#56: What to do when the Project is TOO Much with Sarah Greesonbach

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What happens when a freelance project becomes more complicated than imagined? Join Treasa Edmond and guest co-host Sarah Greesonbach as they answer a questions for Zach, a graphic designer who's found himself in over his head after he accepts a dense, technical biotech project. It's good to stretch ourselves and learn new skills and niches, but when is up-skilling during a client project a bad idea? We stress the importance of honesty over the false comfort of "faking it till you make it," and explore how open conversations and leveraging client resources can help us complete difficult tasks. We also look at when a freelancer should renegotiate terms when projects outgrow their initial scope, so you can still provide great quality without taking a financial hit. Listen in for insights and strategies that freelancers and business owners can use to turn complex challenges into successful outcomes.

About Our Guest
Sarah Greesonbach is the founder of B2B Content Studio and a seasoned expert in B2B marketing content. With over a decade of experience writing for Fortune 100 brands and top executives, Sarah specializes in transforming complex ideas into clear, compelling content. She has worked with industries ranging from SaaS and HR tech to retail and higher education, helping businesses showcase their unique value to prospective customers.

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Episode Transcript

Treasa Edmond (00:05):
Welcome back to Boss Responses.
Have you ever been put in thatsituation where you accept a
project from a client and itends up being way more than you
thought it was, or it's aboveyour level and you thought you
could upskill fast enough, butthen you run into issues?
Sarah Greesonbach joins me forher second day on the Boss

(00:27):
Responses podcast and we answera question about this very topic
.
Have a listen and let us knowwhat you think.
If you're a freelancer,business owner or anyone who
deals with clients, you're inthe right place.
I'm your host, Treasa Edmond.
I've been dealing with clientsand running my business for
nearly two decades and in thattime I've dealt with my share of

(00:50):
doubt, imposter syndrome andnot knowing what to say when a
client asked a question I wasn'tready for.
I created this podcast toempower you with the boss
responses you need to grow yourbusiness.
Each week, my guest co-host andI will bring you five episodes
packed with practical insights.
Monday through Thursday, weanswer your questions, and

(01:13):
Fridays, we dive deep to explorehow our co-hosts embrace their
role as the boss of theirbusiness.
Welcome to Boss Responses.
We are back for day two withSarah.
Sarah, what's the question fortoday?

Sarah Greesonbach (01:29):
Zach writes.
I'm a graphic designer and I'verecently landed a contract with
a new client in the biotechindustry.
During our initial discussionsI felt pretty confident and we
talked about creatinginfographics explaining complex
scientific processes, thinkingit would be similar to some
other graphic work I've done.
Now I realize the content ismore technical than I

(01:52):
anticipated.
I'm struggling to understandthe concepts well enough to
visualize them and I'm worried Iwon't be able to deliver the
quality I promised.
Should I be upfront with theclient about my limitations or
try to quickly upskill to meettheir needs?
Now that I'm looking at thisagain.

Treasa Edmond (02:10):
Sarah, I was hoping you would answer this
question first.

Sarah Greesonbach (02:13):
That's cool.
An answer came to me while Iwas reading, but I want to hear
what you have to say.

Treasa Edmond (02:18):
My thoughts on this are twofold.
One never lie to your clients.
You can yeah, you canabsolutely tell a client I'm
learning this new skill and Iwill give it all I've got and I
can deliver what you want, butyou don't lie to them.
You do not ever.
The whole fake it till you makeit thing is a sham.
You do not fake your expertise,you just don't.

(02:42):
You can say I do this thing andnot tell them how well you do
it.
You don't say I'm an expert inthis thing unless you are.
That's just that's used carsalesmen.
Don't do that people.
However, you can also upskillto meet their needs.
I would have an honestconversation with my client at
this point, because you alreadyunderstand that it's more

(03:03):
technical than you anticipated,and just say that.
Tell them this content is muchmore technical than I
anticipated.
I'm struggling to understandsome of the concepts and I want
to make sure I visualize themthe way you want them visualized
.
Would it be possible for me totalk to an in-house expert and
have them explain this to me inthe way you would explain it to

(03:24):
your clients, because they havethe people and they will loan
you the people.
It's a matter of asking forknowledge.
Don't just assume you canwhat's the word?
Fudge your way through.
Don't make things up.
Go find expert help or find anexpert and pay part of your fee
for them to translate this foryou.
I'm huge on.

(03:45):
If you promised good quality,then you have to deliver good
quality, and sometimes you useall of your fee figuring out how
to do that and then you nevermake that mistake again.
But that's my big thing.
Don't fake it until you make it.
Have an honest conversationwith your client.
Tell them you have no problemwith the graphics, work on the
design and all of that stuff,but you need someone to

(04:07):
translate it for you.
And most clients aren't evengoing to blink about that.
They're going to say sure,we've got a person.
So, what would you do, Sarah?

Sarah Greesonbach (04:14):
Yeah well, two things kind of jumped out as
not warning signs, but likeblinking lights the words
upfront and then quickly upskill.
That kind of sends me into amind space of worrying that Zach
feels like he's not capable todo this or that it's somehow his
fault that this came up.

(04:34):
And I just want to quickly zapthat out of the way, because
when we take on a project oreven a client, it is not a
marriage commitment right offthe bat, even after you have
signed a contract, as long as weare respecting everybody's
finances and time and everything.
At any point in that you canwithdraw consent and say, hey, I

(04:55):
realized I made a mistake, Ididn't understand blank.
Or this is going to be a scopeincrease because of blank and
blank, and the vibe I'm gettingfrom this is like it's going to
take a lot more work than hethought.
Am I on the hook for that andam I going to lose money on this
now that I've promisedsomething that actually it's
quite difficult and I've donethat several times, especially

(05:17):
with white papers If I getassigned to a project at a
standard rate and then I startto get into it, listen to
interviews and realize whoa,this is very technical.
This is in biotech or fintech orsomething with AI and it's
literally going to take me likea day to just figure out what is
happening.
And I'll go back to the clientand explain the situation and

(05:38):
say could we approve a technicalfee for this to cover some of
the extra stuff that I'm gonnahave to do to make this perfect?
And no one's ever said no tothat, honestly, and no one's
ever fired me for that either.
And you can phrase it in a waythat asks and says I would like
to do blank.
Is that something you canapprove?

Treasa Edmond (06:07):
And I don't know 80, something you can approve,
and 80% of the time I thinkthey're going to say yes,
especially in the biotechindustry.
They're going to want it doneright and well and they already
trust you, so that's just goingto need this extra step.
They would much rather havethat than you not provide what
you promised.
I mean, that's just across theboard If you can take the weight
of solving the problem onyourself, even if it requires an

(06:30):
extra fee.
That's why they hire us.
They want us to be able to dealwith the problems and just
deliver them the final productand if we see there is a problem
and we're proactive.
I think that's the big thing Insituations like this and you
mentioned white papers that'sthe only time I've ever ran into
something like this was on awhite paper and it ended up

(06:52):
being this so complex topic andI'm like this is gobbledygook.
I can't even translate this, andI can translate foreign
languages, that's.
I went back to the client andI'm like this is well beyond the
realm of comprehension for anynormal person.
I need to dumb it down or Ineed to translate this into

(07:13):
language that everyone willunderstand.
I need a person to help me dothat and they'll just do it or
they'll pay to have it done.

Sarah Greesonbach (07:20):
Yeah, an absolute worst case.
They're going to write back I'msorry, we can't approve that
fee.
This is the extent of thebudget.
And then you still havepermission because you work for
yourself, so you can still sayI'm so sorry.
I can complete this first one,but the rest are going to be out
of scope.
And let me refer you to someonewho I think could do a
marvelous job with this.
Yeah, things happen.

(07:40):
You're not their employee ortheir parent or their child,
like you're not in a lifelongrelationship.

Treasa Edmond (07:46):
No, and usually if you're working with a company
that has a very complex processor there's scientific knowledge
involved, yeah, they're prettyupfront about asking people, or
asking for people who have someknowledge in that field, or
they're just looking for you tobe an expert in your field and

(08:07):
if expertise in that other fieldneeds to happen, they will
provide that.
And I'm interested in this oneas well, because I've worked
with graphic designers as acontent writer and they don't
translate the content.
Usually, the content'stranslated for them and then
they just do the graphics.
So it might be a case ofthey've missed a step in-house

(08:31):
and they need to tell you ageneral idea of what graphic
they need for each section ofthe infographic.
But there are a lot of thingsat play there.
Like Sarah said, zach, it's noton you to solve all of the
problems and you shouldn't haveto upskill in the scientific
processes at the last minute toget this done.
They should either have aperson who does that, or they

(08:54):
should be able to help with thatprocess, or you just need to
walk away from the project.
But I will still say don't lieto your clients and have an
honest conversation with them.
So it's not necessarily justbeing upfront about your
limitations as nothing to dowith your limitations.
It's communicating with themthat there's an issue on the
project and then workingtogether to solve that problem.

Sarah Greesonbach (09:17):
I let out a gasp of dismay because you're
absolutely right, a graphicdesigner has nothing to do with
the words, quite literally.
So in all the ones that I'mdoing, I'm creating the document
of 400 to 600 words in a chartlaid out for the graphic
designer, and then they decideon the data visualization or

(09:37):
flow and all that stuff on thedata visualization or flow and
all that stuff.
So to actually take content,even a finished, polished
resource, and then turn it intoan infographic is a two or three
person job.

Treasa Edmond (09:48):
Yeah, so somewhere a step's been missed.
It's not anything to do withyour limitations, zach, even if
you had that conversation andsaid that you could do it and
you were really confident aboutit at that point in time.
That's still with theunderstanding that they're
giving you what you need to doyour job, and I don't feel like
they have in this situation.
I think that's it for me,anything else to add to that,

(10:11):
sarah.

Sarah Greesonbach (10:11):
Not that I can think of.

Treasa Edmond (10:13):
All right, that's day two with Sarah.
Come back tomorrow and we'regoing to look at how you
collaborate with someone else tobring in higher value contracts
.