Open Tabs Leave People Hanging

while my business doesn’t struggle mightily with open tabs, it does play a factor each month. and no — you don’t have to be a bar to have tabs. any time a client hires a professional to do something, s/he reserves time and availability. while it may be prudent, it’s not optimistic or exceptional to assume a project or relationship will hit a snag. since most clients expect and regularly demand a high level of execution, the service provider can’t justify the booking of additional projects beyond a certain point. most clients don’t accept a “you snooze, you lose” policy with project holds. that scenario quickly becomes a mess for both sides. so what should the service provider do? for starters — just because a client isn’t showing full courtesy to the service provider doesn’t mean that same needs to be returned. one of two things needs to happen. either the client agrees anew that the project can be completed on a revised schedule (with potentially additional fees added to the new agreement, to be determined) or the client releases the service provider from the agreement until a later date. with the latter, the unfortunate thing is that the service provider won’t easily be able to slide someone else into the slot. s/he will lose income for having done nothing wrong. the bottom line is that when things begin to fall off schedule, any service provider worth his/her salt should feel like inefficiency is setting in — and not allow it to continue! the nature of an outsource is fulfillment of work by a service provider that couldn’t be managed by the client with his/her time and resources. i can’t speak for others, but i like opening and closing doors fluidly. rhythm. continuity. cashflow. progess. investment. both sides need these to stay in stride.