The project that isn’t

Half of my job is talking myself out of new business.

When a prospective client reaches out about starting a new project, one of the first things we'll do is get on the phone together.

It's a chance to make introductions, see if we're a good fit for each other, and dig in a little on what they're trying to achieve.

If you were eavesdropping on my conversation, you might get the impression that I don't want to work with them.

It might even sound like I'm trying to talk them out of working with me, or out of doing the project at all.

That's because it's kinda true.

Some of the best calls I've had in the past few months ended with me and the client agreeing happily on one of these conclusions:

• The problem they're facing is one of policy, people, or politics, and no CRM improvement is going to fix that.
  

• The features they were hoping to build would be fun to have but won't actually solve a valuable business problem.
  

• At their current scale, there's a much cheaper low-tech way to solve this problem.
  

• Instead of diving into the project now, it's better to do a little more research and work out some specific measurable goals that are worth pursuing.
  

• They actually do have a good business case and valuable, reasonable, measurable goals that would likely be met by this project. Try as I might, I've “failed to talk them out of it.” So we schedule next steps to move forward.

Any of those outcomes is a win.

All of them are far better than starting a project that doesn't deserve to be started.

All the best,
A.