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Never say no, but rarely say yes (2011)

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Re: Never say no, but rarely say yes (2011)

#11

Post by chiefalchemist »

gregw2 wrote: post #4
chiefalchemist wrote: post #3

> If they say “yes,” you’re happy because the terms or money are so good, it more than compensates for the distraction, perhaps funding the thing you really want to do. Perhaps. Make sure you're high bar is high enough. Opportunity cost is an underappreciated metric. The exceptional (read: as in a rare exception well above average, mean, etc.) can be addicting, and eventually self-defeating (read: before you know it…

I think that’s the virtue of setting a high price on what you don’t want to do as your “not saying no”/funding strategy. It’s a reflection of your perceived opportunity cost. But you are right to suggest time-bounding your engagement up front to avoid getting stuck in a local maxima. Or, at a certain scale, have a segregated set of people doing these requests where possible to limit and help govern the distraction.

The other thing I wanted to mention, aside from opportunity cost, is risk. I'm not suggesting never leave your sweet spot. That would be stupid on my part :)

However, as you leave your sweet spot, be aware (read: beware) of what you don't know. Be aware of the fact that bad decisions are very similar to trust...one slip and you've lost 10x more than you anticipated. If you're going to leave your sweet spot be sure you're prepared for the worse. It can and does happen.

Put in real terms, over the years I've worked as a contractor for a number of marketing / web dev agencies. The more successful ones didn't get there from yes, they got there because of no. No to projects beyond them. No to clients with expectations out of proportion to budget. No for the win, so to speak.

I've also seen those same agencies start to drink their own Kool Aid. They get in a financial pinch and take on work / clients they're not tuned for. For example, they don't have the in house expertise in the technology / solution required. Eventually the project costs more than it brings in *and* the team is miserable, has lost faith, leaves the conpany, etc.

If you're leaving your sweet spot and you're not concerned, you're probably doing it all wrong.

Re: Never say no, but rarely say yes (2011)

#12

Post by daneel_w »

For personal relations I will maintain that it's always better to be clear and give a straight yes or no. Nobody likes being left hanging in uncertainty, and nobody likes people who always do that to them - people who cannot even provide a "maybe" - when asked even simple questions.

Re: Never say no, but rarely say yes (2011)

#13

Post by waisbrot »

londons_explore wrote: post #5

Downside of this approach: Often you are quoting a super high price because you don't want the work and maybe it isn't really what you love to do or your expertise. But the buyer assumes you have a super high price because you're the best and can charge what you're worth. End result: The buyer is unhappy with your work, because you priced as if you were a world leading expert and actually you are learning on the job…

Maybe. In my experience, a more common case is that the buyer has no way to evaluate value other than quoted price and so they're actually _much happier_ with a huge price than they would be with a smaller price for the same work.

Re: Never say no, but rarely say yes (2011)

#14

Post by yellow_lead »

daneel_w wrote: post #12

For personal relations I will maintain that it's always better to be clear and give a straight yes or no. Nobody likes being left hanging in uncertainty, and nobody likes people who always do that to them - people who cannot even provide a "maybe" - when asked even simple questions.

This article seems to only apply to job/sales quotes.

The title is a bit clickbaity, it's too general.

Re: Never say no, but rarely say yes (2011)

#15

Post by bumby »

MourYother wrote: post #8
londons_explore wrote: post #5

Downside of this approach: Often you are quoting a super high price because you don't want the work and maybe it isn't really what you love to do or your expertise. But the buyer assumes you have a super high price because you're the best and can charge what you're worth. End result: The buyer is unhappy with your work, because you priced as if you were a world leading expert and actually you are learning on the job…

Still a win in my book

Unhappy customers coupled with high cost to the customer is probably a Pyrrhic win.

Re: Never say no, but rarely say yes (2011)

#18

Post by Tade0 »

I never give a definite answer before I'm at least somewhat familiar with the problem at hand and their deadlines - I'm not able to tell from this article alone if the author did that.

Anyway this approach is profitable but comes with two downsides:

-You risk getting stuck with a project that was much larger than you anticipated.

-Eventually you find that your business is not what you originally envisioned.

I used to work for a company that wanted to get into the Big Data space back when that was a fashionable buzzword.

I went to an interview there a couple of years after parting ways only to discover that while they still heavily advertised big data, deep learning and whatnot, their main money maker was some pretty standard DevOps.

Re: Never say no, but rarely say yes (2011)

#20

Post by zzzeek »

say "yes" for things you aren't into doing but just make sure you ask for super high amounts of money, so that you're happy if they accept your offer.

nice theory for "getting more money is good" but doesn't work for "I have no time". If people could package up "more time" for me in some kind of interdimensional container, I'd be all set.

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