For the last couple of months, I have been writing a white paper for a customer. It is a project that I normally would steer away from, but I like this person and they would need me to write some success stories in the future, something I like doing. We started off with an interview so I could understand what it was my customer saw as the end result. Next, I wrote a draft. While the message was not succinct, I went ahead and sent it off to him for review anyway. I prefer to start with too much content and then edit down from there. He had a lot of good ideas and thoughts, I was just having trouble weaving them into one cohesive piece.

Then the editing process started. And, I didn’t ask who would be involved in that process. Mistake #1.

There were several people involved, both inside and outside his firm. Guess what? They all had very different opinions as to what should be included. I would get draft after draft back with contradictory edit marks. And I would respond by email and the customer would respond back via email. Mistake #2.

In my mind, I started to doubt myself and feel like I was not living up to his initial expectation. Plus, I was concerned that the lack of completion on this project would reflect on how I work in general. This was not going well.

Finally, after a month (yes, I know, a month), of back and forth drafts, I picked up the phone and called. Not sure why a call made my heart rate go up and give me a small knot in my stomach, but it did.

What a relief to hear the customer say himself that this project had grown “arms and legs” meaning the scope was completely different than what we started with. We worked out a plan for going forward and I feel a lot better about the project and he does too.

Lesson learned: I use email as a crutch. If there is any sort of confusion, I need to pick up the phone and call.