I recently got feedback that I’m “too nice” with clients, which is frustrating because I always thought relationship-building was a strength. I do struggle sometimes to push back when I know a request isn’t realistic. How do you walk the line between being collaborative and being assertive? Any scripts or mindset shifts that helped you?

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I once had a client tell my boss I am the rudest person on earth because I said no

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Well clearly realistic = rude…. Rudelistic if you will

You can still be nice while pushing back. It might be easier to start with delaying an agreement that isn’t realistic, because it’s reasonable to them that you’re part of a team. Also they don’t understand what development hurdles there are on our end; everything is as simple as making a PPT slide in their eyes often.

So out of the gate, can say “ok, it’s a little tight so let me follow up and see what we can do, I just want to check in with the team.”

Then you can take a beat to figure out what those challenges are and offer a counter, but still convey any effort.

“Just met with the team and following up on the request. We’ll most likely need a little more time for x, y, z, and most likely would be ready on X date. If we can get it over to you sooner than that we absolutely will, but don’t want to overpromise. I’ll keep you posted on progress.”

It’s the soft “it ain’t happening, but we’ll try” response.

It helps to really learn how the nuance of art/copy/development/production works so you can know those turnaround pitfalls off the top of your head also, and can speak to the challenges of tight requests. Especially when you can convey to clients that you don’t want to sacrifice the quality for speed (more so than anything when it’s intermittent step requests with a manageable final deliverable deadline, because you can remind them the end goal over an intermittent goal).

I had a particularly difficult group of clients when it came to that type of stuff, and after the first year sat them down for a learnings and best practice meeting ambiguous to a particular project. Outlined and visualized what the unseen impacts can be for unfavorable practices, and how to plan to avoid issues. I made sure it was framed for their benefit so they felt/knew this was to make things better for them.

"I don't recommend the thing you're asking. You can do this instead, and this is why it would be beneficial. But it's your decision at the end of the day."

Then you hope they are reasonable, and if not then the most you can do is minimize the work and suffer with your co workers. Then you all get better jobs. Kidding. Sort of.

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