Hi, Mel here.
On 14th February we shamelessly crowbarred in a Valentine’s Day theme - Client Relationships 💞
We spoke about how to foster a great relationship with your clients before, during and after a freelance project.
It all relies on the foundations you’ve laid and how well you’ve managed expectations.
On both sides.
We spoke about…
how your marketing/personal brand/reputation is the start of the relationship and your first chance to manage those expectations
onboarding, and how I’ve changed my process to start with a briefing form so the client has to prove they’re serious early on
using templates for emails, both for ease and to keep you in control
how it’s important to establish in advance how you check in with the client throughout the project (all the more important when it’s a long one)
the difference between being an employee and a freelancer
We also bigged up Tom Albrighton, who’s just released his book The Freelancer’s Business Brain. We’ve both met Tom (I interviewed him for Freelancer Magazine, Ben’s met him IRL coz NORWICH crew) and can confirm he’s a lovely man. So knowledgeable about all things copywriting and freelancing.
Tom talks about the importance of meeting with clients, at least on a Zoom. Ben then recounted his experience visiting an agency to discuss their project in person, and how on reflection it put him on the back foot a little. I’ll stick to Zoom calls I think.
A slightly abrupt end to this recap. Soz. We were trying out AudioJack and had a 10min limit, but still ended up using the Zoom recording anyway because of echo echo echo.
We spoke more in the audio event (but not the recap) about how to keep the conversation going with clients after the project ends:
make keeping in touch less gross by sending genuinely helpful info e.g. “saw this blog and thought it might be useful” now and then
build a project review into the project e.g. a 1:1 zoom call three months later
Jodie Newman speaks about “sowing seeds of delight” into your processes, and how important it is to ask for feedback and testimonials (bleugh!)
So, what do you do to keep your clients happy?
Huge thanks to our paid subscribers including long-time listener Lorna Smart who recently supported us. We’re edging ever closer to this moving from “podcast experiment” to just “podcast”.
We haven’t yet set the next audio event date. We both have half term next week *shudder* so we’ll give it a ponder and let you know as soon as we know. Won’t be long though, promise.
See ya,
B&M
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Mel Barfield
Ben McKinney
Barfield & McKinney's Podcast Experiment