WNA #4: The most important word in the creative industry
I’ve been to many conferences on creativity and design. One common question during expert Q&As is this:
“What do I do when a client insists on having X?”
…in which X is something that goes against the creative’s beliefs.
The expert answer is always the same: “You say ‘no.’” The audience laughs and everybody goes home to continue saying ‘yes.’
Or, when an expert shares an insight, there’s always this reply: “But what if my client doesn’t want that?”
The answer, again, is “No. You do it your way.”
Every lesson in this part of the book [Part Two: Clients] is useless if we don’t stand our ground. When we know how something should be done but are not confident enough to defend our beliefs, there is no point in doing it.
Saying no more often is not selfish. We can only be of service to our clients if we leverage our experience and skills. Which means doing it our way and pushing back every time our clients try to persuade us to do things their way.
It’s as simple as that. No.
However
There’s a catch. The experts that get invited to host Q&As are highly experienced, authoritative figures; often founders of established firms. Not only do they command respect from their peers, but also from their clients.
They lead the engagement. Saying no from a leading role is much easier (and more accepted) than saying no from a submissive, order-taker role. When a waiter at a restaurant tells us something isn’t possible, we often try our luck with the manager or the chef.
The real key to getting to saying ‘no’ more often lies in changing our role in the engagement. We’ll do this by examining multiple levers of influence in the next few chapters.
You just read one of the earlier chapters in Part Two: Clients. The chapter is, of course, titled “No.” What do you think?