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00:00:01
Mistakes We Made with Our First Design Clients
111 Plays1 year ago
Listen in as Cass & Amanda spill the tea on some of the biggest mistakes we made with our first design clients, from missing red flags to scope creep to taking feedback wayyy too personally. Let us know if you relate to any of these and if you have any topic suggestions or questions for a future episode.
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Timestamps:
1:08 What’s the tea at Foxtrot?
4:00 Mistake #1: Super inconsistent project pricing
8:10 Mistake #2: Not having established services or packages
11:20 Mistake #3: Not being prepared for sales calls
16:33 Mistake #4: Allowing scope creep
24:04 Mistake #5: Missing client red flags
33:10 Mistake #6: Not sending solid contracts
36:10 Mistake #7: Not sending design direction
38:11 Mistake #8: Offering a service you’re not prepared to
39:32 Mistake #9: Taking feedback personally
41:32 Mistake #10: Trying to please clients at all costs
43:10 Our best course recommendation for designers
44:48 Listener Question
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Spilling the Tea. We are Cass and Amanda. I'm Amanda. That's Cass. And we are co-founders of the creative studio Foxtrot Branding. We're super excited to have another episode of Spilling the Tea today. And in these episodes, we spill the tea about our lives as designers and business owners and the challenges and rewards that come up along the way.
00:00:20
Speaker
So in today's episode, we're going to be sharing about some of the biggest mistakes that we made when working with our first clients. We've been in business for six years now, and we still make mistakes sometimes, but not as big as the ones we made when we were first getting started. And we were total newbies and had no idea what we were doing. So we're going to tell some stories. Hopefully there's some juicy ones in there, some embarrassing ones in there. We'll share our trauma with you. So hopefully you do not experience the same things.
00:00:46
Speaker
have When we were like prepping for this thinking about some stories, it's like, i I was kind of like, I don't know if we have any good stories. But then when we started like, thinking back, it's like, oh, yeah, like, oh, yeah, I think to protect ourselves, we ah had to forget about some things. But we're gonna bring it back um and tell you guys all about it.
00:01:07
Speaker
Yeah, so um how have things been at Foxtrot Amanda lately? what's What's the tea? What's the tea? um I don't know. I feel like things have been a little chaotic. I know that you've been a little extra booked with clients right now. I don't have branding clients currently, but I've been doing like just a bunch of other things. So I feel like my brain is in a million places.
00:01:27
Speaker
What about you? Relatable. Yeah, it's been weird. I had a really great week because I got to go to the beach three weeks ago, but now, ever since I've come back, I've just been in a weird state, being really overbooked. Everyone wants web design. Web design is the thing right now. Just constant web designing queries, not as much branding, which is interesting. They're all skipping branding, which branding is the prerequisite. How are you going to have a good website if you do not have good branding already?
00:01:52
Speaker
It's very frustrating, but it is what it is. I've just been designing lots of websites, ah trying to keep up, just stay afloat. Some months are like that where it's just like, okay, I'm just trying to tread water and stay afloat, but I think as we get more towards the holidays and start booking for 2025, which is insane to say, I think things are going to calm down a little bit, but I'm surviving.
00:02:16
Speaker
Yeah, it always feels weird, especially when we feel like we're like trying to just stay afloat. But it's like, our finances don't always like reflect that like right now. It's like we're in the phase of like, we're making a lot of big changes. We're like, updating our website and our we're rebranding and we're adding new, um like new products and new services and just doing all these things in the back end.
00:02:39
Speaker
And all that takes a lot of time to build and a lot of energy. So it feels exhausting because it's like, we're working so much, but we're not like getting paid for those things. And we're not getting paid for that yet. Like those things might earn us money in the future. So it's like something that's still good to do for the business. But it just kind of feels like less rewarding in the current time. And so that's just kind of like a weird feeling. So yeah, definitely. You are like you have to rely on yourself for the consistency of like and income. So it's like when you step away from those things that will consistently generate income to work on some of those back end things, it always feels like
00:03:13
Speaker
This is uncomfortable, but I know that it is going to pay off and it's something I have to take the time to do because otherwise, I'm going to feel the effects of it a year from now if we don't you know update our website, update our portfolio and like rework these things that we want to release for the sustainability in the future. Yeah, so it's all good things. It's just like a little chaotic, a little stressful right now. so We're getting through it. my yeah just you fuck My cat just opened the door, so I'm going to go close that. Okay, yep. He always has to be included.
00:03:42
Speaker
Um, so everyone grab your drinks. Let's like settle in and listen to us spill all of our, our terrible stories. Okay. So what are one of the first mistakes that we made, uh, when working with design clients, Cass? Okay. So ah first, when we were kind of thinking about this, um, I think we always, our brains always go to pricing because that's just so difficult for everyone. When you're starting any type of business, I think.
00:04:10
Speaker
um Especially creative services, it's really hard to know and you just want to be like, hey, what do I price my services at? And there's not one answer because there's so many unique variables. I think we came up with a lot of random prices when we were working with our first clients. It wasn't necessarily $200 for the first project we ever did. Yeah, that was like our yeah anna website. Yeah. Yeah. And it was a friend of yours. So it wasn't like high pressure or anything. and like She was super nice. so It was a good like first project, but it was still only $200. Yeah. we i mean I guess you could say we were compensated, but we needed to like try working together. so I wouldn't necessarily say like ah if that was a terrible way to price that. like We just needed to be compensated something. so I think like the biggest mistake we made consistently when pricing our first projects was just not like basing it off of any specific metrics, for example. like
00:05:05
Speaker
coming up with an hourly rate for ourself. And we also just didn't have like a base price of like this is minimum what we need to charge for this type of project. And it's hard because like you're going to be doing a lot of random stuff when you're first starting out. like You're probably not going to be getting clients that like need full branding and website every single time. It's probably going to be like, hey, could you design this like graphic flyer for me? Or could you make this landing page for... like I did a ah landing page for these doctors in town that were like selling their um old building and like built a new building and they wanted to like advertise that. It was so random, honestly. It was a lot of random stuff, which is totally fine. I wouldn't say doing random work is like a mistake by any means.
00:05:47
Speaker
I don't think so either. It's hard to price. It's a random pricing for that. Yeah, it is hard to price. We were just pulling things out of thin air. I think that's when we get in trouble a little bit because it's like you're making emotional decisions about pricing versus factual decisions. I do think there's always going to be a little bit of an emotional factor in pricing. Yeah.
00:06:07
Speaker
Like I do think it's important to charge rates that might make you feel a little uncomfortable. That means you're probably charging a well for your work if you feel like a little bit uneasy about it. So I think that's something that's like we try to keep in mind now we even talked about pricing the other day so like it's not like something we always have perfectly nailed down but I think the mistake we made especially when we first started it was like not having like any way to calculate that price. And so now we've developed like a pricing calculator to figure out that base price like Cass mentioned. And that's actually a tool that we have available for purchase on our website too. So you can always check that out at fox.branding.com. But um that is like one of the most helpful things we've ever like built for ourselves was just like a way to calculate like, okay,
00:06:50
Speaker
if we're going to be like working this this many hours or like doing this much work or like what is our availability what are our goals how do we need to actually charge like minimum per project in order to like even survive as a business yeah because if you are thinking about you know there's so many different factors basically when you're an entrepreneur it's not just like i want to make x amount per hour because it's not like a nine to five job where you're going to be working 40 hours a week you can't base your hourly rate off. And your taxes work different too. Your taxes work different. yeah expensive So it's your time, it's your skill, it's the resources you're putting into it, like your business expenses, all of those things factor into it, which is why it's so helpful to have a calculation like that. so
00:07:34
Speaker
and at least having that base price will make a big difference. I think in like bringing some consistency to your pricing, because I think we just felt like, you know, we were looking back at some of our first proposals and some of them I was like, dang, like good for us for charging that. um But then others, it's like, well, that's kind of like a big jump. ah maybe Like that one would be like a lot lower, like one proposal we were looking at. So it was just all over the place, which is tough emotionally because you're always just like winging it. So yeah i I feel like that mistake for us was just making our prices so random and varied i wish we had some more consistency h i think another big mistake that we made that's kind of connected to this one is not having established like services and packages that we could offer
00:08:20
Speaker
because that does play into that number of like, okay, well, what if I am a new designer? And I actually don't know how many projects I can do in a year. Like I have no frame of reference. Okay, well, again, you can't just like look at someone else's website or social media and see how many clients are doing. Also, a lot of designers are not even posting all their client work. We certainly don't. Like we have a lot of work that we never post. And that's just because it may be we still might be super proud of it, but it may might not align with Our feed or their ideal client, right? So I think um Setting up certain packages and services are going to like save you so much time and so much Save you from from so much confusion and it's gonna help you with that calculation of your pricing I'm trying to think of like a story around this like something that we like really struggled with and I just remember like making things up for like every client. And I remember we have this, we actually have this photo and we've showed this in our courses too, but I can pop it up in the video version. Yeah, that'd be fun. You should do that. But it's just like this. We got this massive sheet of paper at the like, uh, entrepreneur center we were working at and we were like trying to draw out this chart and figure out like,
00:09:29
Speaker
Okay, well, we told this client, this project will be two or three weeks. This one might be four to six weeks, who knows? And we tried to line them up and we're like, okay, so how do these actually stack and stagger? Do we even have time to like do all these projects? like It was just like such a mess. like That was like so confusing for us for some reason.
00:09:47
Speaker
And it's just because we didn't have set packages so everything was custom. So there was no like rules almost for how things should stack or no limits for how many products we could take on no like spots that we could fill you know to make our lives easier. So just because such a big mess. And so I think that definitely is like a huge mistake that I would advise new designers to like steer away from.
00:10:09
Speaker
Yeah, like make sure you have set packages and timelines and it's going to be kind of hard to like always perfectly fill those spots. But I think setting up those packages makes it so that like you'll get there to where you will be more consistently booking those and the biggest thing to make those timelines go smoothly I think is having like your milestones in your projects so like not just even saying this is going to take four weeks to be able to ensure it's going to take four weeks you need to have like at least a very basic kind of idea when you're first starting you want to hone in on it more but saying I'm going to have a strategy meeting at this point I'm sending design direction here this is when we're going to do revisions and this is when we're going to wrap it up.
00:10:48
Speaker
And it takes time to nail that down, but you will get there. And I think that's going to make you and the client just feel much more secure. And I think that gives you confidence too. Like, okay, I feel like I actually delivered a really good experience and a really good product at the end. So that just kind of helps pricing be easier too. And like just continuing to build your confidence in your business because you're like, you have that validation, that proof that like, okay, I can do good work. Like I am doing a good job. Yeah. um So I think it's really important to have like all those things in place.
00:11:20
Speaker
Yeah. Pricing goes along with sales calls. I think we definitely made some mistakes when it comes to sales calls or discovery calls. That's an interchangeable term in our industry, but we call them sales calls, at least behind the scenes because that's what it is. It's your opportunity to sell your service to your client. Yeah. Client facing, we call it an intro call. We're just going to set an introduction. It is, but we're also going to try to get to a sales point at the end.
00:11:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I think in the beginning of our sales calls, we just really didn't know what kind of questions we should be asking in order to like properly quote the project. And then also just to have a successful sales call. We didn't have much experience in sales ourselves. So it's just some, some skills we had to like build from the ground up. And when we were first starting, we were actually having some of these calls, I think.
00:12:13
Speaker
these meetings like in person with clients, um which was interesting. So we were definitely sinking a lot of time and resources into these sales calls, but they weren't even like that effective for us sometimes just because I don't think we had a solid list of like questions to start with. We were like winging it and reinventing the wheel every time.
00:12:33
Speaker
Yeah, like I do remember we would like sit down and like spend a lot of time together figuring out what questions to ask for like each individual client as we've gone through the years we realize you can ask the same questions to every client like you're going to get different answers of course but like there's a lot of like basic questions that you should ask every person you're on a call with. um So just over time we figured that out and we've put all of that in a resource for ourselves that we also share with our designers in our courses. You can also purchase it as like a standalone template on our website, but it's our sales call questionnaire and scripts, which is like honestly a lifesaver. Because before that, like I remember so many times where
00:13:12
Speaker
I felt embarrassed there's one specific time we were like in an in-person meeting and we were all sitting at like a round table and I just remember like maybe you would ask a question or or I asked something and then I was like great I think that's like everything we have I think that's I think all our questions are asked you know we're good and then like the client looked at me kind of funny and then you looked at me kind of funny and I was like am I forgetting something like And then you were like, yeah i think there's like let's like talk about this. like We like kept going for like quite a while after. And I was like, in my head, I was like, oh, that's all I can think of. Because I was just like going on the fly. I was like, oh, wait. There's actually a lot of other questions we should be asking. So we were just like were not prepared. And I felt embarrassed. and like I have no memory of it. So and well honestly, yeah you don't have to feel embarrassed. Because i I personally don't remember. I'm sure the client doesn't either. But I'm sure in the moment, it was just like, oh, god. But it stuck with me. Because I was like, wait.
00:14:03
Speaker
I did not prepare for this at all. And like, I just feel like I was like, I feel so new. I feel so young. I feel like I don't know what I'm doing. This is just like stressful and embarrassing. And I hate this. And I mean, even if you don't like, you know, you don't you won't necessarily always feel like embarrassed if you don't know the questions to ask, but I think you will feel like not equipped to be able to quote the project well or like you'll quote it and then you'll get into the project and there will be things that come up that like need to be added on to the project or like you didn't even think about especially where you might want to get the client honestly because if you're not asking the right questions and then like you're I don't know it maybe just seems like you're ill prepared you know what you're doing they may not want to work with you so like you want to look like you're like you've done this before even if you haven't
00:14:49
Speaker
Yeah, and I don't even think you have to like have sales charisma. like I don't think that's like the key to booking it. Yeah, we're not like great sales people, like the salesperson like identity. like I don't know. No, you and you don't have to be like a super compelling, charismatic person. I think that will that will come in time like once you have confidence. you know Clients will be able to sense that.
00:15:09
Speaker
But truly, I just think it starts with having the right questions to ask about the project so that at least you're fully informed and you have all the details you need to be able to quote it properly. And the client feels like, oh, they really asked about all the correct aspects of this. And also like having a script of of what to say in the different scenarios, which is why we include the scripts with our sales call questions of what to do if the client says no or Um, if the client says like they might have, I think there's like, if they have more questions or, you know, we just have responses to budget questions that you may ask your client, you know, right? Like what do you do? high station or Your quote is more than they wanted to spend. Like here is a canned response you can kind of start with so that you can fall back on that. And I think that's also just going to help you feel more confident in general, because you know, you have those responses to go to you. Cause like when you get on sales calls and you're still getting used to them, like,
00:16:05
Speaker
You are going to be like a little out of breath. Like you're going to, you know, feel a little bit nervous. So I think just knowing, especially having questions from a designer who's been doing this for a long time. I was mentioning like website design a second ago. There's so many things you need to ask about what does site design to be able to quote it properly.
00:16:20
Speaker
um You need to know about like certain functionalities and features and because it really can affect the timeline and what you're going to quote for it. so Just having those questions prepared makes a huge difference. Yeah, for sure. That makes me think to another mistake. so I think one of the biggest mistakes we made several times, and it's so hard to learn the lesson,
00:16:43
Speaker
is like just like allowing scope creep. And there's a lot of different ways that this mistake happens and has happened for us. um What it first of all, do you want to just like break down your definition of scope creep? Because it's kind of an industry term. Yeah, I think scope creep is like when when and it can happen kind of at the start of a project, it can happen in the middle at the end, it can happen a lot of different times throughout your experience with the client. But it's often when clients will start asking for extra work. Or like if you're not asking the right questions on a sales call, and then maybe you get into a project and you realize more work needs to be done. And maybe you feel like a little bit ashamed that, you know, like, Oh, I didn't know I should know to ask that. And so I feel bad. So now I feel like I need to over correct and over offer extra work that the client's not paying for.
00:17:33
Speaker
And then like, we've done that before, and then that kind of led down the slippery slope of like, well, if you already did this thing for free, then you might as well do this next thing. Like, basically, it's just when your project will kind of snowball and more work gets added on. And, you know, I think sometimes you could charge for that work. And sometimes you might not either way, it kind of sucks, because it just like ends up draining a lot more of your energy, it might extend your project timeline, or like I said, you might not get paid for that work. So That is what I would say is scope creep. And so in our experience, like that's happened in a lot of different ways. Like I said, do you want to share like a little story example, Cass? I think we talked about one before. Honestly, there's been so many, but I think for me, I think I've had a couple times is when a business makes a change or a shift to their product or like their service model, kind of like midway through the project or like after I've already basically made like
00:18:26
Speaker
website design mockups, which is understandable in a way because I know that like a lot of our clients will, because they are like newer businesses or startups, like they kind of are in that brainstorming phase, or like they'll learn something new about their business or their process in talking with us in the strategy and so new things develop.
00:18:42
Speaker
But it does just like make things really tricky when they like change something big about their business. so Or they think of something they forgot to ask for. And it's not necessarily being like, oh, ah clients are so wrong for doing that. like That just happens. That's just part of business. But for you as a designer or the service provider, you need to know when to hold your own and hold the boundary of, this is what I promised I would do in the proposal. This is what I charged for. And knowing like when a client comes to you and asks for something extra, you have to tell them that is extra.
00:19:12
Speaker
Which or no, like say yes or no, I can or cannot do this. Like, cause it may not be something you can do. Like don't feel like you have to offer something that you're like not equipped to offer. Um, or you don't know how to charge for.
00:19:24
Speaker
Yeah, but ben basically like one story I can think of is when a client decided to... and we were we I think I had built out the website pretty far, and then they decided they were going to add and a secondary product line and basically add it on. like they I think they doubled their products basically, and it also shifted like what the brand offered really significantly. And when they first told me about it, um I was like, oh, yeah, like that should be fine. And I kind of responded pretty quickly. But then as I started trying to integrate that change in, I was like, oh, fuck, like this changes the whole website. Like I'm going to have to redesign. change I realized that it wasn't a small change. And I i didn't know until I started like actually trying to to implement that into the design. And I've had that happen so many times where
00:20:13
Speaker
ah client will say something and my knee-jerk reaction is to be like okay yeah like no problem let me yeah I can do that but I've learned that I need to really slow down and before like telling a client yes to anything I need to say okay I will look into that like that needs to be my go-to before I make any kind of like verbal promise or say I will do something I need to look into it and then I really need to look into it to see if i'm yeah how How much that would affect the project, if it's something I can do at all, like you said, Amanda, or if it's something I need to charge extra for. But either way, you have to set a boundary with your client or else it is just going to keep going on. like
00:20:52
Speaker
And I mean, honestly, it's still something that comes up for me because like, you know, recently and with current clients, because I just have a really hard time, like I said, telling my clients no or setting those boundaries, it's really, really uncomfortable for me because I want to just people please like so hard.
00:21:11
Speaker
Um, and I remember like a specific conversation I had with my therapist, and maybe even like in the beginning of this year, I can't remember when it was, but I remember her specifically saying like, when are you going to set the boundary? When are you going to do it? This client, like they, they've continued to do it. So when are you going to say no? Like, and that just sticks with me even to this day when I'm, even when I have to set small boundaries, it's, it's uncomfortable for me, but it is something you have to do.
00:21:36
Speaker
I think that's so relatable to a lot of people to that feeling that like, it's hard to say no. um Because especially if you are like feeling insecure about like, your what you're offering or your service or anything, or just like, even just saying no, like that is hard, especially newer designers, because if you haven't done this a lot, or if you're younger, like we were pretty young when we first started our business, and all of our clients were a lot more mature, a lot more experienced than us.
00:22:02
Speaker
And so I think that we would tend to push our own boundaries and not say no almost because we thought we like had to because we thought our clients were the authority like they were the ones telling us what to do versus like keeping the mindset that like we are business owners ourselves and yes we are new or new we're inexperienced but that doesn't mean that like we should doubt every single thing that we're doing. And I know that's so hard because like you just are going to doubt what you're doing a lot of the time when you're first starting a business. like It's so scary. um But I think it's just important to remember that like if you are a designer who owns your own business, like you have the freedom to say yes and say no to things. like You are the authority in your own business.
00:22:45
Speaker
So just because a client asked for something else and wants to add that onto your project doesn't mean that you're wrong for not already including that in the project. like And even if you are wrong, doesn't mean that.
00:22:58
Speaker
you have to now over accommodate them or you know put yourself at like at risk or like at like put doing else extra work for no money or whatever it is in that situation. like just Just keep that in mind. like You are the authority. you can Yeah. um and and they came Your clients come to you for a reason. No matter what where your skill level is, like we've always we talk a lot about how there's always going to be a match, a designer match for every type of client.
00:23:22
Speaker
um But they they come to you because you provide a service that they can't do for themselves or they don't have time to do for themselves so yes while it should be a collaborative experience and like while you should hear your clients feedback and like their vision for things. um Ultimately like you are the designer and they came to you because they want your expertise and yes you're not going to be.
00:23:44
Speaker
super experienced in the beginning. That's just the nature of it. But I still think you you should hold your boundaries. You should try and find client relationships where the client really seems to want your opinion and to be collaborative and like a really healthy dynamic. Sometimes you can tell up front and sometimes you can't, which kind of gets into like red flags, um which is definitely a mistake we made with our first clients was ignoring potential red flags. Yeah, Amanda, do you have thoughts on that one? Yeah, we ignored a lot of red flags when we first started. And I think that's again, just like because you doubt yourself or like you really just need the money and you're like,
00:24:25
Speaker
rap Let's just do it. We'll figure it out when we're there. And then you like kind of hate yourself later when the situation gets really awkward and uncomfortable. Some things that I remember were like, there were several calls that we would have where be a potential client and we could just sense that something was off or they would say things that were a bit concerning maybe it was like about their past experience like we've had several calls with people who said you know like I've had a lot of bad experiences with designers before and that's like a tale as old as time like if someone says that you should it doesn't mean you need to immediately write them off and like especially if they say like I had a bad client or a bad designer experience once like that's fine like sometimes
00:25:04
Speaker
they do hire an inexperienced designer or a bad business person or someone ghosts them or whatever. Like I get it that happens. But if someone says like, Oh, yeah, like I've i've had several bad experiences, or like I, I have a hard time like releasing control, I have a hard time trusting people, like those are all kind of like they should send off little alarm bells in your mind.
00:25:25
Speaker
And I think you should be curious and you should ask more questions about that. And that was again, why like sales calls are so important because you're not going to get that context in an email. You're not going to get a good feel for a client. And like, I don't think you need to do calls for, you know, like a one off, like, oh, I'm charging $200 to design this flyer for somebody. But I think if you're, if you're like us and you're offering branding or web design or packaging services, something that's a bigger project, bigger timeline,
00:25:51
Speaker
I do think it's good to get on a call so you can like assess if there are those red flags and like really feel them out. um and Just feel out the vibe. like Sometimes the vibe, but we've had calls for the vibe. These people are weird or they don't know what they're doing or their business is not going to do well and we're not going to save them or they expect us to save them. There's some people we've talked to or I think they they put a lot of weight on this like brand project. And it's like, I don't actually think that branding is going to be the like, the solution to the problem that you're having. Because it branding sells a lot of things, but it's not going to like solve their like immediate emergency need. yeah You know, it's like it's a longer term thing. And so that's always kind of a red flag too.
00:26:35
Speaker
Yeah, I just, i I always really want to get on a call with a client and I know that calls can be intimidating when you're first starting. I also know that they can be a time suck and a big investment to sink into a project that you might not book. And I see some, like i I've been getting an ad from somebody, a designer who's like book projects without discovery calls or sales calls. And I'm not sure like what the method is around that. It might be for like a specific type of service or something.
00:26:59
Speaker
But for the services that we offer, I just don't feel comfortable not getting on a call with somebody just due to some discovery calls we've had where it's like, like I get a really bad vibe from this. but Sometimes I can't even pinpoint it. It's just like, like a bad feeling. I don't know. the I just have a bad gut feeling. Sometimes my gut is just being anxious and I need to get over it. But that's where it is nice to have a business partner who you can bounce stuff off of.
00:27:25
Speaker
Yeah, um or even just having other design community too, you can find that too. And you can ask other people like, hey, based on this, this situation, like, do you think I should avoid this project? Like, and there's also so many people like I'm in like Facebook groups with other designers or business owners, people will post things and I'm like,
00:27:43
Speaker
to me as an outsider it's so obvious that that's like a huge red flag but sometimes when you're in it again that self-doubt like will like kind of whisper in your ear and it kind of just like gets you confused and then you're like oh maybe it's not actually a big deal you know maybe I should just ignore this and like just do the project anyways um so I think it is really good to get helpful feedback from people whether that's a friend a partner a person on a facebook group you know like who even better like feedback from ah a slack group like our course slack groups with yeah you know people who are really like-minded and who are where you are or a little bit above where you are or like us who are you know several years past you it's nice to have all of those perspectives and
00:28:24
Speaker
i I'll say like you know we're talking about sales calls where it's just like, no way, I'm not going to work with this person. Those are pretty rare um that those happen. Sometimes, I would say the more common scenario is when clients will say something that is a red flag or brings up alarm bells like I've you know had a bad experience with a designer or I'm really specific and picky when it comes to design or I have a hard time releasing things. so We've still worked with clients who have said that on sales calls, but like Amanda said, we we get like curious and we're like, okay, so like you know what it maybe if if we have time and I want to dig into them, like yeah, like what kind of what went wrong in that that designer scenario? We try to answer the conversational casual way too. We're not like, tell us what went wrong with that. right no We're like, oh my gosh, that's so funny. like tell us Tell us more about that. you know like we'll just try because are I think because part of that is just our personalities, we want to be more casual with our clients.
00:29:20
Speaker
But I think that also kind of like releases some of the um just like hesitations they may have with like sharing that information or just kind of diffuses any like uncomfortableness. Yeah, I was asking it from like, yeah, from the client's perspective of how did how did you feel like so so like,
00:29:37
Speaker
you said You mentioned you had a bad experience. like What do you feel like made it a bad experience? or like What made you uncomfortable about that? or like What made you feel like they didn't come up with the design that you wanted? you know Not being like, what did that designer do to you? just like How did you feel in that situation? um so that gives you an opportunity then as the designer on the call to like to help um kind of like quell that fear so like if they're like oh like i felt like i never like heard from my designer ever like we've had people say that like that like i could not contact them we're like oh yeah that does sound frustrating like we're at we are really great with communication we have multiple check-ins throughout the project blah blah blah so like that gives us a point to like further sell ourselves by
00:30:21
Speaker
you know like really like saying and referencing like understanding we understand like that is stressful that you went through that we're so sorry and we're not going to be like that so that way they don't have that fear when it comes to like potentially booking with us if it is something that that past experience was like negative and then that's something we actually do really positively. Now, sometimes there will be things where the client, I don't know, I'm just thinking of an example where the client was like ah maybe saying, yeah, I just hated that I had to use like their project workspace tool and like I just wanted to be on meetings with them all the time and they could never get on a meeting with me.
00:30:53
Speaker
That's where it's also good to talk about it because and we've had that before in a sales call where I've been like, well, i can I can get that. In our projects, we have two scheduled meetings and then the rest of the time we will be messaging back and forth in our project workspace. and We do have the opportunity to like make loom videos and send walkthrough videos back and forth if we want to, but typically we only do have two calls. How do you feel about that? you know And only being able to message back and forth, that is something that's important to our project.
00:31:23
Speaker
So I think you also need to bring up those things that are going to be true and like set the tone for the project from the beginning or these boundaries. Yeah. Whether that be your deadlines, whether that be the amount of meetings you're having, um, just thinking about some of those red flags that come up. Oh, if a client says like, I'm really bad.
00:31:40
Speaker
at making design decisions or I just feel like I can never decide will say well we have like a design direction portion of the project we send that and you'll approve that and that will set the tone for the rest of the project then we'll have the logo creation and then you'll have around a round of feedback on that and that's when you get to make those decisions like do you feel like you could make decisions at those points in the project? Or if it's a VIP day, how do you feel about making fast paced decisions throughout the day? Yeah, it helps us like qualify them and helps like them be aware, qualify themselves to like, yeah, it's just the project for me, you know,
00:32:13
Speaker
Most of the time the client will be like, yeah, no, I get that. I can do that. and Sometimes they'll be like, no, I don't think I can make decisions like that. And that's great to know so that you didn't get into a bad situation. But most of the time the client will say, you know they think of themselves positively. We want things to go well. So they'll say, yeah, I'm OK with that. And that gives you The right, I mean, you always, you always have the right to hold your boundaries, but that makes you feel really confident in holding your boundaries. Cause it's like, we already talked about this. We set the tone from the beginning of the project. So now if it comes up that they are trying to get on a bunch of meetings with me, it's like, Hey, remember, like we only have these two meetings. It's in the contract. It's also in the welcome guide. You know, like we talked about on the sales call, you've set the expectation already.
00:32:56
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that can even be another example of scope creep too is just like always want to get on there another call. And so like bringing up all these things during that sales call in that communication looking out for those red flags, it's all super great. And so that I think that kind of brings me to the next mistake that we made was not not having really good contracts or sometimes even we made mistakes of not sending contracts to repeat clients. I've got some Some scary stories about that one. That was a mistake that I made like more than once, I think. It can get so easy to get lax about it. and like You always want to assume the best about a project, especially early on in your business. it's like
00:33:39
Speaker
yeah it'll be fine like i cannot imagine a scenario in which it wouldn't be fine even if you're doing like one of your first projects for a friend you know you just you really think it's going to go well until you get into a situation where it's like i did not think about this variable being even possible but now here here i am and i feel like i don't have the right to do anything about it because we didn't have an agreement Yeah, I think that gets a lot of people and like us a couple times, especially with the scope creep again, because it's like, oh, well, well, if we forgot to put this thing in our contract, well, now I don't feel like I can enforce this boundary in a way, like there's some boundaries, I think you can totally enforce without a contract. There's like human boundaries, right? But then there's other things that could be a boundary about what you deliver in your project or something. And so
00:34:23
Speaker
If it's not in the contract, you're like, okay, well, this client could kind of fight me on this point I'm trying to make because I didn't put it in my contract. And then you're in a sticky situation. Um, so for us, like we, I think like what changed the game for us was getting a contract. There's so many great templates out there, but I think we used, we started with a template on honey book, which is our, um, client relationship management system. And we love it. We use it every freaking day.
00:34:48
Speaker
It's great for like contracts and inquiries and payments. But I think just like having a really solid contract is really important. And also another mistake that we maybe made was like forgetting to add to our contract after lessons were learned, after bad experiences were had. yeah So I think it's really important for you as a new designer to make sure you're always like checking in your contract.
00:35:12
Speaker
You know, if you have a bad experience with a client or something you realized you could have done to protect yourself better, add a clause about that in your contract. I think that will help you so much in the future. um And that certainly helped us a lot.
00:35:25
Speaker
And then just always make sure you send it, even if it's like an addition to a project, have it in writing lines. How many times would we like sent contracts and like forgot that they didn't sign it? I think that has happened to me before too. Yeah. But when we were kind of just sending them like SPDFs and like, yeah, cause we would do like, what is it? Like the Adobe sign or whatever. And like, it can work. it can work. But I think it's just like now I just feel so much better now knowing that like we have like records of everything we can see when they've opened a file so it's like we know they've looked at it we get reminders if they like haven't signed or haven't paid like honey book is great. Okay, so we have a few more we're getting close to running out of time but we're just gonna kind of rapid fire growth go through these other hard lessons learned. um One of them was definitely like jumping into designing in projects without sending direction to our clients. There's like
00:36:17
Speaker
like are not sending enough direction or not getting like enough rounds of approval. And so we would end up just like getting to the point where it's like, okay, we had our discussion about what you want your logo to look like. And then I designed your logo and send it to you and you like hate it because it's nothing like you imagined because I didn't ask the right questions and I didn't show you any direction. Cause I was like, Ooh, I want my clients to like be surprised. I want them to be pleasantly surprised. You took a big old girl. You don't want them to be surprised. Like you want them to be pleased.
00:36:44
Speaker
um But I think it's a way better and we've found in multiple ways in like our branding, especially like CAS in web design to for you that like you are setting yourself up for so much extra work if you are not sending design direction.
00:36:59
Speaker
um, in advance and getting their approval and doing that work before, especially with websites. You want to talk about that? Yeah. I mean, like a specific situation was where I created this really beautiful homepage design. And for whatever reason, I didn't send a mockup to the client. Cause I guess I just didn't do that at that point. Cause I thought it would be like giving away the design or something. Yeah. What do you want to do? me think And then I spent a ton of time coding it. Um, and I was new to code, so it just took me a really long time and I showed it to them and they were like, yeah, uh,
00:37:29
Speaker
not really what we imagined. and I was like like, why are you serious? It's like pages of feedback, pages and pages, and you got to redo all of it. and I yeah had to like get rid of all that stuff I coded and like redesign it, and it just it cost me so much more time. so your' Especially when it comes to complex things, you want to create the most detailed direction you can. like You don't want to actually create the full end product, the logo suite, the website design, but show them your full plan for it so that you can get their approval, especially with like website coding or development, especially with like illustration or something that's really going to take a lot of detailed time and work. like
00:38:07
Speaker
always show that upfront your direction for it. Yeah, exactly. Another one is offering a service you're not prepared for. We kind of talked about this earlier, but just like, make sure you're doing your due diligence, make sure you're doing your research to know like, can you offer this thing? I think for us specifically, that was in a ah couple of like web design projects, we had some situations where we may be promising things that we shouldn't have or we didn't realize we like maybe weren't equipped to do so.
00:38:34
Speaker
Yeah. I didn't, I and didn't even know. Like I just thought I was like. Cause we didn't take the time though. We could have figured it out if we would have taken the time to like do the research. And sometimes you're still not always going to know. Like sometimes you're still going to run into mistakes. It's fine. But try to do your research.
00:38:48
Speaker
I think the biggest thing for me with web design was like figuring out how to do copywriting and website design, and like that copywriting is a separate service. I just didn't even, didn't really cross my mind when I was very first designing websites. Yeah, you're just kind of filling in words, but not like like having a process for it. you know You need to have those conversations with your clients and ask about copywriting and for yourself to decide like if who you're going to work with to do that, or if you're equipped to learn how to offer copywriting as a service. like that's just one of those Have your client provide a have your client provided it. Yeah. You need to like talk to other web designers, see how they're doing it, and figure out how to like really professionally do that so that you're not like letting your clients down or promising something that you really like are not equipped to do. Yeah.
00:39:30
Speaker
yeah um Another mistake that we made was not taking feedback and like revisions very well. like If we like took it too personally, or not having a good like system or boundaries and for like the rounds of feedback that we were doing. Again, just like kind of getting like too emotional about things that are like, it's business, it doesn't need to be that emotional. like It's fine.
00:39:49
Speaker
Yeah, there are things you can do to set yourself up so that like it's not so emotional, but like definitely remember like crying at Chili's one night because this client's feedback like hurt my feelings so bad. Yeah, I've cried at like client feedback emails multiple times. yeah it It can be very emotional. But at the at the start, yeah. But I think especially because like those situations would get a little out of hand if it was like,
00:40:16
Speaker
Like we really, you know, drop the ball on something or if like a client or we weren't communicating well enough about our boundaries and our client, like there were some that were just like, they would keep pushing on those boundaries and get like angry yeah at us because we wouldn't do whatever they wanted for like no money. Um, so they would like kind of chew us out. and Yeah, some clients are just... Some people are just terrible. Some clients are just disrespectful to you. It's hard when you're first starting because you don't know the difference always. It's like, what is this my fault or not? You think you're terrible when they are terrible and you make it about yourself and it might not be you. There should always just be a level of basic respect and just treating people well. If a client is crossing that with you, if they are belittling you, if they are just being
00:41:01
Speaker
Mean or disrespectful to you. There's there's never an excuse for that, you know, even if they have cancellation clauses in your contract Yes, so we have had to enact a cancellation clause Once or twice once but that one wasn't because they were being terrible or anything. No, not not because it's not a situation we and That's the thing too. Like you'll make it through every project you will like there will you'll get through it even though in the moment it feels like You won't and you're just gonna be it's gonna be like this forever. You will make it through I think like one of the last mistakes just in general ah that we've kind of touched on a little bit but is just trying to please clients at any cost. Just going back to like our people pleasing mentality. you know I mean especially in the beginning like you were saying Amanda when like you don't necessarily feel like an expert yet and you're just trying to
00:41:50
Speaker
figure these things out with your first clients, you will really overextend yourself sometimes you or you'll feel tempted to in order just to please your client. You will allow the scope creep. You will ignore the red flags. you know You won't have the boundary conversations you need to have because you just want to make your clients happy at any cost and the cost is going to be to you and to your mental health.
00:42:10
Speaker
Yeah, I think being a business owner requires like a certain level of like self respect. And like it takes time to build that self respect if you like don't already have like a really strong like foundation for that and like or you may even think you do but then like business just kind of like brings up new things. It's it's a hard experience. So it's definitely something you have to learn and like a skill set you have to grow and but even when you keep growing and your business keeps going, you're still gonna have things come up. We still do.
00:42:36
Speaker
but it's less hard than it used to be. And we have more confidence to know that like, okay, this is hard, but like we know that we've figured everything else out and I can figure this out too, and it's going to be fine.
00:42:47
Speaker
Yeah, and that's where I think you really need to lean into communities of other designers that have been there before who you can like bounce questions off of and also like invest in education and like resources for yourself like that will help you avoid some of this trial and error. Like the sales call questions we talked about, like all these different templates we talked about truly that can help you avoid so much trial and error. and so um In our course, ProDesign Business, we do include like all of our business templates, and I bring that up because we're actually bringing back ProDesign Business this month, which we're super excited about. um We're opening it back up, and we're actually also offering special pricing um for a short duration after it's opened up. So if you're listening to this right now, you can go to protesignbusiness.com to check it all out, but let us like tell you about what the course is all about.
00:43:35
Speaker
So, ProDesign business is a self-paced, easy to implement course for design entrepreneurs. So, whether you're just starting your business or you've started, you're in your first few years and you're wanting to really grow, this is going to be great for you so that you can figure out how can I really build my processes and systems that make me feel confident in what I'm doing and what I'm offering to clients. And then it'll also help you raise your rates and make sure you're charging well for your work because we really want you, our goal for you is just to like live your best life and we want your business to be able to help you provide the life that you're looking for so pro design business is great because it includes seventeen plus video lessons multiple business templates basically every template every script every worksheet anything we've ever built for ourselves
00:44:19
Speaker
and used in our business, we are offering to you for yours. It also includes access to our private Slack community. So that's a great place where you can connect with other designers, like Cass said, people who are where you're at and understand your struggles or even have a little more experience so they can provide some more insight for you and us included. Yeah, the course is basically like our toolkit of everything we have learned and used to run our successful design business. So you can check it out at prodesignbusiness.com. And we would love to see you in the Slack group once you join.
00:44:48
Speaker
Okay, so to wrap things up for this episode, we're going to do a listener question. We got a question from Mandy and they said, could you share books or education that helped you both in the startup years, even now six years in? So as we were kind of thinking back on the resources that have been the most helpful to us, I think we definitely started out with mostly free education. We could find like whether that be free downloads from people, um blog posts, especially like in the web design space, like in Squarespace when I was learning that, there are a lot of really helpful blog posts. Two. Free Summits were super helpful, yeah. um And just YouTube videos in general, like Amanda, I know you have watched like um the future before and we both have watched Kel-Lauren just watching like someone design is so helpful just to see their process. So I definitely think free YouTube videos. um We also had a business coach when we were starting up and that's not necessarily a book or a specific educational material, but
00:45:43
Speaker
That was helpful for us when we were just trying to work with her for a couple of years. right like yeah three It's a while. it was a yeah it was so That was really helpful to have if you can afford that investment. I think it's nice um and definitely like helped us grow more quickly, I would say.
00:46:00
Speaker
Definitely what helped us too is the book Building a Story Brand. When we discovered this book, it was actually really helpful in our like messaging for our own business. And then we then applied that, just like the whole process and like philosophy. The framework. and brand Yeah, the framework for that to how we now work with our own clients and how we create their messaging for their website, and their business. so super helpful book. Definitely recommend that one. I also loved the books by Fiona Humberstone. She's got a couple about like building brands. I don't remember the exact titles, but um you can find them on Amazon. and um Those are really helpful for me just in understanding like
00:46:36
Speaker
how do you even begin to think about like what fonts and what colors and what styles work for different kinds of brands or like, you you know, it kind of goes into archetypes, but she has like a different framework for it. It's all about like color seasons and things like that. So it's really interesting. And those are really helpful for me.
00:46:54
Speaker
So we'll wrap it up there. Thanks so much for joining us for this one, guys. We look forward to our next episode. If you have a question you want answered on our next episode, you can leave it in the comments of um the YouTube video if you're watching on YouTube, or you can send us a DM on Instagram. We're at Foxtrot Branding if you want to follow us on Instagram. And don't forget to check out ProDesign Business at protesignbusiness.com. Okay, we'll see y'all in the next one. Bye. bye