69. Baking it Down - Working with the End in Mind

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🙊 Working with the End in Mind

"Help! A client said my cookies were too dry!" 

❌ "Block them."

❌ "Tell them to bring you the cookies back."

❌ "Tell them all sales final."

❌ "Tell them to kick rocks." (or cookies that are hard as rocks 😂

It's no doubt that in an open forum like Facebook Cookie Groups, you're going to get a biased response in dealing with client issues. Heck - we've all been on the receiving end of a less than savory client email. 

But what if you worked with the end in mind?

Lemme explain - in every confrontation, there are typically three optional ends:

Win / Lose - one person wins 100%, the other walks away with 0%Lose / Lose - neither party walks away with any %Win / Win - both parties walk away with a portion of 100% - this is a compromise situation 

Your goal should be the win / win. Contrary to popular belief, your clients don't want to deal with messy refund situations either. In a 2021 poll collecting 1,654 comments from Sugar Cookie Marketing Group Members, most bakers don't have to refund - even when it's offered.

0 Order Refunds - 71%.5 Order Refunds - 4% (less than a whole order)1 Order Refund - 16%2 Order Refunds - 3%3 Order Refunds - 1%

It's not you against your client. It's you and your client against a problem. Being on the same side of "resolution finding" puts you together as a team finding the best possible outcome for two parties vs. you against them - in which case, it's a fight to the proverbial death - winner takes all, loser loses. 

✅ Pro-tip: Losers don't take losing very well. Rather they take it to review profiles

Here are a few tips to help you "work with the end in mind" and make the best decision for your business: 

Give Yourself 24 Hours. You can use this in your personal relationships too - giving yourself some distance from an issue right off the bat gives your brain a chance to process and your emotions some time to simmer down. Brash decisions and emails rarely result in the most calculated course of action.Find a Bounce Buddy. Bounce ideas off of a third party who isn't invested in the outcome and isn't a yes man (or woman). Third parties can provide unbiased perspectives. Bonus if it's someone with a business / customer relations background.Make a List of Compromise Options. I love a list. Make a list of all the possible outcomes and then find that "win-win" one that gives both people a little bit of a win.Create an Oopsie Budget. Refunds hurt because they hit your pocket. But what if I told you they didn't have to - not when you have a budget for mistakes funded by other client orders. Creating an "oopsie budget" allows you to run to the refund without gettin' that hit in the wallet.Consider the Confirmation Bias. In a group of like-minded people, we often seek out the answers that resonate with our beliefs. This is dangerous because counter-opinions, even if they may be the best approach, are dismissed since they're immediately seen as "that's not what I think the answer should be - so thus you're wrong." Confirmation biases blind us to better options and different experiences. Read without Emotion. I make Corrie do this with texts from her ex. Don't insinuate emotion- anger, spite, frustration, annoyance - it's easy to infer these from text-based communication. But it may set you off in the wrong direction - defensiveness. Attempt to read correspondences with the least emotional inflection possible. It'll help you sift through the words to find the meaning - one that may be less attacking than you initially ex