Many years ago, I lived in Anchorage, Alaska, start of the Iditarod (The Last Great Race on Earth) from Anchorage to Nome. (Coincidentally, the 2014 race [1,000 miles of rough terrain] is running as I write.) When I lived there we always watched the start of the race, and I once asked a musher about how he had chosen his sled dogs. He told me, “I put all the Husky pups in a pen and then I run the big dogs around the pen with a sled attached. Some pups want to run so much that they will throw themselves at the fence to get out and run with the big dogs. Other pups are more interested in chasing their tails or each other. The first group makes the best sled dogs.”
Well, I’m not exactly feeling like a Husky pup, but I have recently made two strategic business decisions that remind me of that musher’s words.
The first decision involved a potential client. He came out of nowhere . . . three phone calls in five minutes. I chose not to respond because I was mired in an editing project with deadlines every few hours. Then he started with the emails.
He needed medical editing, and fast. He told me he was referred by a colleague of mine but didn’t mention whom. He had a simple project—really easy, he said. I could edit it quickly and get it back to him right away.
I had not experienced such pushiness in my business in a long time. When I found a moment to call this potential client and explain my schedule and why I could not drop everything to help him, I thought I was being very firm. He kept talking over me, telling me the history of his project and how important it was (and how important he was). And how very easy it would be for me to edit his writing, too. (Based on his accent and oral communication skills, I had serious doubts about that—not putting him down here, but I have spent years helping ESL writers smooth out their writing. It’s not easy.) Every time I tried to explain that I could not take on any new work right now, he continued to talk over me.
Finally, I told him I could not help him and extricated myself from the call after promising to steer him to a list of medical editors who might be able to help him. I had a few seconds of uncertainty—it’s always hard to turn away work and the document was interesting, but everything about this potential client was screaming at me to run the other way fast:
- His narcissistic assurances that it would be easy for me to edit his writing (if that was true, why was he so desperate?).
- His complete inability to empathize with my schedule. As a freelancer, I have learned that scheduling projects is a skilled balancing act between client and freelancer. If both parties show respect for the needs of the other party, the negotiations should go well. Based on my limited contact with this potential client, I did not expect such respect and collaboration.
- When I was still trying to qualify him as a client, I had mentioned payment options. He responded by saying it would not take long for me to edit his document. He grudgingly said he would pay, but it was clear that getting money out of him could be harder than the work itself.
When I sent him my final email firmly reminding him that I was not a “good fit” for his project, he responded very sweetly, thanking me for my time. That was the nicest he had been during the whole encounter. Still, I am sure that I made the right decision—Just say no!
My second strategic decision puts me in the “chase my tail or other pups” category. I have decided to let go of publishing my marketing newsletter, which has had a run of 18 years. The process used to be fun, and the newsletter did bring in business. But it’s just not fun anymore and it has not produced any leads or repeat business for years. And it’s expensive—between the subscription for Constant Contact and paying my beloved editor, I’m spending over $100 a month to send a non-productive newsletter and hating every moment that I sink into it.
As I think about these two examples, I’m feeling rather proud of my strategic thinking, but only because I have not always been strategic in the past—I have tended to base my decisions in emotion rather than cool-headed strategy. In the first case (the pushy potential client), I trusted my gut from the beginning and could not see a good outcome in this opportunity. In my second decision, I mulled it over for several months and finally realized that the 10 hours that I spend on each newsletter could be more strategically deployed on other long-term projects—not to mention freeing up $100 a month for other marketing or operational expenses.
So, I’m happy with my choices. Now—back to watching the “Top 5 Mushers” at http://iditarod.com/about/!