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EP 4: 5 Strategies to Master Scope Creep and Set Strong Business Boundaries
117 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, we are tackling nearly every entrepreneur’s challenge: scope creep. We'll define it, share our experiences, and discuss how scope creep impacts income and deliverable quality. Through this episode, you will learn about 5 solutions to overcome scope creep and how to avoid it altogether. Join us for insights and actionable tips you can implement today to master scope creep!
Follow us online & come say hi!
- The Business Playdate Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebusinessplaydate/
- Lindsay White's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lindsaywhite.co/
- Betsy Moorehead's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/betsymoorehead.biz/
Learn more about Lindsay's marketing agency here: https://thewhitelabelcreative.com/
Learn more about Betsy's marketing services here: https://betsymoorehead.com/
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Transcript
Introduction to Business Playdate Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Business Playdate, a podcast hosted by Lindsay White and Betsy Moorehead, two internet strangers turned business besties. We're two marketing professionals living across the country, raising our kiddos while running our own individual businesses. We built these businesses based on our experiences working in corporate management roles with the end goal to be able to show up for our families first. And we did it. We're so happy you're here with us. Now let's get into this week's episode.
Navigating Weekly Disruptions
00:00:31
Speaker
Welcome back to the Business Playdate. How's everybody doing? Hope you're doing good. We are actually recording this over Labor Day week. Lindsay, what's up? How's your week been? It's been a short one.
00:00:44
Speaker
It's been a short week. I don't know about you, but I absolutely hate when we have Monday holidays. Give me all the Friday holidays. Fridays, I tend to ease back on work. It's the beginning of the weekend for me. But on Monday, it's one of my most productive days. And I swear, when we have Mondays that are a holiday, I'm not going to give up my time with my family to work. That's a non-negotiable. So the rest of my week is absolute chaos. I'm just trying to get it all in.
00:01:12
Speaker
Because there's like no way to treat a Tuesday like a Monday. No matter how hard you try, a Tuesday can't be a Monday. It can feel like a Monday, but it can't be as productive as a Monday coming off of a weekend. I totally get it. No, it can't. I agree. How about you? What's going on with you?
Handling Conflict in Business
00:01:28
Speaker
It's been a good week. We had a good Labor Day weekend. There was some interesting things that happened this week, a little bit of like,
00:01:34
Speaker
preschool drama, if you will. I won't get into the details of poor everybody, but I had to dig deep within myself to fight my urge of no confrontation whatsoever and step up and say something to somebody this week. And that's very, very hard for me. I am
00:01:56
Speaker
Zero conflict, zero confrontation, total people pleaser, like Enneagram 2, I want everyone to love me. And so like drama might even be a strong word, but just like something happened this week with one of my kids' teachers and you know, I had to address it with her and it was like very comfortable, like a sweaty situation, if you will. So all is good now, but you know, I know we've talked about this before, but like
00:02:24
Speaker
Golly, nothing makes you have to step out of your comfort zone more than being a business owner and working with clients. And so I had to really dig deep and address some confrontation. Yeah, you had to work that muscle. I did. I had to do some work with it, if you will.
00:02:41
Speaker
Yes. Yes. But you did it. I did. I did it. Everything's good. All good. The air is clear, but that goes really good into what we
Understanding and Defining Scope Creep
00:02:49
Speaker
were going to talk about today. We wanted to bring you guys an episode that's just like chock full of some tangible tips. I know at the end of every episode, we bring you guys something that you can take into your week and implement into your business, into your strategy. And so today we thought it would be good to bring you guys
00:03:05
Speaker
a whole episode full of our top five ways to avoid a very controversial, uncomfortable topic, scope creep. And I know we've both experienced it. One of my least favorite things. Yeah. Oh, all the time. I mean, I think that you could go as far to say, like, I experience it weekly, daily. It just depends. You know, someone's always pushing a boundary somewhere.
00:03:28
Speaker
Oh, the lovely boundary pushing. This is going to also be an uncomfortable episode for me. And I know we've talked about this, but it's just such a thing that you have to learn how to do as a business owner, but also to protect yourself and to protect your time and to protect why you wanted to build a business like this in the first place. Absolutely. And protect your income, too. Your income, absolutely.
00:03:57
Speaker
Time is money too and protect your time, all of that. So yeah, so we wanted to walk through, this is going to be structured a little different, but wanted to walk through our top five ways to avoid and address scope creep. So you want to jump in, talk through some of that? Yeah. Yeah. So I think personally the first thing that I would do when thinking about scope creep is determine what is the root cause or your personal issue with scope creep.
00:04:23
Speaker
So that's something that might like, I think you and I might have even different ideas of what scope creep is and what our issues with scope creep are. Yeah. For me personally, scope creep is bothersome to me because it impacts my income, right? If someone is going past a package rate with me and they're wanting more out of a package that obviously
00:04:51
Speaker
time is money and they're squeezing more money out of me than they could be. But secondly, I really pride myself on providing amazing products, services, results. I want my deliverables to be amazing for my clients. And so when someone is pushing the scope of a project,
00:05:14
Speaker
it doesn't allow me to provide them the best results. And the reason being is all of a sudden I'm spending more time trying to learn how to do something I didn't know how to do or provide them more into a package than I was originally intending on providing them. And the due date that I plan on delivering them this thing by, it's being squished and I no longer can deliver this exceptional piece that I was planning on providing them.
00:05:40
Speaker
And so that's one of my biggest issues with scope creep is I don't like the way it impacts my income, but I also don't like the way that it impacts the results that I'm providing. Yeah. No, I, I, that makes complete sense and I can totally see how
00:05:57
Speaker
that would be considered scope creep for a lot of people.
Communication and Contracts
00:06:02
Speaker
When I personally think of scope creep, I consider it when somebody and it's, mine's like a very blanket like answer, very cut dry, but like I consider it when somebody is asking you to do something for them as their service provider that is outside of what you've initially agreed upon. So it goes in hand-in-hand with what you're saying, but I don't guess... Oh yeah, 100%.
00:06:23
Speaker
Right. Like when I think of scope creep, it's a very like dictionary answer to me, but I'm also like the worst when it comes to scope creep. And I will just be like, Oh yeah, sure. I'll do that. I'll handle that for you. Like, and I think it's the mentality from like my corporate days of like being a manager and being a director over something and like, Oh, I'll just handle it. Like it's just easier for me to get it done if I can do it myself. And so that has been like a big learning curve and like adjustment that I've personally had to make.
00:06:52
Speaker
But again, if somebody's asking you to do something outside of what you've agreed upon on what they've agreed to pay you for, that is considered scope creep, in my opinion. I 100% agree that that's what's considered scope creep. So tell me, if someone's scope creeping? Creeping it real. Yeah, creeping it real. What does it
00:07:16
Speaker
do to you? What is that issue that you have, aside from the principle of their going outside of the confines that you guys had put in place? Yeah. You touched on a couple of them, but it takes up more of your time because you're, one, taking away your energy from other clients, maybe what you could be doing for them with that time, or for your own business. If you're looking for new clients, trying to market your own business,
00:07:42
Speaker
But I think the main thing for me is it opens a door and a can of worms to, oh, Betsy will just do it. Betsy will just handle it. And thankfully, I don't have many clients who are in the scope creep world.
00:07:56
Speaker
I've had some in the past. That's such a good point though. Yeah. I've had some in the past and I no longer have those clients because the scope Creek just became too much. And when I would address it uncomfortably for me sweating on the other end of a phone call, uh, it just, it wasn't a good fit. And I think that's why it's like really important to, I don't want to say vet your clients, but like have a really good understanding between the two of what you're doing.
00:08:21
Speaker
Absolutely. And I think that too, scope creep is one of those things that creates a poor relationship between you and your client. And like you said, you don't have those clients anymore for a reason. Yeah. And so thinking and evaluating who you're working with as you're working with them and saying, is this becoming a repeated pattern or is this a one-time circumstance? Yeah, the resentment. Well, so that goes really good into point number two.
00:08:48
Speaker
getting very clear and communicating with your client from the jump what your services are, like being very clear about this, having it written down in a contract. I'm sure we all have contracts and service agreements, but being very clear from the jump, from the discovery call, the sales call, this is what we do and this is what we don't do for you.
00:09:12
Speaker
I don't offer social media management. I am very clear with my clients about that. I do not post organically on your social media for you. I will work with you on your strategy for how to implement social media on your own, but that is not something that I handle. And I'm very clear with my clients about that. And very rarely does that come up in conversation. I mean, they all pretty much know like, oh, no, I handle that. Betsy will do the advertising or we'll develop a strategy around what we should do next organically.
00:09:42
Speaker
I think social media is a really good example of how scope creep can come into play. Even if you are a social media manager for a client and you do social media posting for your clients, the constant need for creating content, getting images, doing photo shoots and that sort of stuff can immediately stack up and create this big scope creep. Oh, absolutely.
00:10:05
Speaker
I also don't do social media for my clients. It's not something that I really like to participate in and I don't think the value is there for my clients to be.
00:10:15
Speaker
paying me to post on social media. But another thing too is, I know you used to do a lot of event marketing. Do you still do event marketing? Occasionally. But it's not one of my core services anymore. Occasionally. Because I think that clients that have events, they need to be doing their own social media and when they try to outsource it, that's such a huge scope creep because it's like, oh, we have an event at 6 p.m. tonight. You're the social media manager. We need you to come take photos of it.
00:10:40
Speaker
Not that long ago, I was putting together a proposal for a project that I was maybe going to be a part of with another agency. They were going to subcontract out some work and they needed someone to come in and handle all the marketing of it. I remember like, boxing you and being like, it has social media in here. I need to add that into the package if I'm going to be the one
00:11:01
Speaker
handling social media for them or if I'm going to be working with somebody internally that will be doing the social media for them. So I'd be very clear in my proposal, like if you're looking for me to be the one coming to events and coming to your office in town and being the one
00:11:19
Speaker
collecting all of the content and using my phone to do all of this and whatnot. I got to put that in my pricing. I need that to be clearly written out in my proposal. I had to have a conversation with the team and say, what is the expectation from the client? Because it was another team that was spearheading the bid.
00:11:45
Speaker
I was just adding to the proposal for my part. She had to go back and ask and they really couldn't give a clear answer. My price included it. If it wasn't going to be a clear answer, then I was going to get paid for my services. Don't be afraid to ask questions. You have to be very clear with what your expectations are for the client and what the client's expectations are for you.
00:12:12
Speaker
And clear in that communication too, I mean, even in your email correspondence with a client before or after that proposal is accepted, like being very clear.
00:12:22
Speaker
Hey, if this is going to take more than two rounds of revisions, there's going to be a fee on top of that or within your contract. I know we'll go into contracts a little
Strategies to Prevent Scope Creep
00:12:32
Speaker
bit more further into our list of topics or tips. That's the word I'm looking for, tips. But getting really clear in how you talk with clients, one thing that I like to do is get really clear in my subject lines. So I'll say, you know, version one,
00:12:52
Speaker
client revisions needed or client revision number one and list it all out so that I'm spelling it out for them. There is no miscommunication. It's like, just look at your subject lines and you'll know what version we're on and how many fees this is going to rack up per the contract that we have in place.
00:13:13
Speaker
Oh my God, we could do a whole episode around subject lines and email organization. And like I have so many stories from my corporate days too about like email organization and subject lines, but I digress on that topic. Another day, another day. But yeah, no, I totally agree.
00:13:31
Speaker
And getting really clear kind of goes into our third point, which is the idea of doing an intensive first. So if you're in the director of marketing program or have followed me on social media, you probably have heard me talk about this. But I feel so strongly about the intensive first offer model and the reason being is it
00:13:52
Speaker
practically completely eliminate scope creep or at least that's a really solid foundation for that to be avoided. And the whole premise is that I offer marketing services to my clients. I am essentially an outsourced CMO and I always start my clients with a marketing strategy plan. And the reason is twofold. The first reason is every business needs to have a marketing strategy plan in place. It catapults them towards success. It helps us not throw spaghetti at the wall.
00:14:18
Speaker
amongst a million other things. That said, the second reason I only start with marketing strategy plans with my clients is because it gives us an exact action roadmap of what is going to be included in their monthly retainer. So we build out a whole year and we're like, all right, this quarter we're focused on this specific initiative and we're breaking it into months and weeks. It never goes far as days, but you could.
00:14:39
Speaker
Then I know exactly what work is going to be done each month, each week, each quarter. It allows me to put together a very solid proposal full of what deliverables they're going to be receiving. I'll know from a creative standpoint what copywriters I need to pull in, what designers I need to pull in, what I'm responsible for.
00:14:58
Speaker
what kind of information i need from the client before we can even get started on certain projects so it gives me a really good glimpse into what that package with them is gonna look like and i always i do operate by the eighty twenty rule like eighty percent of marketing is going to be proactive or it should be proactive twenty percent
00:15:16
Speaker
It's going to be reactive. You have a client who suddenly is featured in a big newspaper situation. And we have to capitalize on that. That's part of the 20%. But you can price your retainer packages or your package packages accordingly. Pricing. I know we'll talk about that a little bit, too. But that is such a good tip.
00:15:38
Speaker
I, when I first started my business was not doing intensive versus, oh my gosh, intensive first services, but it is early.
00:15:52
Speaker
Really, it wasn't until I went through the Director Marketing Program and got to know you more. I hadn't come from a complete marketing background. I came from, I think we talked about this, the communications world and the social media world. Then I learned about marketing and then I was involved in marketing.
00:16:12
Speaker
truly having a marketing strategy and building that out for your client. Or what if they already have a marketing strategy, you know, like then you need to do like a whole review of it, you know, like I audited, I need to understand what's going on here. You know, okay, you have a marketing strategy. Do you have
00:16:32
Speaker
your brand developed, you know, like a brand, not when I say brand, I don't mean your colors and your graphics and all of that. I mean like your brand positioning statement, like is that a part of your marketing strategy? Have you done that before? So yeah, there's definitely ways of doing intensive firsts with clients who already seem well established. I have a client that that's, that's what I did. Like my first intensive first with a client was building out a marketing strategy for them, a well-established company who was already doing really well in their marketing efforts.
00:17:02
Speaker
But they didn't have strategy. And so that led into a very good monthly retainer like you're talking about. Exactly. And you were able to fully scope it out and know what you were up against. So you could price it appropriately. Yeah. And you're doing that. Yeah. Doing a big marketing strategy plan so that I can appropriately price out a ongoing retainer with a client. Yeah. That's a great way to avoid it.
00:17:25
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. Okay, fourth point. We kind of touched on this, but raising your rates. That's always a touchy, kind of uncomfortable way of avoiding scope creep, but it may be time to raise your rates if your client is coming in constantly with things that are outside of scope.
00:17:47
Speaker
And I think that that puts into perspective too, like what you were saying when you said you had a lot of clients who were scope creeping and they're no longer your clients. I feel like raising your rates is that first line of defense. Like, okay, you're going outside of the scope that we laid out. I'm providing more value than you're paying me for. And this needs to be compensated for. And I think that you can talk about that from a time perspective or just a rate perspective or a
00:18:16
Speaker
a package perspective, you have to think about what your package looks like. Yeah, and at the end of the day, it's business. I know it's a really uncomfortable conversation to have. I'm preaching to the choir when I say this to myself. It is very difficult to, especially depending on the kind of relationship you have with your clients, be like,
00:18:35
Speaker
Hey, I got to raise my rates. It's time. You know, like I am doing a little bit more for you than I initially was asked to do to signed up for. So it's business. Don't think, you know, don't, don't think that anyone's going to take it personally. Cause I know I am like the queen of thinking everyone takes everything personally because I'm an Enneagram too, but
00:18:56
Speaker
I think too, it's such an organic way to raise rates with a client and not as out of the blue as like an annual rate raise where you're like, I'm forecasting my 2024 projections and I want to raise my rates by 15% by, you know, for 2024. Rather if a client is kind of expecting a little bit more from me,
00:19:18
Speaker
It's a much easier conversation to portray why your rates are being raised. I am doing X, Y, and Z. I was contracted to do X and Y, and so the rates are being raised. And they're like, oh, well, I'm seeing that value already, so that makes sense, rather than being like, oh, hey, it's 2024 today, and I'm raising rates due to inflation, which is a very valid reason. But it's a much easier non-confrontational conversation, I feel like, when you were able to portray that value.
00:19:45
Speaker
And you're a business, like you're trying to further your business. You're trying to grow your business. You're becoming more and more of an expert at what you do. So of course you're going to raise your rates. Everybody does it. What about like... Sorry, keep going. Oh, you go ahead.
Setting Boundaries and Managing Time
00:20:01
Speaker
I think we're just, sorry guys, we're all over the place today. Uh, we have so much to say. We just can't help ourselves. I was just going to say like you even add it in your contract, like, you know, if you go over what we've talked about doing and maybe it's like an hourly package or something like that, but you're on a retainer with them, but your, your retainer is for so many hours a week. And maybe this scope creep is causing you to work more hours, you know, say in your contract, if I go over.
00:20:28
Speaker
That's an hourly rate of XYZ from now on. If I go over these, and then you're constantly, like you were saying, you can have this, you can have a document to show them. Here's how many hours I'm actually working for you because you're asking me to do something on top of what I'm already doing for you. That's what I do. I have a client where I have a job description, and that's what my retainer price is based off of, but I have a
00:20:54
Speaker
line in my contract that says, I am not working more than 10 hours a week for you as a client. And if I'm going over 10 hours a week, that's double my hourly rate. And I've never really had to track my time because it hasn't been needed and there really wasn't scope creep and I wasn't kind of going over that hourly amount. But there have been periods of time where I'm like, I'm going to have to start tracking this and charging. And I'll say that and I'll say, Hey, you know,
00:21:19
Speaker
I'm noticing that my hours are kind of reaching the threshold that we have laid out in our contract. So why don't we either think about reprioritizing some of these projects to a later date to fulfill my hours better, or we'll have to talk about an hourly compensation. Yeah.
00:21:36
Speaker
Yeah. I know that's always the raising of the rates, the pricing, the having conversations about money. Like it's uncomfortable, but it's, it's what you gotta do. It's gotta be done. Yeah. It's gotta be done. Yeah. And I mean, that's kind of comes to point number four, which is setting stricter boundaries with yourself. Getting out of that people. I know we're both such people pleasers getting out of that people pleaser mentality.
00:22:02
Speaker
Like I think that if I didn't, if I haven't been doing this as long as I have, I would just give away the world, be like, I can help with that. Of course I can help with that. Like I would love to help you with that. And I love helping people, but at the end of the day, it's a business. I know. I know. My husband will even be like, you're charging someone for that? What are you doing there? And I'm like, no, I'm just doing it. He's like, no, no, no, no, no.
00:22:28
Speaker
We have to have these husbands that keep us in line when it comes to business things. I know, I know.
00:22:34
Speaker
Yeah, that's really hard. I think it starts with setting the boundary with yourself, sure, about the work that you're doing, but even about the hours that you're working. I used to take phone calls and text messages. I give my phone number to clients. I'm a texter. That's just how I work. I know if some people do not give their phone numbers to clients, I do. That's just, for me, that works best. I do too. My clients aren't on Boxer.
00:22:58
Speaker
Email is kind of like hit or miss. Mostly all of them have kids too. So it's like we're all texting and doing things and our brains are working at random hours of the night. So, you know, I'm very clear with my clients though, like my work hours for taking calls are from nine to three. And I try not to take any calls outside of that unless it's an emergency. But that is a boundary that I've set for myself just recently.
00:23:24
Speaker
And I guess probably for the last eight or so months and it's been respected so well. Everyone gets it. You know, no one wants someone interrupted you during your family time. Soccer practice or whatever. Soccer practice, all of that. But like if my client and my clients too have been like, hey, don't feel like you have to answer me, but I'm going to probably text you later this evening when I have the capacity to think about it, about some things. And I'm like, cool.
00:23:49
Speaker
I'll address it tomorrow. Um, so yeah, just like setting those boundaries being, again, it goes back to like one of our first points of being, just being very clear, uh, with yourself and concise on what your boundaries are with yourself and your business, and then relaying those boundaries to your client. Definitely, definitely. And at the end of the day, you have to determine what scope creep is going to do to you, to your brain, to your overwhelm, to your stress levels, to your bottom line.
00:24:17
Speaker
and determine how to best mitigate that. But I think with a lot of these tips, we've given so many different strategies on what you can consider when talking with your clients or talking to yourself in your own mindset of pumping yourself up to do some of these things.
Engaging with Listeners and Episode Recap
00:24:34
Speaker
Should we run through our five really fast as the five tangible tips? Let's run through them. Let's run through them. Number one, determine what's the root cause or issue with the scope creep in your specific situation.
00:24:46
Speaker
Two is get very clear and communicate what your services are for your client. Be very, very clear and concise about this. Use an intensive first model. Four would be raise your rates. And five would be set stricter boundaries with yourself. And just go out there and rock it. Yeah, I love it.
00:25:05
Speaker
I love it. Well, what a fun episode. Be on the lookout. We're going to be doing more of these kind of top tips, tangible episodes, but we do want to hear from you guys on things that maybe you want to have us talk about over the course of the podcast. So make sure you're following at the business playdate on Instagram. DMS, let us know what you want to hear.
00:25:27
Speaker
more and we can't wait to bring you some more great content. What great episodes. We'll talk soon guys. Bye.