On the Ask Us Anything podcast, editor in chief Kaitlin Petersen taps former Trade Tales guests to answer real, confidential designer questions, offering a safe space to discuss business frustrations, conundrums and fears. (Have a question of your own to ask? Send an email to start the conversation.)

No matter how buttoned-up a designer is with their own deliverables, there’s nothing that derails a project faster than a partner who misses deadlines, never checks emails, works off of old plan sets, won’t give a construction timeline—or all of the above all at once. This week, Amy Storm joins the show to answer a question from a fellow designer tackling one of her first solo projects alongside a contractor who has a longstanding relationship with the client. While this designer wanted to be a team player, she soon realized that the contractor was consistently failing to meet expectations. (This came to a head when she showed up to a construction site for install day.) Now that they have another project lined up together, she’s wondering how to navigate the relationship without causing the quality of the project—or the client’s experience—to suffer.

Storm, whose namesake interior design firm is based in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, shares advice on when to be transparent with clients about jobsite issues, how giving them frequent updates can protect your firm, and when it’s worth walking away from a project with a problem contractor (no matter how great the opportunity may seem).

Crucial insight: When working on a recent out-of-state project, Storm leaned on a local architect to take weekly photos of the jobsite and send them out to the entire team. That way, it was clear to all partners how much progress had been made—allowing her team crucial time to adjust their expectations. “You can only do the best you can do, but getting that documentation helped us, because we were going to move that house in six weeks earlier, and we would have gotten into a big mess if we didn’t have the photography [along the way],” she says.

Key quote: Keeping clients abreast of progress doesn’t have to be contentious. “It’s such a simple note to send, just to say, ‘Here’s where we are, here’s what we’ve done, here’s where we’re going.’ You’re setting expectations of what they have to think about, what they have to focus on, when they have to get it done, where the numbers need to be. You’re reassuring them that you’re aware of their budget and all of those things. That’s the communication—little, bite-size pieces all along the way. Things are a lot more clear that way.”

This episode was sponsored by Four Hands and Crypton. If you like what you hear, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.