Word of the day again - No

A few posts ago, I wrote about how an affectionate ‘no’ can be golden. It prevent you from overwhelming yourself, your business, or your personal relationships with stress that’s constantly pushed down the road.

I was thinking and writing about the bad stuff it could prevent, but I totally missed the good stuff it can create.

I had a very recent talk with a client about a new feature on his website. There was a legitimate user sign-up concern, and the feature they were asking for would help protect against people abusing the system. However, it would have also been a huge back-end project, and was definitely outside the scope of the project.

But I take clients’ concerns seriously, so it was truly very difficult for me to say that it would expand the project scope and cost, otherwise I would not be able to implement it. Saying no still makes me feel like a jerk sometimes.

In the midst of going back and forth about what it would take to built the complex feature, however, we were missing its actual goal. When I said ‘no’, it forced us to work within limitations to solve a problem.

And, who would have guessed, the limitations led to an infinitely simpler solution that was just as effective as the beast we were considering. It was done in 10 minutes.

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  1. drewdagostino posted this