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New customer seems to be tasking me (and maybe even disrespecting me) explicitly
Quote from Bel on March 3, 2022, 10:38 amThank you, this is invaluable. It explains many many things in my past and present professional life, that I can start addressing from now on.
OT: Years ago I assisted a big tech company in a public tender, and the company wanted to reserve property on a software that was part of the tender. I explained that this was counter to the tender law, which required property to pass to the contracting authority. The client aggressed me on the phone by raising his voice and saying that this was non-negotiable, and we would go ahead with the property reserve. I backed down, and ultimately the bid was declared inadmissible precisely for this reason. Of course the client never returned. Had I responded more forcefully ("You can shout all you want, but this point is very clear. No way we can proceed this way. Better to give up now then."), who knows if the client would still be around.
Thank you for sharing, Bel.
Another option with the yelling customer could have been to say:
You: (pause) Listen mister X, you pay me to help you. I am on your side (collaborative frame).
So there is no reason to yell (defend boundaries).
And the reason you pay me to help you is because I know the law. And the law is clear here (re-state expertise and authority, you call the shot).
Then depending on your approach you could either insist that wasn't going to fly, or you could tell him that he takes all the responsibility to go ahead and likely see his bid fail.
Some hot-heads might have pushed ahead anyway -but still with more respect for your expertise-, but most people would have backed down and mellowed.
Quote from Bel on March 3, 2022, 10:38 amWhat I got from this exchange is that your principle of toning down warmth with power-hungry people also works in writing.
In fact, until now I could not understand why some big lawyers would write emails to clients with a detached/almost nasty tone.
Now I get that it is a way of saying “Hey client, be careful because I don’t like your tone and can be equally nasty. In fact I may even lose you deliberately here if you go on”.
Yes, that makes sense.
Quote from Bel on March 3, 2022, 2:06 pm(...)
In fact, I think I will go back to the rate he proposed and use the thread-expanding move on the phone when he calls me, as I feel this is something I can still use now.
Thank you for the feedback and kind words.
And yes, great idea (I hadn't even thought of that)!
You can still fix this on the phone and you can look even busier/more eagle style.
Like you had no time for games via email, but on a quicker and more personal medium, you can tell him "in this case, because of X, I was Ok with the rates".
Lucio, talking with you is like learning superpowers! And learning about next level over next level over next level.
Thank you, Bel!
It's a two-way street by the way: this website, power dynamics, and PU have developed immensely thanks to analyses like this.
I understand Bel as I was in the same place. People were walking over me. Learning power dynamics helped me tremendously with this.
Yes it’s both: power dynamics is another part of self-development.
Much success to you!
Another thing I realized while concluding the work: the client is also subtly trying to disqualify little bits of my work with some of his comments in the draft. So I think his aim is to further reduce the price; but, as you taught me, awareness is the first defense.
I now have the email and the work ready to be sent.
Thank you Lucio and John. Let's see what happens.
I am studying today PU's section on workplace power moves, and my thinking on what happened here is that the customer was trying to position himself as both "tasking" and "fixing mistakes" in my work.
As you say on PU, he had "won already" when I accepted his rate without discussing: he had no need to push me further into submission.
Basically, he himself generated my reaction of now both challenging him on his move of trying to "fix my work" (which, even if made in a one-to-one e-mail exchange, was unwarranted anyway) and of "tasking" me, and (maybe) even on the rate. I see clearly now that my reaction was totally necessary at this point, even at the risk of losing the client for future work.
I also remember that he used to do this same thing in the past, and I could not recognize what was happening then.
Nice, yet another step ahead, all the more power to you, Bel :)
I sent him the power re-balancing e-mail at the start of last week. Of course the customer is not calling me. He perfectly understands I am trying to rebalance power, and he does not like it. Some days ago was his birthday but I let it slide deliberately.
Since I have (unfortunately) interacted all my life with these kinds of people, my feeling is that he won't call me and will wait indefinitely. And if I call, he likely won't pick up, to reinforce that I am the one chasing him for payment.
After all, in his first e-mail he linked my issuing my invoice for my work to talking on the phone with him.
But since he was very disrespectful on his last e-mail, I don't want to call him. So I put myself in a catch-22 (again), as I ended my e-mail with: "Let's talk for the rest".
So here is my plan: I plan to wait some more (one more week maybe?), and then send him this e-mail:
My e-mail: Hi ...,
if you have no other observations on the draft I will proceed to issue to invoice for the work performed at the address you specified, and then we will talk when possible for both of us.
Talk soon.
The idea is to reverse his first assumption that I had to talk to him before issuing invoice (he ended his first message with "After we have talked, you can send you invoice to...").
This hopefully would, at best, compel him to call me, and at worst, surface his intention of not calling me first (he will have to write "No no, call me", and then if he does not pick up it also surfaces him not respecting his written word).
What do you think guys? Would it be good or do you see a better way?
I think the client is lost BTW. But I also think it's a good thing. I'm super-super-super tired of having to devote my life to managing these kinds of people.
Yes, I think reversing the assumption is a good move.
I haven't re-read everything and don't remember if I mentioned it already, but that "let's talk" had raised a flag around payment in my mind.
