Written by: Vickie Sullivan  |  June 20, 2013

Explain Your Gifts

After three days of negotiating the scope of the project, I almost walked away.  The client — one of my favorite people — was just expecting too much.  I didn’t want to disappoint him.  This was starting to look like the beginning of a slow-moving train wreck.

The thought just hit me…does this person really know what I’m giving them?  That I expanded the scope to make sure they were taken care of?  That they were getting more of my attention than two other clients combined?

The answer:  no.  Their crystal ball was broken so they didn’t receive my mental telepathic message.  What I realized:  this poor soul h ad no idea what he was asking of me.  He didn’t know about the expanded scope because he had nothing to compare it to.  He had no idea of the impact of his requests.  So I stopped the email thread, picked up the phone and said, “Here’s what normally happens, and here’s what I am giving you instead.  And here’s why I think you need this more than what you are asking for.”

His response:  “Oh.  Ok.  I didn’t even think about that.”  And we were ready to go.

Moral of the story:  when customizing our work, no one knows what “extra” looks like.  It is our job to explain our gifts.