Serious question, did anyone else learn to say the deadline out loud before saying yes? | Deadline Panic Room - Freelance Forum - The Community for Independent Professionals
Serious question, did anyone else learn to say the deadline out loud before saying yes?
Back around 2019 I was the guy who said yes to everything on the phone, then hung up and panicked. A client in Baltimore called on a Friday and wanted a 12 page site copy job by Monday morning. I said sure, no problem, then sat there staring at my screen for two hours. What finally worked was stupid simple. I started saying the date out loud back to them before I agreed, like "so that's Monday 9am, right?" Half the time they'd go oh, actually Tuesday is fine. The other half I'd hear myself say the date and my gut would tell me right then if it was insane. I still do it now, every single call, and it costs me nothing. Last month a guy tried to move a Thursday deadline to Wednesday at 4pm and reading it back made him admit his own team hadn't signed off yet. Does the read-back thing work for anyone else, or do you all have a better line for pushing back?