My $60K confession got a sequel (plot twist: she came back)

Earlier this week I confessed in here that I'd scoped about $60K of work for a client who paid me under $20K, and that she'd capped it off by sending me a "you didn't deliver" email at 11pm.

A bunch of you commented. Some to encourage me. Some of you, I'm pretty sure, just pulled up a chair and grabbed the popcorn. Either way, you wanted to know how it ended.

So here's the sequel. Nobody died. I'll lead with that.

------------------------------------

What I walked into

------------------------------------

Monday she blew a gasket. Strongly worded, escalated, the kind of email where you can feel the caps lock breathing through the screen.

I did not respond like a calm professional. I spiraled. Half of me concocted a plan to pull up every receipt and go twelve rounds. The other half, the half I'm less proud of, came up with a half-baked plan to just roll over, apologize for stuff that wasn't even mine to apologize for, and turn myself into a doormat so the discomfort would go away. Running on no sleep, nursing a bruised ego, two bad plans and the stress of not having a newborn baby in the house yet... (wife's at 41 weeks, if she hits 42, she's gonna make that baby come out.)

------------------------------------

Then my COO blew up my whole game plan

------------------------------------

The day before the call, I got on with my fractional COO and word-vomited both of my terrible plans at her.

She shut them both down. Didn't tell me to fight. Didn't tell me to fold. She handed me an actual plan.

First, homework. Go build a point-by-point breakdown of all three agreements. Every deliverable, what's done, what's not, the percentages, and a whole separate column for the work we did that was never even in the scope. That document was her idea, not my heroic late-night brainwave. I didn't have it. She told me to go make it.

Then the move. Don't walk in defensive, don't hand her the wheel. Lead with the full picture, so much clarity up front that she can't steer the thing somewhere sideways. She doesn't actually know what a finished marketing blueprint is supposed to look like, so I shouldn't be handing her the power to define "done." Show the whole list first, then talk.

And the part that actually rewired me: stop taking it personally. Treat her as a business, not as the person who torched my week. Don't let her set up camp in my head. It's business. Set the expectations, and the rest is her call.

------------------------------------

So I did the hard thing. I left my ego at the door.

------------------------------------

Built the document that night. Walked into the call and led with it. The boring breakdown, row by row, calm, no heat on it. No defending, no apologizing, no swinging. Just here's the whole picture, all of it. Then I shut my mouth and let her react.

And she owned it. Said she never should've taken on both companies at the same time, that that's where it all went sideways. Then she dropped the line that was nowhere on my bingo card: "you warned me about taking both on at once, and I didn't listen."

I almost fumbled the phone even though we were on a zoom call.

------------------------------------

The plot twist

------------------------------------

She wants to keep going. At a higher rate than before.

The furious-11pm-email client turned into an upsell. She got there on her own. I just laid the whole thing out, kept my ego out of it, and got out of her way.

------------------------------------

What I'm actually keeping from this

------------------------------------

Three things.

One, my half of that mess is still my half, and last week's post stands. I over-scoped it, I let AI draft my thinking without putting my own brain on top, and I said yes before looping my team. Own your side of the street first. Always.

Two, the one I most need to own: I did a garbage job keeping her in the loop. For 90 days I poorly communicated progress even though we have a weekly meeting, so when my wrap-up recap finally hit her inbox, it landed like an ambush. No client should ever get blindsided by a status update. A surprised client is a scared client, and scared clients send 11pm emails. If I'd just been feeding her steady updates the whole way, that email never gets written. That one is fully on me.

Three, the one that's really sticking: most "difficult people" are just wrestling with something that has nothing to do with you. Bring the facts. Leave emotion and ego at the door. Sort out your own head before the call, not during it. A lot of the time the other person isn't even fighting you. They're fighting something else, and you just happen to be standing in the room.

Turns out I'm a way better marketer when I'm not also moonlighting as a cage fighter.

So... hi again, I'm Ruben, and it's been one whole week since I picked a fight that didn't actually exist or belong to me.

Your turn. Who's a "difficult person" you eventually realized was just having a brutal week? Share the juicy specifics in the comments.

7 comments