One of the hardest things about being a freelance, especially in the early days, is knowing when and how to say no to clients. ESPECIALLY when your portfolio is looking light, the impulse is to rack up projects, rack up satisfied clients, and make yourself look like the right decision as quickly as possible.

Think about what you want to be known for, the fine print in your reputation. It’s one thing to be known as a dynamic problem solver, another to be a YesBot that yesms their way through every pitch or planning meet. That is a short road to becoming known as The Over Committer That Couldn’t Deliver.

Let’s think about a typical situation. You’ve built a WordPress site for Clara the Client, and she was quite pleased. She learned the dashboard, updating content is no problem, and she’s even started playing around with plugins. She’s read about a Killer App and insists that the site needs it ASAP. She’s already installed a plugin for it but needs you to jump in and fine tune it using Killer App’s tech. You figure, hey, let’s go full mustang at the rodeo! Let’s do this! You solve problems and do brilliant stuff all the time.

But now you’re in over your head, and Clara the Client is expecting good news fast. She doesn’t realize how deep of a rabbithole she’s pushed you into, and you’ve billed yourself as “the answer” the whole time. You’re looking at Killer App’s code and it’s basically Swahili (this is assuming that you do not speak Swahili, otherwise Afya Njema!!!). You call up a buddy for a consult, they LOL you off the chat for thinking you could learn Killer App in a day. Your back is against the wall, and you have no choice but to tell the client, “No, I’m sorry, I’m out of my depth.”

There are different ways to do this, but the first step in all is to accept a certain truth, and I can only compare it to a leap of faith. It is the belief that any situation can be seen from a positive perspective. No matter how bad a scenario might be, there are pieces that can be salvaged and saved. You learn on every project. Every line of code is an investment in your knowledge and understanding. Every setback is the beginning of the next step forward. You need to keep emotion and judgement out of it, you can view an attempt as being unsuccessful without thinking of the whole enterprise as a failure.

With this in mind, we sit Clara down to talk about her site and Killer App. Always begin with the bad news, clearly stated. “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to be able to implement the tech that you had intended for the site.” Explain why, in terms she can understand. If she doesn’t know PHP, don’t try to explain a difficulty as though she does. She won’t get “I’m having problems with the custom classes as defined in the functions file” as easily as she’ll get “This system is tricky and it will take more time than provisioned for me to do this.”

What happens next is the most important part, and the future of your relationship with Clara the Client depends on it. If you say, “I’m very sorry, I don’t know what to do next,” realize that you have shot this relationship through both kneecaps, Clara has no confidence in you. When the chips are down and the unknown rears up on its hind legs and roar, you fold. However, if you say, “I have an idea,” and can actually follow it up with something that addresses the situation, you still have the reins.

There is never the absence of a solution or an alternative, and the conversation moves very differently if you are continuing to look for angles on the problem. “We can’t do this” should not sound like, “We can’t do anything”. And if you’re really strong in this game, you drive the conversation by saying, “We are not doing this. Instead, we are doing this.”

Now, for all the hungry young lions who want to know how I’d handle the chat with Clara, here are the avenues I would run down to figure things out…

• establish need for Killer App tech on site, why we are integrating? what is necessary?
• there is no alternative tech that can be used to address need
• plugin is problematic, is author available / responsive / supportive?
• are there plugin alternatives for implementing Killer App? Use cheapest highest rated solution
• if you cannot get tangible results from tech in 4 hours, hold for specialist resource
• find Killer App newber, subcontract specifics, share credit

In the end, Clara should have what she wants on her site, and it is still your job to help her implement those ends, even if you’re not doing all of the coding. She looks at you as “The Web Human”, the one that makes her odd dreams realities on the site, and that is ultimately your job, providing web solutions. If you find something or someone else that worked in that situation where you could not, that is your success as a manager and provider, not your failure to grasp a certain tech as a coder.

If you just said, “I’m sorry, I don’t know this, I can’t learn this, I don’t know what to do!” and let the project die, THAT is failure.

No is an extremely powerful word, and its value to self starters and networkers cannot be overstated. You are choosing the course of your career, you are in the power position. There are realities to learning your way into an industry where you have to do some menial things, but that is true everywhere, and if you commit to learning the ropes and knowing them well, you will be welcomed and advanced. That is when you need to start being selective, both to allow yourself to specialize AND to allow breathing room in the ecosystem for the more junior talents trying to come up behind you.

Why is also an extremely powerful word, especially posed as a question, and I find it useful in conversations where No comes up. “No, we can’t do this, but Why are we trying to do this? What are you really after?” Civilians seem to have this view of the internet as a magic cabinet that anything can be pulled out of, and to a certain extent this is true. But the most successful ideas in the post-Facebook world have been the most simplified, streamlined and pared down. A lot of the ideas that my civvy homies come up with tend to be convoluted and twisty, but there’s usually a good core concept in there that we can talk through to the definition of a prototype.

Sometimes, though, you will need to just say no. In that you are saying NO to something that should be said NO to. There will be rates you are offered that are disrespectfully low, the project could involve material you object to on GP, or it’s a situation that you find uncomfortable. But don’t make mountains out of molehills, and don’t diva yourself out of a good opportunity. It’s amazing how far common sense can take you in this world.