Happy New Year

Another Christmas came and went. So fast! I hope all you silent readers out there had a good one this year.

Mine was pretty good...my 1st Christmas actually spent together with my wife. It was nice...we really didn't do anything particularly fancy. We didn't buy each other any gifts, or go anywhere special together. We simply bought a board game for "us" and played it together with my parents on Christmas Eve.

You know what...that turned out pretty nice. I can't remember the last time I sat around a table playing a simple board game with the folks and this was quite nice. Florence recommended this game called "Blockus" that she played back home with friends.

It's one of those games that you can learn in 5 minutes but can probably take a while to master. We all liked it. I thought I'd be decent at this game because of the spatial relationships with the blocks, but it turns out that didn't help me at all.

We did get a new car this past week.... yeah that's a big thing I suppose. The last thing we wanted was another overhead payment, but when your old 13 year old car starts making you feel unsafe I suppose its time to move on. It was sad letting my old Acura go though... I nurtured that thing over the years.

Now at least when I greet clients they won't ask my why my car looks like crap. I keed you not, I had a client comment that my car was crap and I needed to buy a new one! How's that? Sucka.

Business is good but I have this one project that's turning out to be a big challenge. I've tried everything I could to come up with ideas for one of my client's logo and stationery, but I simply can't seem to nail it down. She remains OK at it. She says she can live with it but I can see with her reaction she isn't thrilled with it. Meantime she has had a hard time expressing to my why she doesn't like it.

So what do I do? If I follow the books, I'm going through the standard process and she's paying me for my time. I can consider this a "success" by those standards -- I delivered the product and she paid me. So is this pau? I know back in the day I questioned this kind of outcome with my managers and they told me this was an acceptable outcome.

But somehow this just doesn't sit right with me. What do I gain out of this besides just a few extra dollars in my pocket? If I walk away from this, my client is left with an experience that's just "OK". If she doesn't like the logo or whatever, she's definitely not coming back to me for more future work, plus I'll simply end up with no future referral work from her. It's like a burnt bridge.

I can't ask her to pay more. Well, I guess I could, but that would be a tough sell on a situation where we've already come this far and failed to click on any idea so far. And it would be difficult for me to give back money on a lot of time that I've already spent on the job.

The only thing I can think of doing at this point is to keep working on this project on my time till I hope she's happy. On the books it looks bad because I'm giving away free time (all the books I read say I should avoid doing this), but my instincts tell me this is bad business if I be a hard ass about it. I figure if I put in one last effort on this project, I still have the chance of turning this situation around and winning favor back from the client. All the other outcomes just ends up with a burnt opportunity and a failed relationship. My only remaining fear is just putting in all the extra time and getting no further then I am now in trying to get her something she likes.

Another standard situation client-relationship thing that isn't taught in school. I'll let my instinct drive me from here....I can't wait till this issue is resolved. I had to think about this situation all holiday season.

Hopefully next post I'll have the good news that I found something that works and I'll get to show a sample.

Happy New Year everyone!