This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Yesterday, we heard from a wedding proposal planner in the Bay area, talking all about how she had built a successful business with this unique series of events. Today, we have a question from a different event planner, and I would just note from doing a bunch of events, not for other people, but for myself, but learning the event production world, it can really be exciting, but it also comes with its challenges. And one challenge in the freelance side of things is when clients can't make up their minds. So this question in particular, from a part-time event planner who loves creating unforgettable celebrations, but keeps running into indecisive clients. They often change their themes, causing extra work, potential delays.
Let's consider how she can set boundaries, communicate clearly, and perhaps even adjust her pricing to reflect the extra effort. By the way, welcome to Side Hustle School. It's Chris Guillebeau, your host. How do we handle indecisive clients? It could be in another industry as well.
That's the question, detailed version in my answer, coming right up. [Music]
Hey, this is Regina. I'm a sales associate by day, but I have a passion for event planning. To make a little extra cash, I've started to plan and decorate small events like birthday parties or anniversary celebrations. I keep having clients who can't decide on the theme and keep changing their minds.
So like, how do I manage indecisive clients without causing delays or maybe coming across pushy? You know, is changing themes something I should start charging extra for? If so, how much more? And when should I disclose that? I don't want to advertise changing themes, but I want to be upfront with clients about how much it would cost.
Hey, Regina, thank you for the call and the message and the question. So indecisive clients, what do we do here? Well, some people may just be difficult, like there's such a thing as difficult clients. However, if you are a service professional, a freelancer, service provider of some kind, and you notice you're continuing to get like a lot of clients that might be difficult or indecisive, you might want to consider if there's something you can do, like it's not always them, like there's something you might be able to improve in your process to kind of handle some of these issues and make a smoother process for the clients as well, just kind of helps everybody. And so a little bit of leadership goes a long way here, I think setting some clear deadlines from the start, like a client's gonna look to you for process.
And if you show up and you're like, oh, we can do it however you want, and you don't have much in the way of deadlines or expectations, then that just kind of communicates to them that there's a lot of flexibility and they're free to change their minds and such. Whereas if you say, okay, we have different phases here, here's the phase of brainstorming and talking about stuff, and then we need to set a clear theme at this particular point. It could be this point in the process, it could be this date, could be this number of days before the event, whatever it is, just giving them a pretty clear script and just even saying like, hey, to make your event as seamless as possible, we need to finalize the theme and make these other decisions, whatever they are by this date. And after that point, any changes may be subject to an additional planning fee, or I just might not be able to do them, like once we're kind of set, we're set. A little checklist could help with that, a checklist or a project timeline.
As a client of various vendors, that's something I've seen good design firms do, for example, it helps me as a client when I know that there's a good process that I need to follow. For the other times, create a change policy and build it into your contract, just kind of your agreement or proposal, outline how many free revisions are allowed before any additional fees apply. You might choose to be a little bit flexible with that, but just to have that in the contract is helpful in case you ever need to refer back to it, just kind of makes it clear that changes can come with added costs, you're very transparent and fair about it. And then mostly, I think, keep the focus on creating an amazing event. Sometimes when clients want changes, it's because they're anxious about something.
They're not always indecisive, they're anxious. And so if you can do anything to reassure them, actually this theme that you chose is gonna be great. Like I've already been working on it and let me show you why this theme that you already picked, for example, is the right one. Whenever you can reframe the discussion around delivering the best possible experience, not trying to go into all the logistics because that's your job to take care of the logistics so that they can focus on the actual event, I think that is gonna be very helpful as well. So creating that clear process, setting some guidelines, putting the change language in your contract and doing whatever you can to stay focused on creating an amazing event.
I think that will help with a lot of the problem. As I said, doesn't mean there won't be challenges, but that should help with a lot of the issue. Listeners, if you have a question, sidehustleschool.com/questions. We're gonna continue to feature them throughout the year, along with updates from other listeners as they launch and grow their projects. So happy to be able to make this podcast for you every day.
It's always free. Subscribe wherever you like. My name is Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to Side Hustle School. [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
