West spells out why potential clients trying to measure a consultant’s capabilities to do some engagement by phone call is dumb:
I do public speaking, I give workshops, I write articles, editorials and books. Listening to me talk on the phone will not give you a very good idea of how I am in front of an audience. Our talk will not allow you to gauge how well my writing will affect your readers. Talking to me for twenty minutes will not give you an indication about how I am with deadlines or whether I can write to spec. The things that I want most out of a meeting — concrete ideas about deliverables, timeframes and money — are sidelined so that I can receive gossip about the interpersonal squabbles that define the organization or get a description of the person who I’ll actually be working with if I take the project. These things are more important for the person to tell me than for me to hear. And that has value at some level, but does it have value to me?
She also unloads on the inherent inequity of some salaried employee willing to burn their own time while not considering that the freelancer is not being paid for these calls, or their scheduling:
Even for a good fit and good money job, these meetings are the worst.
- The thirty to sixty minutes I am spending talking on the phone is time I am not actually doing my work. Phone calls are less fun than my actual creative work. I want to wrap them up.
- The thirty to sixty minutes they are talking to me is their regular job time, so they are already at work. I gather that these phone calls are more fun than their other work. They have no incentive to make them shorter.
- There’s always an email after the meeting which sums up the meeting and puts things in writing. This email is usually five sentences long. I want to cut right to the five sentence email.
I muddle through these phone calls because that’s where work comes from. As much as I’d like to be Neal Stephenson fancy and tell people “my time and attention are spoken for — several times over. Please do not ask for them.” I like working and this is the hurdle to getting work in my industry. The emails and texts to plan these discussions can sometimes take as long as the actual phone calls.
I’m not Neal Stephenson, but I do say no a lot. For example, I will balk at a second meeting after an apparent decision to hire me, but someone has yet to sign off on the engagement and that decision maker won’t be attending.
from Stowe Boyd http://stoweboyd.com/post/123198898037
