Kibbe on Entrepreneurship: Great Expectations

One of the first things a new business owner has to learn is how to manage customer expectations. The more thorough the discussions you have with your clients at the start of the project will go a long way to helping you ensure you deliver what they wanted.

As important as that is, few people talk about managing your own expectations as a business owner. Certainly, you must do due diligence in understanding how much money you truly can make from your endeavors, but there’s more to it than that.

I’ll use my own experience as an example.

Workflow as a freelance journalist is very different from that of a writer working in a newsroom. I was used to researching, writing, and editing several stories at once, handing it all in to my editor. He’d tweak it for publication, send it to Production, where it would be published a few weeks later.

I expected able the same workflow patterns in the freelance world. I figured there might be a request or two for some minor tweaks within a day or so of me handing the assignment in. I was way off base.

Articles could be held for weeks at a time, and just when I was deeply involved in another project, an older article would come back with requests for extensive revisions. Or worse – they don’t know what they want, but what I gave them wasn’t it, and they can’t articulate what they want me to change.

The lessons here are less putting the burden on the client and more on me.

First, if I’m a subcontractor on a project, I now make sure the base contract with my client’s client has been signed and ready to go. It doesn’t matter if I know and trust my client – if it’s not a done deal, “shovel ready,” it’s not a bona fide job.

I’ve learned to explain to the client the approach I intend to take on an article – the lead, some of the experts I intend to interview, etc. – before I even touch the keyboard. That goes a long way to proving if you and your client are on the same wavelength.

There’s concurrent projects, and then there’s concurrent projects. While it might take me only a day or two to complete an article, editors are busy people who are dealing with more writers than just little ol’ me. I knew that, but underestimated the time they take in getting back to me. Since the only way I can make more money as a freelancer is by writing more articles, I have to ask for – and build into my contract – a check-back time. I need to know within 72 hours of me handing in an assignment if it’s at least in the ballpark of what the customer expected. If it is, I have the green light to work on or solicit other work. If not, at least I won’t be backed up with subsequent jobs and can focus on giving my client exactly what he or she wants. As an employee, you don’t have this amount of control over your work. As an entrepreneur, you do.

Lastly, and one I don’t know if I’ll ever completely learn – it’s just business. Freelancers have to be prepared for a lot of rejection. I’m finding many clients can be, well, rather nasty when what I’ve given them isn’t exactly what they wanted. Maybe they’ve been burned and they don’t think I’m willing to do what it takes to make it right. I don’t know. I was expecting more civility out there. Understand and own your gifts because you might be your only fan that week.

If you’ve done your best and want to make your clients happy, no one, not even yourself, can ask for more.


Cindy Kibbe is owner of Cindy Kibbe Creative Communications, a writing services firm based in New England. She was an editor for a regional business publication for nearly a decade. She can be reached at cindy@kibbecreative.com.