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Just the other day a very high-end, upscale photographer called me and said, “I am in
a pickle. You have to get me out of this.” I said, What ’s going on? The client asked
for something completely outside of the scope of what they agreed on. So I figured what
a great two minute video for you guys because I am sure, as I am sitting here, that a lot
of of it ’s happened to me. Clients expect you to rush suddenly, rush through something.
The timeline has suddenly moved forward. Theyve changed the scope of what they re asking you
to do. So theyve asked you to do A, B and C, and then suddenly they call and say, “Can
you do D, E and F?” and they expect it for the same price. I know it feels ugly and awkward
and embarrassing to talk about money. Here ’s what I want you to do. I want you to
stop thinking about it as money. You are providing a service. In this case theyve already said
that they wanted to hire you for A, B and C. You're great at A, B and C. So here are
the three things I want you to do. You can do this in an email. It ’s difficult to
do in person. They can hear your enthusiasm. You cannot get emotional when you write an
email, but here are the three things. You have to reiterate the conversation where they
asked you for a rush or they moved things up in the timeline or they changed the scope.
I want you to start it out with sentence number one: I'm an expert. You hired me to do A,
B and C, and I'm happy to deliver that. You want to reinforce right away what they hired
you to do and that you're being compensated to do that as an expert. That ’s number
one. Number two: you have changed the scope of what were going to be working on. You are
asking for D, E and F. You tell them what those things are that theyre asking for. Or
you've moved the timeline up four months. Or youve done something differently. So you
outline that in two, sentence number two. Sentence number three: you say I am happy
to deliver that. I've looked at my schedule and I can deliver that for you. It will cost
you XYZ. It will cost you an additional amount of money. No embarrassment. You can say if
it ’s a timeline issue – typically it takes me a year to organize a Bar Mitzvah
so I cant do it in a week. Typically it takes me nine months in order to book the venues
for a wedding. I cant do it in a month. Or photo-shoot or whatever the timeline. You
can say typically it takes this but you're asking me to move it forward. If they say,
“Oh but I'm only asking for D, E and F,” you can say, “The contract in our proposal
we agreed on was this and it takes me a certain amount of time and energy and money to do
this and my resources are limited so I have to charge you more because you're asking for
me.” Boom. Dont say anything else. Dont explain anything. The one thing that I want
you to understand is I dont care if you have no other clients. I dont care whether you
work part-time. I dont care whether you're going to have to work nights and weekends,
if you have family plans. That is not the point. The point is that particular client
agreed to A, B and C for a price. This client is now changing the scope. Never give your
client or your customer a change of scope or increase in the timeline in what you're
doing for them without charging more. You're educating your client about what kind of an
expert you are and you're still delivering fantastic service. You're educating your client
for the next time they hire you. It ’s okay. Have the confidence to charge for compensation
for what you do really well. That ’s your Backpocket Strategy for the week. Make it
a great week!