Take a Number
I had another post planned for today. But this issue has risen to the surface twice in the last week so I felt the need to address it. If you’ve written for a while, you probably have a queue of sorts. You don’t turn folks away when your plate is full. You schedule projects in advance and develop what’s called a “lead time” for your projects.
When someone wants a quote, I give them a due date based on when I receive a deposit and my current writing schedule. I’ll try not to book more than a few weeks out. But there is always a lead time.
I’ve had two potential clients in the last week try to pressure me into delivering earlier. One even told me he “couldn’t believe” it would take a writer of my caliber (his words, not mine) 10 days to write one report. He’s right. It doesn’t take me 10 days. But with the other work on my plate, it will take me a little time to get to a new project.
This doesn’t happen a lot, but with it happening twice in the last week it made me think about reasonable lead times, and how often service providers are expected to bend over backwards to meet insane demands. I don’t think that anything less than a 2 week turn around time for a small project is that much of a hassle to a client if they were really honest with themselves. I think that sometimes clients get into the mindset of “the faster, the better.” Unfortunately, just like with the mindset of “the cheaper, the better” a fast turn around time can sometimes mean that the writing isn’t great.
In my experience, if a writer doesn’t have a queue, they are either brand new or not that good. Or they promise a few days and then end up delaying and then dropping the ball.
So it’s your choice clients: either take a number and get in line for an experienced writer or go with the fastest turn around time and possibly end up disappointed.
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8 Responses to “Take a Number”
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I think there are three factors at work here:
I don’t think I’m unique in that regard.
1) Clients tend to wait until the last minute to make a decision on a project - because they focus on the urgent and not the important, because it takes several decision makers a long time to reach a consensus, because they don’t have the funding for the project, or for any number of other reasons.
2) Many people have no idea they need to allow for the writer’s lead time; they just assume that they can get the job done right away because they have no understanding of what writers do and how they work. This, of course, is reinforced by writers, especially inexperienced writers, who jump at the chance of any work and can turn work around immediately because they don’t have any other jobs.
3) Even if a project has been on the back burner for a long time, as soon as someone commits to a project, they get excited and want it right away. That’s just human nature. I’m the same way - I don’t like to wait for a product I’ve ordered online … or anything else. I want it right now.
The same thing used to happen when I owned an interior landscaping company - a new business would wait until a couple of days before their grand opening and then expect me to fill their office with plants before the event.
I’ll add to Lillie’s comment: People like to believe they are the only client and that they are the most important client. Their project is personally important to them, so they tend to think it is just as important to the writer. When they hear they have to wait, that tends to come across as “You are not my number one priority”. It’s just human nature.
I agree wholeheartedly with this post. As an example, here’s our current turnaround times based on workload: Articles: 15 days. Blog posts, 10 days. Web content for sites, two months. It isn’t that we don’t want to schedule people sooner - we just don’t have the space. We’ll end up burning out, doing a crappy job or compromising on quality. Is that what clients want? We don’t.
And I’ll add a pet peeve: Clients who offer extra money to move to the head of the line. We can’t be bought, nor do we believe that clients with less disposable income should be penalized in this manner.
You’re an excellent writer (I know from experience.) You’ll always have difficult customers no matter what product or service you’re selling or how good you are.
I’m always happy to take a number because I always know it’s worth the wait for your writing
I’ve dealt with this too and it gets frustrating, on both ends. I totally agree that those who do not write have no clue as to the process or time line. At one point, I was afraid if I gave potential clients a number and told them they’d have to wait, they’d turn to another writer. Time and experience has taught me that doing this only ends up hurting ME in the long run. Better to lose a few clients than to have a work load you can’t handle.
It’s important for anyone who writes for clients to set up time lines ahead of time. If you start your business that way, it will be much less difficult to set those boundaries later.
Great post Courtney!
I know how you feel. I also have a lot of plates to spin. If you tell them this up front, then they need to chill out.
Think of this way: this is GOOD stress, in that it means you have no shortage of work. It’s a problem that many writers wished they had, lol. Kind of like hearing a skinny chick complain that her size 7 jeans are getting snug…
Yes Courtney! I had a client tell me that they found a another writer. Not because they weren’t happy with my work but because “she turned around my order in a few hours and another in half a day.” Well…duh! She obviously didn’t have any other work to do.
I really don’t think so clients appreciate that writers do have lives as well as other clients.
Rant session over…great post!
I’ve thought about this post a lot over the past couple of days. I’ve been turning away work that I didn’t have time to get to within a few days. For some reason I’ve been assuming that no one would wait any longer than that. And, there probably are a lot of clients who wouldn’t. I often feel guilty about making anyone wait even a week. I appreciate this post- it’s given me a lot to think about.
Excellent post. This issue has definitely come up in my own work. It’s always tricky to balance speed, quality and price.
Of course, for writing professionals who want to provide a consistently high quality of work and a firm price, clients need to be made aware that speed may be the factor that suffers. In any kind of business service provision, it’s generally best for the customer to realize that they can only hope for two out of three if they want a really good deal. Something has to give.