Client Multiplication: 4 Steps to Turn One Customer into More

Client Multiplication: 4 Steps to Turn One Customer into More

by | Feb 22, 2021 | Finances, Leadership, Professionalism, Sales

For a creative freelancer or entrepreneur, landing your first client matters. That’s obvious. However, what matters more is whether you can land your second, third, or fourth client. Or whether you can re-book that first client.

Why? Three reasons:

Reason #1. Almost anyone can land their first client, customer or paying job. Someone, somewhere can eventually be convinced to give you money for your thing. It’s bound to happen.

Reason #2. Earning a second client, or repeat work from the first client, proves that the first client wasn’t just a fluke. A second, third or fourth paying customer shows that the first paying customer didn’t make a mistake. It shows that your product or service can go the distance.

Reason #3. The second or third client is what gets the snowball rolling. As you gain more clients, the momentum behind your business increases.

Here’s the deal: Your first client matters, but your second client matters more.

 

So, how do you go about turning one client into many clients? Here is a simple four-step process for after you’ve done the work:

  1. Ask your first client for referrals. Most customers know other people like them who might also be interested in your work. So, ask for their names!

You can either ask the first client for direct referrals (via simple email introduction) or indirect (by giving you some names or email addresses for you to follow-up on). Make it simple and ask for just two to five people who could benefit from your work.

 

  1. Publish what you did for your first client. Assuming the work is not confidential, tell as many people possible about what you did for the first client.

Put it on social media. Feature it in your portfolio. Tell others about the problem the client had and how you solved it. Be clear and concise. Brag on yourself, sure, but mostly tell about how you addressed your first client’s needs and made their world better.

Make the client seem like the hero of the story…you were just there to help get them to their happy ending. You might even consider asking the client for a testimonial, which brings us to step three…

 

  1. Ask your first client for a public endorsement. After you’ve published a “case study” of what you did for the first client, ask him or her to publicaly endorse it.

This could be as simple as asking them to re-share on their social media networks (LinkedIn is great for this), writing an online review, or doing a formal testimonial.

If you feel comfortable with this, you ask for testimonial before the case study and make it the focal point of the case study.

 

  1. Ask your first client for more Finally, the easiest way to turn one client into many clients is to simply ask the first client to work with you again.

One helpful way to ease into this is to begin by asking for feedback on how you did. If the feedback is positive, then this becomes a natural segue to suggest working together again.

 

Did you notice a theme with most of these steps? So much depends on your willingness to ask.

If you don’t ask, it probably won’t happen.

So, summon the courage, and ASK.

 

Finally, I’ll leave you with two crucial “pre-steps” to make all these steps actually work. In order for the “four steps to turn one customer into more customers” to be successful, you must, and I mean MUST, have already done these two things.

Must must must MUST!

YOU MUST:

  • Have done a killer job
  • Been likeable and friendly in the process

 

It’s as simple as that. 

Do amazing work.

Be pleasant to work with.

If you do these two things, your first client (and future clients) will bend over backwards to help you earn MORE clients.

The Three W’s of Promotional Clarity

The Three W’s of Promotional Clarity

by | Feb 9, 2021 | Professionalism, Sales

One of the biggest issues creative freelancers or entrepreneurs face is that our services are often confusing. Way too confusing. 

Think about it: when you buy a sandwich, you know what you get. It’s meat (hopefully tasty meat) between two buns with some other stuff added in.

But what about when you hire a designer? Or an illustrator? Or a branding agency? Or an animator?

Creative goods and services can be confusing…but they shouldn’t be.

As storytelling and marketing guru Donald Miller says:

“If you confuse, you’ll lose.”

On other words, if what you’re selling is confusing to buyers, you lose those buyers. They’ll go with a product or service that is easier to understand.

Clarity sells. People buy things they understand. Creatives need to learn this.

There’s three easy ways to immediately add clarity to branding, promotional and marketing messaging. I call this “The Three W’s of Promotional Clarity”.

 

  1. Clearly define WHAT you’re offering. 

This is your “product”. Think about what your product is and try to pin it down with absolute clarity: 

  • Be specific and concise, yet thorough and complete. Don’t leave anything important out, but edit out anything that is unnecessary or confusing.
  • Consider creating “packages”—this is a great way to “box in” an intangible creative service.
  • Design a process to create and deliver the product. Make this process part of the product. Talk about it a lot. By giving your product a series of “steps”, it will make it more understandable to potential customers

 

  1. Clearly define WHO you’re offering it to.

This is your “target market.” You might think you’re selling to everyone, but you aren’t. You have an ideal buyer…the person who is yearning to throw cash at you for your work. So, define who they are:

  • Do they fit a certain demographic profile? Age, gender, life stage, etc.?
  • Are they individuals or businesses?
  • Where do they live and where will you find them?

The better you understand who your target buyer is, the better you’ll be able to craft marketing messages and deliver sales content that is relevant to them.

Which brings us to the third W…

 

  1. Clearly define WHY it makes their lives better.

This is your “value proposition”. For a quick primer on value props, check out my earlier blog post. To summarize, you need to define why your product or service makes your customers lives better. How it helps them win. How it helps them achieve their wildest hopes and dreams…just kidding, but seriously. How does your product:

  • Address a pain point or meet a need?
  • Increase their status among their peers? Or among their coworkers? Or to their potential customers?
  • Help them achieve their goals?

 

As Donald Miller says, “If you confuse, you’ll lose.” So, if you’re clear, you’ll win. 

Creatives—especially creatives—need to put forth the hard work to clarify their goods and services. Although it’s hard work, it’ll pay off in a big way.

Don’t sabotage your amazing creative work by hiding it under a shroud of confusion.

Take your clearly defined product to your clearly defined customers and tell them, clearly, why it’ll make their lives better.

Delegation for Dummies (Like Me)

Delegation for Dummies (Like Me)

by | Jan 26, 2021 | Creativity, Leadership, Productivity

It was nearly four years before I got someone to help me with invoicing. Four long years doing something that I was terrible at, didn’t enjoy, and wasn’t worth my time.

What a dummy I was!

I was “living the dream”…but spending way too much time doing things I didn’t like.

Perhaps you’ve heard this before:

“If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.”

Sure, it sounds great on a Tweet and looks good on some motivational Instagram post, but this is a total lie.

Even people who do what they love for a living will tell you that sometimes it just feels like work. No matter what, you can’t avoid some of the “worky” stuff. There will always be taxes, deadlines to meet, problems that pop up, annoying clients or customers, forms to fill out, and more.

However, there are some very easy ways to cut down on the “worky” stuff, especially as it relates to creative jobs, careers and businesses.

One secret is delegation.

Now, delegation is just a fancy word for “asking someone else to help you with a task.” It’s no more complex than that.

Creatives need to begin thinking about delegation as soon as possible. Your time is your most precious and limited resource, and delegation is how you spend your time doing the things that matter most.

Delegation isn’t just something that CEOs and managers at big companies do.

Anyone can delegate.

As your creative business grows, you can begin to delegate to partners, collaborators, contractors, and eventually interns, part-time employees and finally full-time employees.

For most freelancers and solopreneurs, delegation usually means paying someone to do something. If you’re worried about the cost, think about it the opportunity cost:

“Is it worth my time to do [this thing I don’t like/am not good at/or anyone could do] when I could be doing [this thing I like/am awesome at/or uniquely I can do]?

Here’s a simple guide to delegation:

  • Can someone else do this task? If yes, consider delegating it.
  • Am I bad at this task? If yes, consider delegating it.
  • Do I hate doing this kind of task? If yes, consider delegating it.
  • Is this task going to take up too much time? If yes, consider delegating it.

How can you, as a creative, delegate effectively? Here are some examples:

  • Tax preparation – There are tons of people and companies who are willing and able to help you with your taxes.
  • Doing paperwork (like setting up a business entity, like an LLC) – There are plenty of accountants, websites and law firms who can do this for you in no time (and for cheaper than you might realize).
  • Creative work you’re not great at – For me, it’s video editing. Whenever we make a marketing or sales video for The Sketch Effect that uses live action footage and editing, I delegate this to a few trusted video editing partners.
  • Creative work that you’re good at…but might not be worth your time – If you’re an amazing animator, but are spending too much time doing sound editing, you might consider paying a friend to do it.

 

Here’s some real talk:

One of my biggest regrets was not delegating certain things sooner. 

I mentioned invoicing earlier, but there are countless of other things I held on to for far too long.

As soon as I delegated a few key parts of my creative business, the business began to explode in growth. Why? I was spending more of my time on what matters, and less of my time on things I wasn’t great at or passionate about.

Don’t be a dummy and wait too long to delegate. Delegate as soon as you reasonably can. Delegate something today.

CREATIVE CALL TO ACTION:

What is one thing you can delegate to someone else today?

The Two “Boss Trades” Every Creative Freelancer or Entrepreneur Makes

The Two “Boss Trades” Every Creative Freelancer or Entrepreneur Makes

by | Jan 20, 2021 | Leadership, Productivity, Professionalism

When you’re considering launching a creative freelance or entrepreneurial career, the appeal of “being your own boss” is very real. After all, you’ll get to work when you want, take vacations when you want, work with whomever and wherever you want, and much more.

However, there’s a very fatal assumption many of us makes that sounds like this:

 

“When I’m my own boss, I won’t have a boss.”

I hate to break it to you, but this is utter lies! Garbage. Rubbish.

When you become your own boss, you make two “Boss Trades”. Let me explain:

First, you trade a conventional boss, you know…the Michael Scott type…for dozens, hundreds, and maybe even thousands of tiny bosses. These tiny bosses are your clients or customers. Sometimes, these tiny bosses can be even more demanding and more unreasonable than a typical boss might be. Ideally, you’ll earn great clients and have great tiny bosses, but this is not always the case. Even great client bosses will give you deadlines, check on your work, reprimand you when you go astray, and sometimes ask for unreasonable things. Instead of some Bill Lumbergh type asking you to work on a weekend, your clients will.

Second, you trade a conventional boss for the boss in the mirror. You become your own boss and guess what?…you have the potential to be a horrible boss. When you’re your own boss, you might work yourself to the bone, place unreasonable expectations on yourself, make yourself work late into the night or skip your vacation to finish a project. You might kill your own morale, make yourself work the wrong jobs, and maybe drive the business into the ground to the point you have to lay yourself off and make you get a conventional job.

These are the two “Boss Trades”. Instead of having one typical boss, you have tiny client bosses and you have the big “you” boss.

As someone who has made the two Boss Trades, I can say it’s worth it. Although the freelance or entrepreneurial route is definitely not for everyone, and there’s zero shame in working a so-called “traditional job”, being your own boss does bring a lot of freedom. But, as I mentioned, it brings some great dangers as well.

Here are eight simple tips to minimize the dangers of the two “Boss Trades”.

 

When it comes to working for the tiny “client bosses”:

  • Establish clear expectations – when you work for clients or customers, you have the opportunity to set clear expectations at the beginning of your relationship. You get to determine/negotiate how much they’ll pay you, when they’ll pay you, how they’ll pay you, what the “scope” of the work will be, when they can expect to receive it, how they’ll receive it, and more. Setting clear expectations (usually in the form of a contract or proposal) will eliminate the majority of the dangers of the “client boss” relationship.
  • Communicate Often and Clearly – Your customer or client bosses want to know what’s going on. Don’t ghost them for days or weeks. You can keep them happy by communicating with them often, being clear as possible, and being thorough. Nothing makes these tiny bosses happier than when their emails are answered quickly and completely.
  • Be Friendly – Don’t be a jerk to your customers or clients. Be friendly and kind (even when they are not friendly to you). Being likeable goes a long way.
  • Meet your Deadlines – this is a no-brainer, but so many creatives get this wrong. Meet your freaking deadlines. Just do it. If you established clear expectations for this upfront, then this shouldn’t be a problem. If you find yourself working through the night to meet a deadline, then next time negotiate for a longer deadline or an adjusted delivery schedule.

 

When it comes to working for the big “boss in the mirror”:

  • Track Your Time – As a creative, your time is your most precious, most finite resource. Track as much of it as you can. I elaborated on this in an earlier blog post, so please check it out.
  • Set Boundaries – You have the power to establish boundaries or guardrails in your life. Pre-decide when you won’t work, when you’ll take breaks, the types of jobs you’ll take, and more. If you don’t set boundaries, the freedom that comes with being your own boss will all but evaporate. Boundaries = freedom.
  • Keep the End in Mind – Keep a laser focus on why you’re doing this and where you’re going. This will help keep your morale up and give you the discipline to take the kind of jobs that will get you one step closer toward your end game.
  • Schedule in Renewal Time – Lastly, you must save time to do things that renew your mind, body and spirit. Sounds a bit “woo woo”? Well, it isn’t. You are more than your work. If you don’t step away from your work to do things that fill up your soul, eventually your work will suffer. Take vacations, exercise regularly, invest in your spiritual life, meditate, pray, enjoy your hobbies, read great books, see friends and family, etc. The more you renew yourself, the better your work will be and the more you’ll enjoy it.

 

If you’ve decided to trade the conventional boss for the two unconventional “client” and “you” bosses, then good for you. It’s a hard road, but a fulfilling one – if you treat these bosses well.

 

 

Business is NOT a Necessary Evil

Business is NOT a Necessary Evil

by | Jan 14, 2021 | Productivity, Professionalism, Sales

I want to be clear to every creative reading these words: 

Business is NOT a necessary evil.

But it IS necessary.

So, follow the logic with me: business is necessary…but it’s not evil. In fact, business is necessary and it can be super awesome. 

Don’t believe me? That’s Ok. 25-year-old me wouldn’t believe me either.

When I was 25, in art school, and working on finishing my art degree, I hated the idea of “business”. In fact, I dreaded going to the more businessy-oriented classes and lectures. I considered them at worst a waste of time and a best incredibly boring. I usually left these classes feeling drained, bored, and overwhelmed.

All I wanted to do was make great art and somehow get paid to do it. The second part of that equation…the “get paid to do it” part…would figure itself out.

Truth is, I was petrified by the idea of business. I hated the notion that I had to “drum up work”, earn clients, make a profit, and do all that businessy-stuff in between. To me, it was a necessary evil and I wanted nothing to do with it.

10 years later, I’m now running a successful creative business, drawing for a living, working with hundreds of amazing clients all over the world, and managing a team that also gets to draw, animate, and storyboard for a living.

Somewhere between 35-year old me now and 25-year old me in art school, I had an epiphany: “Business seems scary and boring…but it isn’t”

My message to creatives wanting to turn their creative skill into a career is this: business is not a necessary evil. It’s necessary…and it’s awesome.  In fact, “business” is the key to so many non-evil things.

Business can help bring you:

  • More of what you love – as you get firmly into your 20s, 30s and beyond, you have to make money to live. Sorry, but that’s life. If you can turn your creative “thing” into a career, you get to do MORE of that “thing”.

 

  • Less of what you hate – in contrast, if you can turn your creative “thing” into a career, you get to do LESS of what you hate. Less waiting tables, less bartending, less lame job, less paperwork, etc.

 

  • Adventure and Opportunity – As your creative business or career grows, new adventures and opportunities will come your way. You might get to work with amazing dream clients, collaborate with inspiring collaborators, mentor under amazing leaders, learn new things and maybe even travel. 

 

  • Freedom – If you’re successful in business, you’ll acquire more and more freedom. Freedom to take the kind of jobs you want, work when and where you want, take the amount of jobs you want, and more.

 

  • More Money – Of course, “business” is the key to making money, as well. And I’m not just talking about burrito money…I’m talking about good money…money you can live off of.

If you want to make a living doing your creative passion, you have to figure out business. If you can, you’ll unlock so many of these amazing benefits and pave the way towards a fulfilling professional life.

Now, I can hear your rebuttal:

“The quality of my work is enough.”

“My art will speak for itself.”

“My friends and teachers think I’m amazing.”

I hate to break it to you, but this is a “fatal assumption” many people make: “I’m good at [whatever], so I’ll be good at running a [whatever] business.”

Not true. Although having quality work is important, it is NOT enough. You also have to have a quality business.

I’ll leave you with good news: Business is not as scary or hard as you think. I’ve learned this and am eager to show you how. This platform is first and foremost about encouraging and equipping creatives to “figure out” business so they can make a living do what they love.

Business is not a necessary evil. It’s a necessary awesome – and you can do it.