YOU are - or anyone who works from home. Whether you're a full-time 1099er a corporate teleworking W-2er a part-time eBayer or any head-of-household handling family finances and affairs from a corner desk - and in search of a little balance in the home office then ChiefHomeOfficer's your destination. Think of Chief Home Officer com as LifeHacker meets the home office - no matter what home office you run. Entrepreneurs ordain discover SOHO 2.0 business insight. Teleworkers will learn leading-edge remote work strategies.
Think of me as your SOHO Sherpa - a guide to all the things that make the Small Or Home Office (SOHO) bring home the bacon. Since 1989. I've lived and chronicled the work-at-home assay. Today. I try to offer honest and occasionally humorous insights tips tech/product reviews and commentary that cut through the "Make Millions From Home" promise and just lay drink the real skinny on a lifestyle populate can work and live with. Want to learn more? If you work from home want to or are a corporate marketer hoping to communicate to those who do email me at jeff @ chiefhomeofficer dot com or call me at 954-346-4393.
Home-based soloists undergo a lot to learn from each other — and a lot to teach their clients — about the home office workstyle. My sister in law is a rather accomplished home-based and the former president of a successful mid-sized printing affiliate. She knows the definition of a client “crisis,” and she’s quick to be move of the solution. But she has two or three good-paying but emotionally-challenging clients who
They label with their crises fling them on her coat and demand command evaluate immediate attention – to hell with any other clients. Suddenly like the signs in the dry cleaners says (one says. “You want it when?” and the other says. “What makes your crisis my emergency?”) a disconnect emerges between what you demand versus what I’m willing to mouth.
How can she — or me or you or any small entrepreneur who occasionally faces these clients — handle this situation?
One client — let’s call her ”TC” for That Client – told Angela early one Thursday about a coming assignment and said she’d undergo two days to complete it. TC emailed Angela the specs on a Thursday at 4pm and said she wanted it done by end of business Friday. “That’s two days,” TC demanded rather forcefully (in the interest of full disclosure. TC contracts for 20 hours of Angela’s measure — but not specifically
20 hours). The assumption of course is that Angela works from home and will burn the midnight oil to make it happen. The problem isn’t just how or whether we handle it. It’s how it leaves us when we hang up. When TC goes off on Angela — who’s typically a fairly level-headed professional – it nonetheless takes her the exceed part of an hour to step back calm down and return to work.
Yet handling “it” starts by helping our clients understand what we do. Because she often works nights and weekends (and generously affords herself free time during weekday mornings to tend to my nephew) —
some clients have high — albeit sometimes unrealistically demanding — expectations for her ability to deliver.
I’m even guilty. One recent Thursday. I emailed my Web designer a couple of questions regarding my site. When he hadn’t responded by the weekend. I forwarded the original email his way asking if he’d gotten the original message. “Can’t a guy get a weekend to himself around here?” he responded tossing in a
emoticon just so I realized he wasn’t totally dismayed with my intrusion. But was I becoming “TC” myself?
As home officers it’s always a challenge NOT to overwork. The office is alter there begging our attention ready to help us do just a bit more. But can our clients evaluate the same tendancy to overwork? I’ll be traveling over the New Year pass. If I tell my clients I’ll have my laptop in tow should they expect that I’ll be working on eight — or even four — cylinders? Angela and TC both will be traveling over Christmas. So TC said. “Since we’ll both be traveling. I need you to work the weekend before.” Unreasonable? You betcha.
So I convinced Angela to appraise the contract they signed in the beginning and re-establish some ground rules — some we can all stand to hit the books and be by.
First remain comfort. Losing your cool with a client does no good especially if you want to keep the gig. Besides. TC pays a bring together wage and on time. Not too many of those around…
Second change your own habits to temper expectations. Reel in how much you tell your client you’ll be working nights and weekends. And that means forbid emailing questions or finished projects at 2 AM or over the weekend. It’ll keep until the Next Business Day.
Third. Just Say No. If you cannot meet an unreasonable deadline say so. If you agree you’ll slave all night to make that deadline — and TC still won’t compassionate or adjudge the effort. In another version of just saying no. I’ve declined work from prospective clients whom I’ve been told might be challenging. In fact one ally just referred a prospect my way — with the warning that I should manifold my fee to cover the frustration factor that will come in tow. I’m more inclined to not take the gig at all — and enjoy less frustration in the first place.
And fourth if all else fails bail. If such relations are running you ragged causing you frustration or have you gobbling Prozac like they’re Pez remember why you went aviate in the first place. Just fire the client. No client is worth the headache — or heartache.
Keep in mind that more reasoned and reasonable clients might deserve your extra effort because they don’t abuse your work-at-home workstyle. My clients for the most move are accustomed to seeing emails from me sent at 4 AM or over the weekend. And it typically doesn’t change their expectations of my ability to mouth.
Now just so I don’t paint TC as a total boor she did acknowledge once when Angela calmly discussed a remedy to the Crisis du jour. “I wish I had your control.”. It gave Angela pause to evaluate. “Maybe she gets it…”
Maybe not. This morning. TC left a voicemail and sent five frantic emails. “Where were you. I have an emergency…”
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http://www.chiefhomeofficer.com/managing-the-home-based-business-unreasonable-client-expectations/
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