Micromanaged a project for a client in Austin. Lost the account anyway.

I thought if I checked in every day, sent updates, and tracked every little task, they'd love me. Nope. They said I was suffocating them. Took 8 weeks of that before they bailed. Lesson learned. Anyone else have clients who just want you to disappear and deliver?

2 comments

2 Comments

bailey.xena8d ago

oh god yes, that's exactly what happened to me. i had this one client where i sent a daily status report, a weekly recap, and a mid-week check-in email. thought i was being proactive and showing them i was on top of things. they finally called me and said "we hired you to solve problems, not to report on them." i trimmed it down to just one email every other week after that but the damage was done, they never trusted me again. some people just want you to do the work and disappear until they need you. it's like they forget you're a human and just want a silent robot that delivers results.

diana554d ago

Honestly though, the problem might be the WAY you framed it, not the volume. If those daily reports are just a list of what you did, that reads as busywork. But if you turned each one into a mini decision point, like "here's the issue I caught and what I recommend," that changes the whole tone. It makes you look like a partner instead of a tracker. That said, some clients really do treat you like a vending machine and no amount of tweaking will fix that, so you're not wrong there either.