins

You have an idea. It’s a great idea. You gather materials and carry it out. It doesn’t work. You give up. What made you think that would work, anyway?

Slow motion water burst from 3dverstas

Wait. Act fast, fail fast, criticize fast. All that speed doesn’t allow you to learn a damn thing. Cutting your losses doesn’t teach you anything except how to cut.

There is a huge benefit to doing things slowly. We live in a super-fast culture, but it’s the same culture that doesn’t like mistakes, that encourages blamestorming as a fair shot in competition.

What’s the benefit of slowing down?

You can anticipate. Slowing down let’s you think before you act. You can think through the next several steps to see if they are what you want, if those steps move you to the result. If they don’t, you can choose another plan.

Slowing down saves time. Anticipating helps you plan more than one step ahead, create a Plan B, and discover options. All that saves time. Saving time reduces anxiety and possibly money. All because you slowed down.

Practice helps you get it right. Slowing down allows you to practice your steps before you have to do them. Practicing anything, from a piano concerto to a speech, makes you better at it. “Winging it” will just result in making your mistakes public. Slow down. Practice. Then when you do it, it will work, and you will know how come it worked. That allows you to do it again–the right way.

Slowing down slows time down. When time slows down, you see more and you understand more. The more you understand, the more you learn, the more you can use what you know.

Excellence takes time. No one was born an expert. You are not the exception. When you do things step by step you can see mistakes, often before you make them. You have more time to do each step, if you aren’t racing. John Wheeler, the physicist, said, “Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.” Take advantage of time.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer, trainer and life coach. She understands the value of slow.

Rethinking Praise

The evaluation form is my chance to find out if I’ve met the expectations of the class. Over the years I’ve been running training programs, a lot of interesting information has come my way. I’ve changed classes, added suggested topics, and, occasionally, wondered what would possess someone to write a comment on the eval. form.

Adults learn differently from kids. Adults need to hear information more often, in different ways, in order to remember it longer. The word “educate” comes from the Latin “educare’ and it means ‘to pull out of,’ not ‘to stuff into.” Most people in the training sessions learn a lot from sharing information with people who work in similar business environments. Maybe even more than from me.

From me, they need to hear a practical application, examples that resonate with their experience, and reinforcement. If I tell a participant they are “wrong” or their writing “isn’t up to standards” in a training class, they won’t hear anything else I say.

My classes are short–one or two days. I can’t teach someone how to write in that time, or how to do presentations. But I can give them tools to use that will make them a better writer or presenter over time. And one way I do it is to find something to praise in every piece the participant reads or demonstrates in a presentation. By praising them for something they are doing well, it is more likely they will continue to do it. That alone will make them a better writer or presenter, and that’s my goal. I’m not a magician, just a trainer.

But every now and then, I get a comment on the evaluation form that baffles me. “You should be harsher in your criticism” said one. A few months later I got the more enigmatic,”You did not criticize other people’s work strongly enough.” I’m still not sure if they thought other’s work needed to be critiqued or if I had said something they interpreted as harsh. A few weeks ago I found this on an evaluation, “This isn’t a New Age training center, I expect some criticism that stings so I can improve.” What was that person’s childhood like? Is s/he a manager? Do they sting their co-workers with their remarks?

I’ll take being marked down because I’m New Age. I’d like to see a whole New Age of kindness and encouragement. I think we need it.

—Quinn McDonald is a trainer and certified creativity coach who teaches business writing, writing for the web, writing the everything journal, putting power back in powerpoint, and other classes. See them all at QuinnCreative.com. Image by Quinn. (c) 2007. All rights reserved.