 So you're sitting at your desk one day and a client calls is an old client that you've known for some time You used to work with him in the past. He's now moved on to another company and he needs your services He's a project that is a perfect fit for you. He wants a membership site with an e-commerce component Here's the catch He needs it in six weeks It's got a trade show coming up and they want to debut their new site at this trade show The timeline is aggressive But the budget is ginormous Imagine the largest project you've ever worked on and now multiply it by three This is the kind of budget that's gonna make your whole year So you say yes I'll do it It's an aggressive timeline So you jump right in You skip the scoping phase You skip the wireframes you go right to code. I mean again the timelines aggressive So week one Projects going pretty smoothly You jump in as an extra coder because that's a skill set that you have your team needs the extra resources You pull some late-nighters, but it's not out of control You build the foundation of the platform and at the end of the week you present it to the client and You show him the back-end system and he is underwhelmed He wants to see the UI. He wants to see the creative. He wants to see the front end but you explain This is the foundation of the system. These are the hard parts. I need to build these first and He trusts you because you've worked together in the past In the meantime, you've missed another deadline with a different client, but that's okay The budget is ginormous So that other client can fall by the wayside Week two your team continues to work on the back-end code The late-nighters have turned into all-nighters You work the weekend and you missed your daughter's soccer game a new stakeholder calls and says There's a blog component to the site That they have on another platform and it needs to be ported over so it needs to be part of this site So you say okay again? The budget is ginormous. There's enough padding where you can cover this. There's no time for a change order So you say yes At the end of the week you present again and Show the client that the entire back-end system is built look at what we've done in just two weeks time and The client says Where's the UI now he's getting a little anxious, but you assure him The majority of the system is built and now we're gonna focus on the creative week three The stakeholder sends over the credentials for the blog content that that needs to be ported and You log in and it's done in Drupal in addition to that There is a ton of metadata For each of these blog posts that you hadn't anticipated Because it was described to you as simple blog content that was going to be ported in But that's okay Because the budget is ginormous It's well padded and You can pull a few all-nighters and take care of it now the whole team is pulling all-nighters You've missed another soccer game and you've missed a date with your spouse You have now neglected the other client to the point where they send a nasty gram That's what I call a mean email at the end of the week You present the full back-end and a partial UI and The client gets pissed Because the site isn't progressing like he had envisioned you let him know we've got three more weeks We've got plenty of time. We're gonna do this. I've got the whole team pulling all-nighters. We're gonna make it happen Week four you don't leave the office for an entire week. Your team is making several mistakes due to fatigue The Drupal project is so large that you've had to dedicate half of your team to it The client calls and informs you that they've decided to go in another direction You're not making the progress that they envisioned and because this is so close They're just gonna set up a square space site and roll with that Touched a nerve the client that you neglected has called to inform you that they've hired another developer and A third client that you've neglected has now told you that they're getting a little nervous Your kids hate you your spouse leaves you Sorry that went a little dark at the end You don't shower so here's my question What did the client do wrong? Nothing the client did nothing wrong. What did you do wrong? Let's get specific Mr. I didn't shower. That's the first probably the first thing. What did you do wrong? Didn't scope the project okay? So by skipping the scoping phase I skipped a key part of the communication with the client Right. We didn't lay out the expectations as to what's going to be delivered when Good. What else did I do wrong? What's that? I was I was Over-promising and under-delivering good. I didn't do discovery, right? So the comment was I didn't ask what other platforms and technologies that the client was working with So I had no idea what was coming my way Great. Thank you. I'm gonna take that a step further. I didn't assess with the customer valued, right? So I didn't ask the right questions. There was no Benchmark, there was no measurement for how I was going to succeed on this project so I was shooting at a goal that The client wasn't even concerned about So the comment was about my exit strategy and that's good I'm gonna say a little bit differently. Are there any poker players in the room? Raise your hand fellow, I should say fellow poker players in the room the key to winning at poker if you don't play poker is One of the one of the major keys to winning a poker is called proper starting hand requirements So choosing the right hands to start with right and I think this is important. It applies here because Frankly, I shouldn't have taken that project to begin with not every project is right for every developer Some projects and I see these a lot are too small, but some projects are too big So I think what you said is you got in over your head Right the team might not be might not have been big enough I might not have had the right resources the timeline was too aggressive the project was too big and That happens What else I neglected my other customers. I didn't that's thank you So the comment was I didn't communicate enough to the client and part of that communication would have been communicating about Scope changes had I had a scope? Right, but once I have a scope when that Drupal site comes in or that new stakeholder calls Or anything changes within the scope. It's my job to communicate that that's a change And we'll talk about that anything else. I missed a soccer game I I didn't set correct boundaries, right and my boundaries have to do with my personal time And that's going to be different for each of you, but your boundaries your personal boundaries are important Right because ultimately that's what keeps you happy. That's what keeps you motivated That's what keeps you wanting to do a good job for your client My kids are the most important thing in my life I don't miss soccer games now this story was an amalgam of Several stories that I've amassed over the past 20 years in business All of these things have happened to me with the exception of my kids hating me most days Right, but I used to miss soccer games and I used to miss kid events because I didn't set healthy boundaries So thank you. That's great feedback. So let's talk about a Bunch of words that end in why and these are some of the words that I like to keep in mind When I'm managing my team and I'm setting expectations with clients And the first one and I think this is important is honesty It is important that you are honest with your clients at all times and honesty is tough It's tough to fess up when something goes wrong with a project When something goes wrong with a site when a site goes down when you've made a mistake Those are tough things to admit, but you know, it's even tougher Getting caught in a lie So I've trained my entire team and I've always used this practice that when something goes wrong it's our job to call the client first and let them know what went wrong and Let them know what we did about it and let them know what we did so that doesn't happen It doesn't happen again and now we're moving on with our day. That's honesty What's that? I Didn't call them first in my big amalgam story Depending on the situation so the comment was I didn't call them first again depends on the situation Right if the client calls me and says something's wrong and it was our mistake. I say that was our mistake Right if we find something that went wrong, I call the client say and say this went wrong That's honesty The next one is transparency and these are similar But I looked at a definition before I got up here on the difference between honesty and transparency and I liked it So I'm gonna read it Honesty is when you reveal the truth that you feel needs to be known Transparency is when others can see for themselves the truth the truth they feel they need to know So when I talk about transparency on my team We have full transparency with the way we work on a project. We work completely out in the open Our client has an entire view For our development process, they're able to see exactly where we're at. They're able to look at our internal conversation I let the clients know that it might not be pretty sometimes We may use a couple of four-letter words, but that's transparency Honesty is when you reveal the truth that you feel needs to be known So it's coming from you transparency is when others can see for themselves the truth the truths They feel they need to know so it's it's you It's honesty is sort of working outward and transparency is your client looking inward And that's what I like is the differentiator Integrity your clients are hiring you as a trusted advisor They're hiring you for your expertise They are putting their trust in you So it's your job to act in their best interest at all times and If you don't do that they will move on accountability my team is trained to take full responsibility for any part of the project and that includes Things that we didn't do There may be something that goes wrong with a project that we had no control over at our shop the buck stops here We'll take care of it. We will take ownership That's accountability Along with that is consistency So the way to retain clients is to be consistent If you act one way in a certain situation in another way in another situation in another situation, that's confusing It's jarring If you always act the same way Good or bad and I'm not judging at least the client knows what they're counting on and they can decide for them whether you're the right fit But be consistent part of accountability consistency is your response time We talked about setting healthy boundaries a little bit and we'll cover that some more as we go, but consistency is We will get back to you within two business hours and then following through with that and If for some reason you can't get back to them within two business hours Somebody either follows up or you get back and you explain why Right now I have an autoresponder set on my email that says I'm at word camp and I'm traveling this week if you need help Contact Sarah. We followed my production manager. I can't get back to my clients right now. I'm speaking in front of you Two hours two business hours might not be right for you Figure out what works for you or more importantly figure out what you can commit to and follow through with and be consistent on And that should be your policy And last oh, sorry. I'm sorry. I got one more vulnerability somebody else touched on this today actually I heard a couple people touch on this today, but One of the things I like to tell my clients is I'm not perfect We're human we're gonna make mistakes Your project isn't going to be as smooth as you expect That's just the nature of how we develop right It's weird to say this, but this is not an exact science Right, there's some creativity involved here. There's going to be opinions. There's some subjectivity So because of that we are flexible, you know We're not gonna get it right on the first try and that's okay If you set that expectation on the out on the outset, you're gonna be better off when a mistake happens And it's okay to be vulnerable. It's okay to say that to a client I say to my clients all the time, especially when I make a mistake. Look we screwed up We made it right What's important about that statement is Everybody makes mistakes Everybody's human It's how you respond to those mistakes that set you apart from your competitors And lastly and I realize it's not a why word, but I want to talk about respect And I've heard this as a running theme through several talks today and I hear this quite a bit in the industry How many times have you heard somebody say that client's an asshole This client's being unreasonable I got another email when those statements are made There's a lack of respect for the client and that's a problem And what I encourage you to do if if you do this or if somebody on your team does this or you're working alongside of somebody who Has this attitude it's important that you change your frame of reference You may not like the person that you're working for But they're paying you money and as such they deserve your respect So even though you may not like them you need to get in the right mindset where you have a respect For what they're trying to accomplish Because they're paying you to help them accomplish it and if you can't You need to find somebody else that can work with that client. I see a lot of Disrespect between vendors between developers and clients. It's rampant. I've watched it for 20 years now and it is a shame But if you're thinking about what I'm saying right now and you're think you have a specific Client in your head and you're thinking well Steve, but I get what you're saying, but this client I mean, he's really an asshole. I encourage you to take a step back Think about that Think about If that's a client that you can get yourself in the mindset where you actually do start respecting them It's going to change your relationship. Does that make sense? Any questions so far? By the way, Adam and Mindy both touched on this and I you know, I think they both made great points on this So let's talk about some tips for success when it comes to managing expectations And I've talked about several of these at at password camps in different talks and some of these are new So this isn't a complete list, but these are the ones I wanted to go over today Don't assume. That's number one and that's number one for Any situation personal or business that really is just a good relationship tip Going back to my my first story about what went wrong with the client The developer in that situation made a lot of assumptions the opposite of not assuming is asking questions and When you're when I'm working with a client and when my production manager Sarah is working with a client We're constantly asking questions because we don't want to leave anything up to assumptions Because when we assume something or we don't have a full understanding and we move forward with development we lose money It's not the client's fault We didn't have a full understanding and we went forward anyway That's on me and if the client comes back and says you missed the mark Again, that's my fault. I didn't ask the right questions so Ask the right questions so you're not making any assumptions and you know what ask more questions on top of that I tell my clients at the beginning, especially with the new relationship. I let him know. Hey, I'm gonna ask you a lot of questions I hope you're okay with that and I do that because I want to make sure that we have a hundred percent understanding of what you're trying to accomplish and When we have a call and go over something and then I need a new person to come in and ask different questions I let the client know at the onset of that call. Hey, I Realize some of what you're gonna cover may be may sound like a review And I know you've gone over this before But we we'd like to hear it again Going back to my original story This is a thing that I used to run into for years I Would focus on the wrong part of the project first The wrong part of the project first What's the wrong part of the project? The one that is lowest on the list for the client of their priorities So the way not to do that is to simply ask the client What's the most important part of this project to you? Now the first response you're gonna get back is all of it and the way to ask it differently is say, okay Let's break it down. What do you want to see first? Where do you want us to focus? What is the most important thing that you see? during our development timeline and You may learn that it's completely opposite of what you thought you were gonna be focusing on and that's a tough thing for a Pure developer to grasp Because developers love code Right. I love code. I'm a coder at heart. I come into this world with a PHP MySQL background. So those are the kinds of things that excite me But those aren't the kinds of things that excite my clients When I go to a presentation meeting and I've got a whole bunch of back-end code and server-side functionality to show my clients They don't care They just assume that stuff works That's all background stuff for a reason. That's just the way it's supposed to be Typically what the client cares about is what they see on the front end The creative the UI the HTML the Photoshop files but Ask those questions Ask them up front so that you can set your deliverables accordingly Because if you do that, that's what's going to keep your client happy throughout the entire development process Make sense similar Don't react Good or bad Don't react Mindy said this during the emotional mind and I like this a lot right, it's very easy to Get an email from clients and then shoot back a response. I do it all time. I'm an emotional guy What I recommend that you do and Mindy kind of said this where she sort of steps back takes a breath thinks it gets into her what did she call it the What's that wise mind, right? I love that. Here's what I do. I See the email I pull out a pad of paper and I write with a pen Everything I want to say I get it all out of my system. I write out the response. I want to say and then I throw it in the shredder and Then I take a walk I Get myself out from behind my desk. I breathe I think If I need more input I go talk to Sarah I show her the email and I say what do you what do you think about this and Then I go write a draft of what I want to say and then I take another walk and then I write the draft and I send the email If it's more important than that I'll take that walk and I'll make a phone call The most important thing is is to not react immediately because a guarantee Good or bad it's going to come out wrong You're going to say something that you regret and once you send that email you can't take it back Once you send that text it's out there So I encourage you just to take a breath take a walk just Do whatever it takes to calm yourself down so that you don't react Because it's gonna end badly And I'm speaking from experience You can't control anybody else's reaction Forget about just your client. You have no control over how somebody is gonna react and this one took me years To realize anybody here under 25 This is the older you talking to you from your future because I started my company when I was 25 and so Some of the younger people on my staff still struggle with this and we talked about this and I train on this But the conversation typically goes like this I Have to inform this client that about this change order and they're gonna be pissed And my reaction is or my my comment to that is How do you know? So what's important is that you don't act in a way That's an assumption on what their reaction is going to be I know that's kind of third-level thinking The best you can do if you put all my y-words together is Convey the information as simply and straightforwardly as possible and however the client reacts is how they're gonna react They may get pissed and then you can deal with that. They may write you back and say great And then you can deal with that You have no control over how they're gonna react And what's important to think about is you don't know who peed in their corn flakes that morning Right The barista at Starbucks may have messed up their order, right? They may have gotten into a fender bender So you send off an email. They just got into the office after the barista messed up their latte And they send back a scathing email. Oh Well, it happened You have no control over that so stop trying part of maintaining healthy boundaries is First defining what your boundaries are If you haven't done that you need to take a step back and figure out what your boundaries are What are you willing to do and not do? When are you willing to work and not work? When are you willing to answer your phone to answer email? Are you available after hours? Are you available on the weekends? If you set these boundaries and you define these for you forget take the client out of the equation for a minute to find these boundaries for yourself and Then abide by these boundaries Very quickly the client will start following these boundaries. You don't even have to communicate it But if you define a boundary and say you know what I'm not working on the weekends and The very next weekend the client emails you and you answer that email You don't respect your own boundaries So the the big part of maintaining healthy boundaries is that you have to respect your own boundaries first So if you don't know what your boundaries are I encourage you to take a step back and define them and I've only really talked about what hours you work Or if you're willing to work after hours or weekends, right boundaries have to do with am I willing to miss my kids soccer game? am I willing to Neglect my spouse Neglect my significant other You know, am I willing to work late to do these things that's up to you I can't define that for you, but once you set them Respect them That's how you maintain them because as soon as you break them. They're no good. That's my dad My dad said this to me recently he was in the hospital and we were sitting and I was having a tough time with a client And I was sitting in this hospital room and I was sending an email And he was bored And he had me read it to him and he said no, no, no Said we're gonna reword that whole thing My dad said my dad's an old-school businessman. That's where I got a lot of my business skills from but my dad said Two rules never complain never apologize, and I love this Try following this next time you send a client email reread an email that you've sent recently and see if you complained Complaining can be subtle complaining might be I Spent all last week working really hard on this project. Do you know how much your client cares you say Complaining might even be Miss my kids soccer game to do this for you. You know how much your client cares Zero So don't do it Take it out The reason you take it out is because your emails to your clients should just be factual This happened Here's what it did about it You requested this Here's my response The part I like about don't apologize It's because you can say things differently When you're not apologizing Right Apologizing says I Did something wrong and that's not usually the case Again, we heard this from Mindy, but a client calls or emails and says, you know, I blame you for this Doesn't mean you necessarily did that wrong. You don't have to apologize. You can take responsibility without apologizing but I Love how simple this is and I've used this since my dad said it and it's actually changed my tone and This is just recently for me So I think about this every time I send an email. Am I complaining? Am I apologizing and then I go and I reword or if I want to call I think to myself. Okay, don't complain Don't apologize take responsibility, but don't do these two things a couple more Sorry, I lost my placement document. I'm sorry. I've been up here for a half an hour. Do you know? Part of not complaining Also goes hand-in-hand with blaming right when I read a lot of emails or I eat edit emails or I edit client communication The way I take blame statements out of something is I remove words like you and I Right Even if you're not blaming as soon as you say you or your or I You're making it personal Doesn't need to be take try taking those pronouns out of your emails and out of your communication And they're gonna start sounding a lot more factual Also, try removing the word always And I call this throwing in the kitchen sink Right, so if you send an email and say you always That's a little more personal, but I like that. That's more that's something I would say to my son. You always forget to take the garbage out That's more that's throwing in the kitchen sink, right? That's saying you've always done this What my son's gonna think if I say you always take the guard you all you always forget to take the garbage out He's gonna say well, you know what three weeks ago. I remember to take it out More specifically the better way to say that is you didn't take the garbage out this week. That's fact. I Didn't throw in the kitchen sink. I addressed the exact problem And I also didn't hold on to a grudge Because when I hear a statement with an always in it, I think that I'm dealing with a person who holds grudges Email is the worst form of communication It is necessary It is nest. Oh, thank you It is necessary, but it is the worst form of communication. What's the best form of communication face-to-face? Face-to-face is the best form of communication. That's how I prefer to meet with my clients, especially if it's something important What's second best way form of communication? Video chat the reason is that it's better than the phone is because I can see somebody's face I can see the emotion the reason I love face-to-face and video chat is I get to see the body language So I get to feel the real meaning behind what somebody's saying Right, it helps me sell it helps me relate it helps me Really determine if somebody's frustrated happy sad I can I can see how they're feeling about me. It's written all over their face At least I get some indicators phone calls the third best Then text messaging in an email However, even though it's the worst form of communication. It's necessary because Every phone call you have or every face-to-face meeting and we've heard this throughout several talks a day Follow it up in writing Always so if you've discussed something on a project Or you've discussed a change Or you've discussed a deliverable or the client's missed a deliverable or you've missed a deliverable or anything Follow it up in writing and follow it up like this Here's what I understood in our conversation. These are my understandings Here's what I heard and write it all out And at the end of it give a call to action Say did I understand this correctly and did I miss anything? That gives the client the opportunity to say yeah You completely misunderstood me And that's okay if it's something even more important ask for an approval You can use email for approval say here's what I heard. I just want to say I just want you understand this These are the changes I I understood Did I understand it correctly? Yes, great Please email me back and let me know that you approve this change Now that we've put it in writing. So that's why writing that's why email is critical This is something I said at word camp san francisco in 2011 and I got a standing ovation Your client owns the work product If you are a services company Not a product company. If you are a services company like me You're a work fryer company a client is paying you to do some sort of work They own it There's no ifs and or buts they own it Was it louise that talked about firing a client? Right. She said it perfectly when you fire a client give them everything It will save you a ton of headache. There's nothing to fight over They paid you they own it You are acting as an arm of their company. They're hiring you for your services They own it They own your code. They own the design that you made. They own it all Don't fight over this I take this a step further when i'm working with a new client. I educate them to this fact I let them know that there's other companies out there that don't believe in this So when you're working with zeke you own everything from day one And because we work in a transparent environment you have access to everything we're developing Throughout the entire process If you need to cut bait and run it's yours That's okay And i'm confident in saying that because the way i'm going to earn that client's business Is by continuing to do quality work That's how i get them not to leave it's not by holding their code hostage or their photoshop files hostage Or anything hostage for that matter It's not by shutting down their website because they didn't pay your bill These things happen And i wish these were jokes But this runs rampant in our industry I've been talking about this for years and it's still a problem Most of my clients have come to me because they're frustrated with another developer Most of my my projects are not original I love those projects I've made a career out of those kinds of projects And it's because there are other developers out there that are my competitors That do not believe this This simple thing Is there anybody that doesn't agree with me? It's okay It sounds like you have a crossover between a product and a service Okay, that's a little bit different when it comes to the service the way I handle so the question was You've created a piece of code for a client. You've handed over the code now. They own it and you can't use it elsewhere Here's how I get a get around that in my contract. I state You own the iteration of the code that I create and the iteration is the key word Right, which means any routines and any functions that I've built custom for you I I own my brain. I own my knowledge, right? So I own how I I got there somehow Right and I'm sitting here in front of you because I have a collective pool set of knowledge that came from working with other clients Right. So this knowledge that I gain working on your project I'm going to use elsewhere, but you own this iteration. It's yours. It was custom built for you Doesn't mean I can't reuse it. I'm not going to take yours and give it to somebody else That's how I handle custom code Absolutely The question was do my clients pay first? Absolutely Nope So depending on the depending on the projects the question was how do we how do we set up our milestones depending on the project? We'll typically Break things into three or four payments Depending on the size of project maybe monthly if it's a longer project, but we always get a deposit The way my milestones are set up is I'm never too far ahead Of where we're at payment wise I structure it out so that we're we're at least paid through Where we are right now or we're pretty close Right. I'm not going to lose any money by turning over the work My clients can take the code at any time There's no if it's done in parts In my situation. Yes, they get the so the question was you've completed the first part You've been paid. You've started the second part. You haven't been paid for that. They decided to go elsewhere In my scenario. Yes, they own they own that right they they own it up up to what we've built. However However, I have a clause in my contract that I require a 30 day written notice To leave So you can't leave But you you owe me the money for that You're locked you are locked into at least pay me for what I've completed I'm going to save that question for just a minute. Let me get through my last slide and we'll we'll address that. Yes So the question is if is there a creative license that if it is not specified in your contract That that the creator owns that that work product That may be true in my scenario. It's not I I I put in my contract You own it you own the work product. I let them know right up front. This is yours. I'm not going to hold this hostage So it may be different for you and that may be different for designers, right? There's this this differs when you're talking about the the graphic design world Thank you, then that's great. So that there's two there's two scenarios. The question is Not only providing services you design you're developing the website, but you're also providing hosting, right? So you are offering two services with two Different agreements, right? You did develop the website that is theirs Right, that's that's theirs. They pay for it. They own it. They own that work product for the website You're also providing the hosting if they don't pay their hosting bill the hosting shuts down And at that point you you you've zipped up files You send them the code because they own that piece of product But the hosting is a different service that you're providing. It's a whole separate contract Even though you may treat it as the same contract. Those are separate services I don't do any hosting. I partner with wp engine and pagely And I the way I set up my hosting agreements is the client actually sets up the the hosting arrangement with the host And then adds us as a technical contact. I remove myself completely from the hosting Let me get through my last slide I'm sorry. There's two more slides. So this came up in the in the last talk and I absolutely agree And I've gotten some heat for this in the past The customer is always right Who agrees with this? Show of hands Let me ask that differently Who disagrees with this? That's okay I I said this is my first slide at pressnomics last year And I got a lot of heat And I still have people that asked me about this right and I went to my dad After that happened after pressnomics Because my dad is the smartest man in the world and I said dad I put this slide up on the on the screen and Half the audience disagreed with me And he said What has happened to the world? The customer is always right They're paying your bill Now you may not agree with them Right And that's okay It doesn't mean they're not right for their business goals That's what they're right about. They have certain goals They know their business. They know what they want to accomplish. They're right about that They may not be right about technology They may not be right about design That's what they hired you to do And it's okay to have the conversation About what you disagree about But ultimately the customer is paying the bill They're right And it's your job to make them right Who still disagrees? All right, I got less So here's what I'd like to do I'm going to talk about your question in a minute, but is there anybody that's in currently In a really really bad heated client situation That they don't that you don't mind talking about in public Go ahead Can you can you stand up? What's your name Emily? Thank you Okay Okay What Where are you right now? What is what's your receivable with this client? How long? Okay, so 120 days Okay, great. Thank you So just to sum up, you've got a client that's not paying their bills on time They eventually do pay, but they'll rack up a big bill And you Put them off and and take care of other work that you know is going to pay faster Is that a good summary? Okay. Okay Here's what I would do Firing a client to me is a That's a last resort That is an absolute last resort So one thing that um, you know, I took away from the firing a client talk I mean everything that she said was great The only thing that's different for me is is that's that's happened to me over 20 years. Maybe twice That's an absolute last resort, right before I fire a client if I'm in a situation like yours Um, I'm going to ask that client to lunch Let's take a face-to-face meeting Right and the email the email should be I'd like to level set some expectations. Would you mind if I take you to lunch? Okay, so If if lunch isn't possible schedule a skype or schedule a google hangout, right? But get them on video chat if you can't do a face-to-face Yeah Thank you, david The reason I like that face-to-face Away from the office is because you're removing any distractions. I hate meeting with people in their office There's nothing worse than sitting across somebody's desk because they're distracted by their computer screen Their secretary might come in their phone may ring. You don't know I like taking people to lunch. I'll pay for it Because it gets me their undivided attention for that 45 minutes. Okay That's not possible in your situation, but that would be my preference But Gotcha, but the conversation is or the subject of the conversation is I need to level set some expectations You might even say we've got some expectations that are misaligned That's exactly what's happening Right, you expect them to pay on time. They expect to be able to take as long as they want That's a misalignment of expectations. That's all that's going on. There's no blame. Nobody's doing anything wrong Right, you're simply aligning expectations So I would sit down with that client and say listen If I were my dad, I'd say I'm not running a bank But I'm not I'm not my dad That's how my dad would say it But you can say I run a small business And cash flow is critical That's what's important to me So I can't float an invoice for more than 30 days I can't I love working with you. We've had a long-term relationship. It's been 20 years We've got a great working relationship and I want to continue that working relationship But I cannot have any invoices that go past 30 days. What can we do? Pose it as a question And then see what they say They may say Something that you didn't realize they may say, you know what? Listen, I'm really sorry. We didn't communicate this But we've got a whole new accounting system. We've got a whole new department We've been acquired by another company, right and they pay net 90 we used to pay net 30 But they pay net 90 I might be able to go back and get you net 60 would that work for you And then that's up to you whether that works They may say That's just the way we do it But then it's up to you to decide whether that's something you can live with or not Pose it as an open-ended question And if you heard what I said, I didn't lay any blame Right. I simply said I've set some some boundaries for me, right. I can't float invoices past 30 days It doesn't work for my cash flow. I'm a small business. I count on that cash flow Nothing about the client. This is about you Let's talk about your Situation again, right? So I've delivered phase one Of the project I've gotten paid. I've moved on to phase two. Okay First of all, that's not how I structure my deals Okay The way I structure my deals if I've broken something into phases If it's small phases like what you're describing. So let's say the phases are a month I will do a deposit and a final payment on each phase So I treat the phases as separate sections of work So let's say a phase is $10,000. I'm just picking a number. It's $5,000 the beginning of the phase It's $5,000 at the end of the phase Phase two it's $5,000 to start this phase. It's a new phase of work You did that Okay, so the the comment was that that the client said they say they send the payment and you started work And then things went south Right You broke your own boundary Right in in my situation. I would say I will start work once I receive your deposit Again, same situation up here. I'm running a small business and cash flow is critical So I we're anxious to get started. We want to get started as soon as you as you do But I need that deposit to get started on this phase of work Because I've got people to pay So you you you broke your own boundary Or maybe you didn't maybe you didn't set the boundary to begin with but that's the boundary I would set Let's say listen I'm not willing to start and I you can communicate to the client and again It's about you I'm not willing to start work until I've been paid this deposit POS meaning point of sale or piece of Okay, so let me see if I can sum this up. So you start a project There's a another resource that he's hired, right? To do a part of the project and they they've delayed And that's caused They've caused you a delay that that external resource has caused you a delay, right? So you've collected 75 of the of the money You can't do the rest the other 25 of the project until this piece is done So you're dependent on this external resource Was that expressed at the at the onset of the project? Had you started the project before that decision was made? So the project was started before the decision was made as to who was going to put in the POS That I The point of sale did I say that correctly? Okay, so this whatever this external api integration Um The project was started before the decision was made as to who the resource is going to be to do that Okay, I'm going to I'm going to tangent for a second on purpose The the one phrase that I encourage you to take out of your vocabulary and I've done this and it's worked wonders Is the phrase change order When I say change order half you cringed, right? It's got a negative connotation to it. If I say the word change order my client. They always go You know what I call it now It's a scope adjustment a scope adjustment It's the same thing I just gave it a different name because change order specifically has a negative connotation Okay, and when I describe a scope adjustment what I talk about is the impact So when somebody calls me with a change Or there we're on a call and we start to hear a change My team is trained to jot it down and then afterwards say This is the this is the scope adjustment that we heard We'll we'll get back to you with the impact to the project I didn't talk about cost Because the impact could be timeline. It could be cost. It could be both. It could be none So we're gonna we're gonna analyze the impact Now I say that because what you experienced Is a scope adjustment And I say this very specifically in my contracts If I experience a delay that I didn't cause that constitutes a scope adjustment That language is in my contract So you didn't cause this Right and now you've been delayed for months Because of this decision that your client made it's out of your control That's an adjustment to scope. There's an impact It's impacting your team. It's impacting your other projects. It's impacting your production schedule There's a cost associated with that And so I would call that client And communicate that Even if that's not in your contract Even if you haven't defined What how a scope adjustment is works You can always have a conversation and say this is what i'm experiencing due to this delay And you notice I didn't blame anybody In that statement. There's no blame statement. There's no you or I Because of this delay. This is what I've experienced I'm sorry. I did say I You can't control your clients reactions The question was yeah, the question was what if you say that and they get upset? Oh well I didn't cause them to get upset. I'm expressing what works for me These are my boundaries. You've caused me a delay And as a result We're going to discuss the impact They may say I've never expected something like this. We didn't discuss this up front Go f yourself That's on them I would go right back and say listen. I just wanted to call and inform you that I'm experiencing this And as a result there's a cost associated with it It's fair, but I think it sounds a little complaining Right, so the question was is it fair to say this is how it's impacting my other projects? I think that's fair to say right you can explain if the client doesn't understand in Clayton situation The client gets upset. It's okay to explain listen. I just want to educate you Right. This is this is the impact on on the rest of my production schedule. That's okay Right as long as it's not complaining, you know, here's here's why There's a there's an impact. Here's why there's an additional cost, right? I put it back on him I get it. I put it back on him. Actually what I would say is is listen I know you wanted this out six months ago I've done everything within my power But now we're both we're both feeling you know this Unfortunately, you know that this is impacting these things for me and I have to charge you Anyway, I think I think we're done Um, but we are going to move into There's going to be q&a for a half an hour. We're going to move right into that I know we sort of started started q&a, but thank you for uh, I appreciate it