Cheryl Esposito, CEO of Alexa Consulting (alexaconsulting.com), recounts a business mistake: she accepted a client project she wasn’t aligned with and initially tried to make it work. Realizing the misalignment, she stopped the project, had an honest conversation with the client, reframed the work toward actions she supported, and turned it into a lucrative, long-term engagement. The core lesson: don’t say yes to work you don’t want; alignment with the work is essential for good outcomes.
I'm Cheryl Esposito and My website is alexaconsulting.com I'm CEO of Alexa Consulting. We're executive coaching firm. One of the biggest mistakes I ever made in business was to say yes to a proposal from a client, from a potential client that I didn't want to do. I thought, well, perhaps I know how to do all this. I should just say yes and do it. Major mistake. And what it taught me was that if I am not aligned with my work, no matter how good I am at it, if I don't want to do, will not turn out well. And I kept looking for all the reasons why this wasn't working quite right, thinking that it was the client. Bottom line was it was me. I didn't want to be there to do that work. When I finally said to the client, we need to stop. This is not working. Let's shut down this project. And we had a long conversation about why this wasn't working. And the client said, I I can't believe you think this isn't working. So we had another conversation, and it was about my perspective about what did need to be done that turned into a very lucrative project. They did things that I thought they should do that I knew would work, that I was aligned with, and voila. They have been a longtime client ever since. There you go. I should have had that conversation with them in the beginning instead of saying, well, okay, you know, I know how to do this, so we'll do it. Don't do that.
