Every business interaction is a two-way street, and as a consultant I have always offered SOWs that detail the services I’ll deliver and my expectations of how they will benefit the client. However, I’ve had a few bad experiences lately with clients who haven’t held up their end of the two-way bargain, and those lapses have impacted my ability to do my best possible work. This sometimes ends with disappointed clients – a lose-lose proposition. So, I’m now augmenting my SOWs with specific language that spells out not just what they should expect from me, but what I expect from them.

I put my client requirements into three categories:
 

• Honesty – A no-brainer? You’d be surprised. Depending on the people you discuss a potential project with and their view of what’s going on in the organization, executives can distort product/service features, benefits and drawbacks; competitor strengths; and even their own skills. The SOW might refer to your need for accurate information about the company, products, or services.
• Information – I work with a lot of startups, and sometimes it’s difficult or impossible to gain access to information, SMEs, or customers. Many of us have been in projects where the people we need to interview are too busy or simply non-responsive. In some cases, the CEO or VP Marketing de-prioritizes your services and that attitude flows down throughout the management chain, but often things are just crazy busy. For example, many media pitches will only succeed if you can deliver named customer references, and sometimes the client’s sales group is so focused on adding customers that they’re terrified of asking any of them to be a media reference. Again, though, if you put your needs in the SOW and make it clear that your deliverables will suffer (or not even materialize) unless you get the info you need, you will at least set the client’s expectations appropriately. Which brings me to...
   
• Responsiveness – I use my SOWs to detail my expectations about the client’s turnaround time, and explain what can happen if they don’t respond to review/comment requests within a certain amount of time. This is especially important if you’re trying to meet a deadline for a bylined article, blog or social media post. Most marcom and PR programs rely on a steady diet of new content, and the results probably aren’t what the client expects if you repeatedly miss deadlines due to their lack of action.
   

It could very well be that my client requirements will turn away potential projects, but my best and most satisfying projects involve clients who are just as committed to giving me what I need as I am to giving them my best efforts.