How to quickly recover on a freelance phone call

by | Jan 14, 2022 | Tech | 0 comments

women listening to client on laptop with kid playing in grass

When you’re on a freelance phone call with your clients, it’s important to have an ability to pull them out of the deep end.

Often people are used to saying “parking lot” and that can be enough. However others may prefer the word backlog.

Come up with what works best for you. Let us learn more about Product backlog, which I appreciate a lot because it is a quick grasp of logic that may help you earn more money in the future.

Product backlog

Within agile project management, product backlog refers to a prioritized list of functionality which a product should contain. It is sometimes referred to as a to-do list,[1] and is considered an ‘artifact’ (a form of documentation) within the scrum software development framework.[2] The product backlog is referred to with different names in different project management frameworks, such as product backlog in scrum,[2][3] work item list in disciplined agile,[3][4] and option pool in lean.[3] In the scrum framework, creation and continuous maintenance of the product backlog is part of the responsibility of the product owner.[5]

A sprint backlog[6] consists of selected elements from the product backlog which are planned to be developed within that particular sprint.

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I’m not saying everyone loves this idea of tracking info and instant transparency. I’m on a call right now and the client clearly said “I’m probably not going to touch the asana.” This is the honesty we needed to progress. Asana is helping me keep track right now and maybe it’s not the best fit for him today.

So he continued by saying, “I tell you things, then we meet to discuss, and that should be good enough because it’s not that many questions.” This is good because he’s setting the pace.

At this point I could have said this is wrong, maybe that it doesn’t fit for our firm, or explained why he needs to be on asana.

However I let the call continue because I’m open to advice and feedback. So to paint a clear picture I said, “I’m the kid in front of your class room taking more notes than necessary because I’m going to get an A+.”

Well he’s a (university) teacher, this was a pivotal point of the call, my goal was to explain what I’m trying to do in a way that he may understand me better. And it was well perceived. Not all calls have this much room for a good single line or even getting a point of view across, with that said, I want to add I’m really fortunate to have readers like you reading my content which helps me improve my revenue generation on my other websites. Plus meet a client like the team we are work with right now.

The reason we need a place to push stuff, so we can focus on hearing more…

Listening is king and I have a lot to say so refraining requires me to do a few things, like operationalize my conversation.

If asana doesn’t fit, let them know you wrote it down, and maybe an invite to asana will help demonstrate the usage VS text you say. Allow others to mold you. Plus, be patient and humble.

a man on phone having coffee while listening to freelance client

freelancer listening to client on phone, always w/ coffee. looking proper warm and humble.

We need a place to listen to our clients.

If it’s zoom, text, slack, make it happen. Find a place to listen.

Document what you hear, then react to the problem, and that can be a good flow for meetings. Build a backlog. If you don’t complete backlog, let everyone know what happened once per week minimum. At start, doesn’t hurt to meet each day to ensure you’re on track.

Otherwise you’re working on 3-4 things, VS 30 things. 30 things means more time behind the wheel helping the client, 3-4 things can be done rather fast, yes?

Inevitably we can speak on one topic all day if we want. It’s up to you to steer the direction.

The most important part is hearing what they have to say, listening, taking notes, and not getting in a rabbit hole.

The color of font, size of buttons, and many things. However we need a place to say “lets table this” and keep cruising on the

My solution is suggest iterations, 3 to 5. Then listen. See what they think. Also, be willing to say it again if you fall into a rabbit hole that feels like could be in a parking lot. A parking lot is a place you can revisit later. You can make a digital parking lot with apps like trello, asana, etc. and this is free. Lastly, I recommend you remain patient, take a deep breath, and listen. People need to be heard otherwise you’re speaking too much. Give them questions to answer.

Lastly, be quiet, listen, and then wait to speak. Speak slowly. People listen more when you speak slowly.

Confident Indian male wearing name tag and speaking on smartphone while looking away and sitting on gray background in studio during work

Assigning asana to someone’s day is not logical if they gain zero value from asana before today. Find a way to balance everything by being open to suggestions.

Apps mentioned today are free and I’m not a partner of any application company.

Add me on twitter, more soon. Here’s a link to my website https://dev3lop.com, a business I’ve been building and doing sales on for many years.

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