#262: Setting Expectations

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia.

Hey there. Welcome to another episode of the High Income Business Writing Podcast, the number one podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love for better clients. With over 1 million downloads from listeners just like you across 101 countries, this episode is much shorter than usual. Rather than my typical 45 minute format. Today I'm sharing a quick tip with you. This is part of the audio insights I publish for my private coaching clients every weekday, and I thought you'd find it helpful. So here we go.

Hope you enjoy it. See, if this situation sounds familiar, you start working with a client and you immediately realize that you've made a mistake. So maybe they start asking for things that are either out of scope, you know, oh, yeah, we want you to interview these seven people and there was no discussion of that. You just made some assumptions or maybe you made some assumptions about timelines, and now the timeline that they're asking for is unreasonable. So this kind of falls into the category of setting the right expectations and creating and maintaining strong boundaries with your client. I find that there are three opportunities to do this and I want to just briefly talk about each and get you thinking about what you could do in each of these points in the journey to help you avoid these uncomfortable and unfortunate situations. So the first is on your website, a lot of people don't think about that, but on your website, this is a great opportunity to just briefly, you don't have to get into a lot of detail and you don't, certainly don't want to come across as confrontational. But on your website, you have an opportunity to explain how you work, talk about your process. For most projects, maybe your approach, maybe you got a whole system or very specific process that you use when you engage with the client or how you approach a project, or how you tackle certain elements. And again, no need for a ton of details, but this is a great opportunity. You can even have a separate page on your website dedicated to this. In that way, prospects understand or can know ahead of time how you approach the relationship, how you approach a client engagement. And by the way, you know, if you do it right, it can set you apart because it can show prospective clients that you are a true pro, that you know what you're doing. And there's a way you approach this, that you're not just someone who wings this stuff. So that's the first one. The second opportunity in the journey to, to kind of take care of this is in your agreement, your contract for that particular project. So you want to explain very clearly what is covered and what is not covered in the scope of work. You may also want to explain next steps and then how the project will kind of roll out, how this thing is going to kind of unfold. Maybe even a rough timeline of key milestones and deadlines, one that I always includes. I always start by explaining when I can start on the project. So the client might have a deadline in mind for a first draft, but I want to let them know, hey, I can't start on this until the 17th. Okay? So at a minimum you should have that. It also helps to have key milestones laid out when that's possible, when it makes sense. So that's the second one in your agreement. The third place is during an onboarding call. Now this can typically be done during the project kickoff call. And it's all about spending a few minutes before you get into the project specific stuff, just explaining how you'll work together, your responsibilities to the client, the client's responsibilities to you, the reasoning behind some of these responsibilities and requirements, if needed, how you'll communicate with the client and their team, access to you, what that looks like, how they can access you, how they can reach you, your working hours, and other information that will help set and maintain boundaries. So for instance, rush requests, whether or not you do rush work and if not, why, if you do, what are the requirements, contacting you during non business hours, the fact that maybe you don't work on weekends, et cetera. But all those that should certainly be explained during an onboarding call. This is something I do with many coaching clients and we spent some time on this. You don't have to spend as much time as I do, but you should certainly communicate that very early on. And that's a great time to make sure that that's all explained. I find that most clients are fairly reasonable people, but they're also human. And humans are imperfect. Which means you can't leave it up to the client to set the tone and to lead the relationship. If you want to have a long, happy and profitable relationship of mutual respect, and that's key, of mutual respect, you are the one who needs to take the lead and set expectations from the very beginning and during key points in.

That relationship, well, that's it for. I hope you enjoyed the episode. And just a quick reminder to grab your free copy of my latest book, earn more in less time the proven mindset, strategies and actions to prosper as a freelance writer. You can get your free copy@b2b launcher.com where you will also find the detailed show notes to this and all my other episodes. Enjoy and have a great day.