Have a question you’d like to be featured? Let me know.

Here’s a question from Ashleigh, a social worker based in California interested in taking on part-time consulting work:

Hi Nicole!

I’m interested in learning more about your process of taking on client or partnership work. Specifically, do you have any criteria or lessons learned in determining when to take on a new client or project and when to turn someone down? I’m interested in doing consulting on the side to supplement my income, and while I’m cognizant of my capacity, I’m curious to know if there are other reasons I should consider when turning down an opportunity.

Thanks in advance!

Great question!

I’ve already talked about how I’ve gone about getting client work and my process for reflecting on a project, as well as some of my pet peeves, including the RFP process and clients who “ghost”. So, we’ll focus on turning down opportunities.

My reasons for turning down a client or partnership opportunity varies, so what may be a deal breaker in one situation may not be the case for another. Also, my reasons are personal to me and I don’t have to tell a prospective client or partner why I’m choosing not to work with them unless asked, other than to let them know I’m not the best fit.

Nevertheless, here are some reasons why I may turn down a prospective client or partnership opportunity:

I’m not interested in the project

The main reason I transitioned into working for myself was the ability to choose who I want to work with, what I want to work on, and why I want to be involved. Some reasons why I may not be interested in a project can include:

  • The focus of the project or collaboration doesn’t align with my current interests or learning needs 
  • Taking on this project will result in an imbalance of services provided (taking on more evaluation projects when I want to do more research or organizational sustainability projects, for example)
  • Project length (I may be interested in short-term projects while the client is looking for someone for longer, or vice versa)
  • Reputation of the client/partner (questionable leadership, people I know who have had a bad experience with them, etc.)
  • Budget (what the client is willing to pay doesn’t match up with the amount of work they’re requesting)
  • The client or partnership’s work doesn’t align with my business’ mission and values (see last reason)

Clients or partners with questionable communication patterns

If we’ve explored the possibility of working together…and you disappear…come back…and disappear again…only to come back and disappear yet again, I’m also going to assume you were either not serious, not ready, or there’s something going on with your organization’s stability.

Also, sometimes projects may not go forward due to factors not under the client or partner’s control, but when you don’t inform me if this, it makes me questions if dropping communication is something that happens often in your organization. If it’s my responsibility to follow-up with you within a given timeframe, I’ll make every effort to do that; but if it’s yours and you don’t, I’ll take it as a sign that you’re not ready to move forward, you’ve decided to work with someone else, or some other factor.

I like to spread out my projects and travel

I like to bring on projects and partnerships that vary in length and responsibilities. For instance, while I may be onboarding two long-term clients, I might have two projects that I’m halfway through, and two additional projects that I’m wrapping up and doing final reporting on. I also like to spread out my client travel as I try my best not to do too much traveling for one given client in case I need to be in person with another client.

Clients or partners who debate me on my process

How I interact with prospective clients and partners is driven by whether they’ve contacted me or if I’m responding to a solicitation. Along with this, it gives me and the client/partner the opportunity to feel each other out and for me to share how I’ve worked on similar projects with similar clients in the past.

Every agency, business, or organization has policies and procedures. As part of my policies and procedures, I ask prospective clients and partners complete my client/partner questionnaire. In the past year, I’ve buckled down on making sure everyone–prospective or previous clients–complete this questionnaire because I’ve observed that I’d been lax about it with people I knew personally. So now, everyone does it.

Also, depending on if the client has hired me for evaluation services, I have them complete an evaluation capacity measure assessment so I can assess what’s doing on within their organization related to evaluative thinking, leadership support for evaluation, and staff capacity, etc. I’ve had 2 prospective clients push back on this, even though they hired me to help them build evaluation capacity.

Similar to what I observed while working in a more direct service/case management setting, what I’ve learned is that, even when a client presents with one request, what really needs to be worked on and addressed doesn’t appear until after I’ve done a thorough analysis, so when a client is against this part of my process, I decline.

Previous interaction with the prospective client or partner

Even though I try my best to self reflect on a negative client/partner interaction after the project ends, if it was really bad, and if we can’t come to common ground on what took place and how to address it moving forward, I will decline working with them again.

I know someone else who may be a better fit

Sometimes I know someone else that is better suited for a project or partnership, and I jump at the chance to make a referral. Even if we don’t work together, the client/partner is appreciative of the referral as I’ve already done the legwork for them.

The project and the client/partner don’t align with my mission

“Raise Your Voice for Women & Girls of Color” is more than just a tagline. If a prospective client or partner doesn’t have specific programming or services that speaks to the lived experiences of women and girls of color, doesn’t have a large WOC/YWOC participant base, isn’t WOC-led or white ally-led, or doesn’t have a reputation for increasing social justice, community collaboration, and anti-oppressive leadership, I decline. I recently added a question to my client/partner questionnaire that helps me determine this (plus I also ask around).

Key takeaway

Reasons for turning down an opportunity will vary. Just because someone contacts you to work with them doesn’t mean you have to do it. Also, you don’t have to disclose why you’re turning down an opportunity unless you believe it’s something that the prospective client or partner can benefit from knowing. Be mindful of your capacity, your values, and your process.

Raise Your Voice: What reasons have you given for turning down a prospective client or partnership? Share below in the comments section.