Dealing with Clients
Successful client liaison is the difference between more work and no work. One happy client can lead to dozens of new jobs and a prospering business. However, some clients aren’t that easy to work with and will require patience to pull the project through.
There are some strategies to use when dealing with difficult leads, communicating with clients, negotiating deals, and positing your business as a freelance professional. Below are some articles to guide you through what can be a minefield of client relations.
What Is Your Ideal Client Profile?
After talent, knowledge and experience, time is your most important resource. And since there are only so many hours in a week, you need to treat that time with great care. That includes qualifying every potential opportunity to make sure it’s a good fit for you. Learn how to qualify a potential client and the types of criteria to put in place.
Questions & Answers: How to Describe What You Do
It’s important to define your freelance market, the services you offer, and some of the important aspects of how you do business. By answering eight questions in this article you can learn to explain your freelance business to clients, and by listing these answers on your site, bring in qualified leads with more ease.
An Ounce of Professionalism
Being professional goes a long way to impressing clients. In this article Steve discusses the importance of professionalism to freelancers when dealing with clients.
12 Breeds of Client and How to Work with Them
This is one of our most popular articles ever. It is not only very funny, but also has some good tips for dealing with common types of clients.
How to Explain Your Production Process to Clients
Documenting your step by step process when creating client work has a few advantages. It give you a pipeline for tracking projects and a deeper understanding of how your work moves through stages of development. It’s also helpful to explain the big picture of how you produce work to potential clients. Learn how to document your process and how sharing this with potential clients is beneficial.
Pitching and the Decision-Making Styles of Clients
This is a short article, but has some interesting insights into how clients think, based on recent scientific research.
10 Phrases Every Freelancer Should Kick-Out of Their Vocabulary
There are some phrases we should avoid as freelancers, and it’s all too common to make these mistakes. Avoid saying “I could do this for less,” as it brings your credibility down. Just don’t mention “this is just a side gig” or “I’m not the best.” These may be true, but why emphasize the negative? These are both classic cases of over-sharing. Learn more about phrases to avoid when communicating with clients as a freelance professional.
What Clients Say vs. What They Mean
When dealing with clients and potential clients, it’s important to understand that what they’re saying is not the same as what they mean, and how to react. Learn how to interpret client messages with a handful of common responses.
Five Common Client Phrases Decoded
Communication can break down when working with clients. It’s important to put proper expectations in place and then interpret their responses. Remembering that your customers aren’t design professionals, and by adapting your language to their wave length, you’re sure to run into less communication barriers, resulting in a smoother project work flow, an effective solution and a happy client. While these five phrases are not an exhaustive list, they are common problems to watch out for, and solve when they com up.
The Ultimate Design Brief
Your design can only be as good as the brief you worked from. The best projects are borne from briefs that are open enough to inspire ideas, while being specific enough to feel workable. This great article by Shaun is a step-by-step guide to creating a thorough design brief.
How to Identify the 3 Types of Flaky Clients
Chances are you’ve dealt with some flakes: clients that don’t call back or believe in confirming appointments and such. They’ve always got an excuse and they always want more of your time—for no charge, of course. Here’s how to identify flakes and cope with clients who just can’t put one foot in front of the other.
