Okay, so welcome to the next section about clients. And now we're going to be talking about dealing with clients. My name is Rob from Rob carbonite.com. Let's get going. So clients are going to be the lifeblood of your business. And your success will depend on how you treat your clients.

And as you'll see from the survey that I've done later, most of your new business will come from existing clients or recommendations from them. Now, the first thing I say was be, choose your clients. Be very aware of the sort of people you want to work with. It's great to work with clients that are demanding, exacting and dynamic, but it's not so good working with people who are unclear, lazy and dishonest. And unfortunately, some of them are like that. And you've got to prepare yourself to be able to spot a client that you don't want to work with.

First, there are red flags to listen out for during the initial contact with a client. And these red flags can be the client saying things like, this won't take you long. Or if you do this for free, there's guarantee of future work. Or sometimes they can say, can you come and meet me to discuss this potential project. And if they are just an individual person, that's probably not such a good idea because you don't know whether they're really serious about a project. And if they are an employee of a large organization or a proper company, then it's probably a good idea to go and meet them.

Since the relationship with the client should be based on mutual respect. If someone is happy to waste your time before they've even hired you. They'll continue to do so. And in in a way it all comes down to money. Don't fall over yourself trying to please every client at a reduced price, especially if this client isn't attached to a large organization. This can be a recipe for disaster.

Know that you're a good designer, and you deserve a certain financial reward for your services. Don't sell yourself short. And just as important as choosing the client, choose the companies you're working for, as well. As a graphic designer marketer. I often work for loan entrepreneurs who are just starting something up. However, I also get work from larger organizations like Accenture, which is a fortune 500 company with over 200,000 employees.

Now these organizations are definitely better to work for for a lot of reasons. One of them is repeat business. If you do a good job for a large company. You're more than likely to get another job within the next few months or so, large organizations are understandably more cumbersome and bureaucratic and take that into account when dealing with them. But it's never a big problem. I mean, you're always going to get paid.

Whereas I'm afraid that's not always the case with certain individuals. So when dealing with large organizations don't apply the red flags from my previous point so strictly. So here's some more general rules when it comes to dealing with clients that treat everyone equally from post from boy to see. So though I'm saying to favor some clients over others, I'm also saying you should try and treat everybody with the same respect and politeness. every interaction you have with people, whether they're clients, prospects, students, suppliers, members of the public reflects on your business. So make sure everything you say and everything you write in emails follows your core values.

However, Philosophy. We've talked about this before. So I would say for example, in my company, I aim to provide the best possible marketing solutions. And to put the client in the center of everything I do next point. Never say anything negative when discussing projects with clients never say anything negative. If the client suggests some course of action that you think is counter intuitive, meet the suggestion with positivity, pointing out the advantages, as well as disadvantages.

And later on in the course, I'm going to give you a list of stock answers you can give the clients when I suggest something that you don't think is a great idea. But there's two reasons for this. Firstly, people don't like negativity, and they don't want to hear words like difficult, delay, complicated, etc. And that negative association will rub off on you. And secondly, I'm also constantly amazed by how good clients ideas are even when they seem at first to not be a great idea. When you actually think them through you can see where they're coming from.

And sometimes clients can actually teach you things about design. So continuing on, approach all your issues with a smile. And down below, I've got a quote that I think helps illustrate these points. And it's from Stephen Covey's book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And this is a book I really love, and I would recommend you read it. And here's a quote from Stephen Covey.

And he says, The key to being proactive is remembering that between stimulus and response, there is a space. That space represents our choice. How will we choose to respond to any given situation, person, thought or event? Imagine a pause button between stimulus and response. A button you can engaged, pause and think. So that's really helpful when clients suggest something to you that you think is wrong or arrogant or stupid.

Just press the pause button and look at the situation from the clients point of view. And you may find a different response to the one you might have had if you responded instantaneously. But all these things are about listening. So the last point is just listen to the client. It's the most important thing you'll ever do. It's essential that you understand that what they are trying to achieve and what you are trying to achieve is the same thing.

And I think 99% of all client dissatisfaction is caused by bad communication. Now sometimes a client can be very good at telling you what they want the website to look like, and they can forget to tell you the actual purpose behind the website. So work out which questions you should ask So you can deliver exactly what they want. And we'll be talking about this later in the course, constantly refer back to written communication with the client as well, and try and always have in writing the exact nature of the job and the agreed price. Now, when you're working with a client on a job, there are a few rules to take into account as well. Now one of the very important questions is how many options do you show the client?

So if your client has asked you for a logo? Do you send them one logo? Or do you send them 10 options have different logos? What do you do? design is not an exact science. There is no right or wrong design.

The designer recommends certain options, and the client has the last word. This is why communication is so important, and it's always best to keep the communication options and revisions down to a bare minimum. And this is why Say Never show the client more than three options at any one time always towards the latter stages only show one version. More Options can confuse baffle and bewilder a client and can prolong the design process. The ideal scenario with clients is to keep the decision making process and communication to run as quickly and as smoothly as possible. And for this reason, take as many decisions as you can for the client.

Another great thing to advise you with is to never send something straight away. If you get a request to do something for a client, never do it all at once. Receive the call, do the work, send the word always leave a gap between doing the work and sending it it's like that Stephen Covey pause but it's not good for your clients know how fast you can do something. You can perform some design tasks quickly because you've had years of experience in the industry and ability is your livelihood. But I wouldn't advertise the fact that you can do anything at breakneck speed because they may come to rely on it. And also, it's always better to leave something after you finished it, even if it's for 15 minutes or half an hour, because then afterwards, you can look at it again, and look at the clients brief again.

And it's amazing how many times that you'll notice that you've missed something and you've made a mistake. And finally, know their knowledge. It's necessary to understand what they know and what they don't know, technically, in web design, clients have all sorts of prior technical knowledge, but it's important not to assume that they know anything, in order to make a website that can be easily edited by the client. It's essential to understand their technical Now, we all know WordPress, like the back of our hands, and we think creating a page or editing a page is the easiest thing in the world. But for some clients, it isn't So you need to find out that level of expertise as soon as possible. But with all these above points, it's necessary to achieve a certain balance.

You need to be helpful, flexible and available on one hand, but on the other, you don't want to be spreading yourself too thin. So you need to work with the right people on one hand, and not being too fussy either, because you've got to make money. You've got to be positive on the one hand, but you've got to be realistic on the other. But always put the clients in the center of everything you do, understand what the client wants, and be 100% real about it. Remember, it's all about communication, and with honesty, communication becomes easy. Okay, I hope you enjoyed that.

Goodbye.