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I picked up what looks to be a large client yesterday, after a grueling 3.5 hour meeting the client said, “Okay, let’s do it”. And as it is so often in the “real world”, she didn’t give me a lot of prep time to get ready. I’ve already been on the phone with several people coordinating print ads. There’s no warm up, no stretching, just jump in the pool and start swimming!
PS - If you want to sound intelligent in front of your colleagues and clients, don't quote Jon Bon Jovi like I did.
Over the last month, I’ve had a number designers that were
new to freelancing, or they were considering freelancing as a career, email me
about selling. The overall sentiment was, “We
don’t like selling – how can we get around it”. Much to their chagrin, my
answer is, “You don’t”.
In all honesty, I was in this boat too. I hated the idea of selling: feeling like a used car salesperson, the sweaty palms, and the rejection – I would have done almost anything not to have to sell. I couldn’t, the truth is, if you’re going to freelance, you’re going to need to learn to sell.
The good news is that over time I got better. I invested some books on selling and got a little training as well. Today I’ve got to tell you that I actually enjoy selling. I had a woman last week tell me I could, “Sell ice cubes to an Eskimo”. I am not sure about that but I know I’ve gotten better. If becoming successful as a freelancer is important to you, and you work at it, there’s no reason why you can't become good at sales...and even enjoy it. Here are 10 other truths about selling:
Dealing with tough clients? Not always sure what to say? I have the book for you...
I’ve hinted a few times at this on the blog. I am excited to announce the completion of my second book called, Verbal Judo for Designers – Master the Art of Defense Against Difficult Clients.
For years, designers have been telling me they wanted a book that would show them how to effectively handle the most difficult things clients say to them: “You need to lower your price”, “We don’t pay until we get the artwork”, or how about, “I need you to do this by next week”.
What do you say to demanding, unreasonable clients? How do you make sure you’re not being taken advantage of? Wouldn’t you like to have the confidence to know exactly what to say to clients when they put you in a difficult position?
If you answered, “Yes”, I wrote this book for you. Look for Verbal Judo for Designers before the Christmas season. Email me or call me if you’d like a sample chapter, or if you’d like an opportunity to own the book early...never be thrown by a difficult client again.
I am getting married next February - first, last and only
time. All of this stuff is new to me: hiring a DJ, finding a caterer and
picking out a wedding band. In all honesty, I am like most guys – I really
don’t want to get too involved with everything (sorry for the stereotype).
The key here is to be able to uncover and identify if a
client is going to be problematic or not, BEFORE you sign a contract to work
with them. These 3 characteristics I’ve listed above should give you an
indication that the client in question might be a challenge to work for.
Whether you decide to work with her/him is a judgment call only you can make.
Just be aware that if a client doesn’t know what they want, they’ are picky as
heck and if it’s brutally obvious they’d rather be doing something else – you
might be in for a bumpy ride.
What other things would you guys look for in deciding to
work with a client? Make sure you drop me a comment.
Shameless Book Promotion:
This is a topic I cover in excruciating detail (over 20 pages) in the Being a Starving Artist Sucks book. Being a success as a freelance designer is wonderful, but not at the cost of working with people you don't like.You'll find extensive resources on how to select clients, how to handle them when they get angry and what to do with them (and what to say with them) when it's time for you to let them go.
A friend of mine who is an executive editor of a local paper
told me today that he’ll often have readers email or call in complaining that there
isn’t enough cultural diversity in the publication. This got me thinking about the
creative work I do and my awareness to incorporate images of people from all different
cultural backgrounds. I wonder how many other designers out there consciously
think about this, or if they don’t give it a second thought.
For me this is balancing cultural sensitive with good old
common sense. It’s not hard to do, but you do have to keep cognizant of it.
Feel free to email me or drop a comment.
I’ve played sports all of my life: soccer in college, ice
hockey, baseball, tennis and boxing. Despite all of the physical rigors, there
was one thing in sports that was a heck of a lot easier to determine than it as
a freelance designer – what the score is and how well I was doing when I was
asked to perform.
When you’re speaking to a client face to face, maintain eye
contact and keep a sharp eye out for their body language. As you’re interacting
with this person, she/he will provide verbal and nonverbal clues on how you’re
doing. In effect, they will act like a
scoreboard if you know how to read them. Here are a few pointers that would
suggest that suggest you’re doing well:
The next time you’re sitting down with a potential client, I recommend making a conscious effort to look at these things and see if you can get a good feel for how you’re doing. If you practice you’ll eventually be able tell on each sentence you speak if it “scored” or if it didn’t. It’s given me a huge advantage in knowing what to do at the end of the meeting (almost like having a cheat sheet for a test) and I suspect it’ll help you as well.
Feedback: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly on the Being a Starving Artist Sucks book:
A few days ago a designer in Michigan emailed me and asked, "I've been thinking about buying this book
for a couple of weeks and I've seen some good feedback about it. But has anyone said something negative about it?" Thanks for your question, Adam below is your answer.
View "the good" comments from other freelance designers by clicking here.
You know you want to see "the bad and the ugly" comments too, that's cool, click here.
When I first started my freelance graphic design career I thought I knew it all, or at least I would eventually become successful if I just worked enough – probably the single biggest misconception I had starting out. This hurt my business badly. I just guessed this is the way it was when you start out: you work really hard, scrap around for jobs and just hope things work out.
Well I didn’t know it all, in fact what turned things around for me
was accepting that I needed help to build my business and become successful.
One of the smartest things you can do as a freelance designer is to
not accept this idea that you have to struggle with sales, marketing,
negotiation, pricing, etc. and find resources that will help you improve your
business. Another misconception is that you have to wait years "paying your dues" to become successful.
I guess one of the most important lessons I learned from this experience is that things really didn’t start happening for me until I stepped out on faith and took some real action to help grow my business. Sitting around hoping it would grow or that all of a sudden clients would start pouring in the door doesn’t work. I needed to take action or struggle for the rest of my career.
When clients are considering whether they should hire me I'll ask them, "Do you expect to grow your business this year?" Of course they'll say, "Yes!" I'll respond with, "How do you plan on doing that? What action steps are you going to be taking?" At which point, I usually get the "deer in the headlights" look from them. The same principle goes for your freelancing business (and mine), if you plan on being successful, what time and money investments are you going to make to grow your business?
If you’re looking into
hiring a business coach/strategist, here’s what you should look for:
Top 10 things a business coach/strategist should help you with:
Action Step for Successful Designers:
List out 3 real, concrete action steps you will take before the end of the year you feel confident that will increase the number of clients you attract and the success of your business. If you'd like to share what you plan to do, or if you might need some assistance, drop me a line at jeremy@beingastarvingartistsucks.com - I'll be glad to help you.
I am designing another web site for one of my favorite
clients now. I’ve been working with these people for over 3-4 years now but
they initially did have some reservations on what I was charging for the work.
I can appreciate that. Everyone has constraints they have to work with and I
understand that there are literally thousands of different design options out
there, heck, there are hundreds in their immediate
area of the country.
Despite all of this they did decide to work with me, and I humbly appreciate it. I do work hard for clients, and I like to offer extra value to them as much as I can. This often took the form of adding some flash on to their web site, ordering an extra 250 business cards for free, refer other clients to them or putting A LOT more time into making their project the best that I can.
The point is, I want clients to be happy with the work I do and feel they got their money’s worth. I’ll bet you’re the same way in working with your freelancing clients.
What I found earlier in my career is that even though I’d provide a lot of extra value and go WELL out of my way to provide extra services not in the project scope, most of the time what I did went unrecognized and unrewarded. This frustrated me because there inevitably came a time down the line when the client could have rewarded me (maybe hiring me again or paying a little more for a project) and they might have been reluctant to do so. It felt like I’d done all of this extra work and the client didn’t even see it or appreciate it.
It got me thinking, "Why provide all of this extra value if the client doesn't even see it or appreciate it?" I started to wonder, am I responsible for them not knowing about these "little extras" that I am providing or is it theirs?
I came to the realization that my clients aren’t mind readers – I’d
suspect yours aren’t either. So I came to the conclusion that it's my responsibility to let the client know that I am providing service above and beyond what was in the project scope.
Once I recognized this I changed my strategy immediately, and it’s worked. I still provide clients with the same extra value, but I do make a point to tactfully let them know what I did. No, I don’t parade this in front of their face (nor would I suggest you do this), but I do make a point to let them know I’ve gone out of my way to help them.
For example, I might say, “Hey [Client Name], I wanted to let you know that I've thrown in some extra stock photos into your project. We had these as an additional charge in our agreement, but I threw them in as a freebie bonus for you. I thought it really enhanced what we were trying to, wouldn't you agree?”
The key to this being tactful and effective is to present it as a gift you wanted to provide rather than complaining. It's like you're saying, "I've got great news, look what I've done for you!"
Keep in mind doing this does require some tact, professionalism and knowing how my clients behave. But I don't see anything wrong casually mentioning to the client the extra work that you've done on their project.The client is happy they got extra value for free, and I feel good knowing that there’s a good chance in the future the client will remember the extra work I’ve don e. It worked for me, and it’ll probably work for you.
One Word of Caution:
While tactfully mentioning that you've provided extra value is generally accepted as an industry practice. I would highly encourage you to avoid complaining to your client about all of the extra challenges or problems you've encountered in completing their project. Clients typically find this tacky and unprofessional - and they generally don't react to it well.
This is just mindless fun...a buddy of mine sent this to me and asked which square was lighter/darker, A or
B. Well, I did what any designer would do, particularly if they are trying to read color off of an uncalibrated laptop monitor: I took a screen shot of it, dropped it into
Photoshop and used the eyedropper.
When you first saw this, how did you go about trying to get the answer? Did you try to eyeball it or did you "cheat" like I did? I suppose if you got the answer, it doesn't matter. By the way, the answer is they are equal values: R:120, G:120, B:120.
Earlier this month I posted some information about this. If you've been confused by who really owns your master files, don't feel badly - you're not alone.
Seems that most clients...and a lot of designers out there don't know who really owns the files. If you are an employee, chances are the files belong to your employer. However, if you're being hired as an independent contract (freelance designer), the projects you do are generally considered "works for hire." Here's what copyright.com says about it:
Although the general rule is that the person who creates a work is the author of that work, there is an exception to that principle: the copyright law defines a category of works called “works made for hire.” If a work is “made for hire,” the employer, and not the employee, is considered the author. The employer may be a firm, an organization, or an individual. - Click here for the link.
I wrote a follow up to this because it not only causes a lot of confusion, it's a volatile subject that can easily upset both client and designer. Check out an email I received a while back from a client, "Where in my agreement with you was it stated that my payment was not for the rights to the Native File? I’m not interested in extracting your DNA for an additional charge. My God, I simply want to keep a cohesive theme in advertising." ----Nice, huh?
My advice to you:
Make sure you have verbiage in your contract that addresses this. ALSO I would strongly recommend you speak to your clients about this before you bring them on board. If this has happened to you, feel free to drop me an email or a comment.
1. You need to reread your contract, it’s in there.
2. I’ll need to charge for that. That will cost you extra.
3. I am out of the office then.
4. There’s nothing I can do.
5. This isn’t my fault.
6. You’ll have to talk to the printer/advertiser/web host about that.
7. I can’t do it by then.
8. You didn’t pay for those files.
9. Your previous web/graphic designer didn’t know what they were doing.
10. For that price I can only do...
11. My costs have gone up so I needed to increase my rates.
12. I don’t do that; you’ll have to find someone else.
13. That’s my/our policy.
14. I can’t get to your project until...
15. No graphics for you!
Okay, the last one’s a joke for you Seinfeld fans, but I amazed at how often clients complain to me that their previous designer said some of these things. I know some clients can be a handful, but there is a better way of handling them than saying these things.
If you wish you knew just what to say to clients (even the tough clients), be sure to check back, I’ll be rolling out a new book that I think you’re going to love. In the meantime, I know we all get tempted to say some of these things, especially with a difficult client, but try to avoid them if you can.
Have I left out any additional offensive phrases? Feel free to drop a comment on this post.
Shameless Book Promotion:
I am starting to roll out the printed version of Being a Starving Artist Sucks
and the feedback's been great. when I was developing the book I did have several designers say it was way too much content. I ignored them. I wanted to include as much insider information as possible - here's the picture I took to show how much content there really is in there.
