Simple Ways to Engage Clients

Sitting down at my desk with a fresh cup of coffee in the morning is almost a refreshing experience. There I am, still attempting to wake up and ready to run through my morning ritual of checking all the usual social networking, news, and job related sites before I start my day of creating designs that will ultimately be helping clients out for years to come. This is what I do, this is what I care about.

Lets reverse this and think of it from a clients perspective. I’m willing to bet that they are doing the same thing we do in the morning, but checking news and resources related to their industry without a single design related word read in the morning. Who’da thunk it?

So how to we get our clients to not only understand, but take an interest in what we are creating for them beyond if it works and what it costs? It can be extremely difficult to ignite a fire with wood that is already saturated with the water of disinterest. The trick is education and perspective.

Gaging Interest

Everyone is different, especially those who hire designers. Some are very understanding and excited about what we are trying to do for them, others have little desire to be involved and just want the finished product yesterday. Unfortunately we can’t make them all care. Those that show a sign of interest are the ones that are fun to work with, you have to nurture that and keep them involved. Even if a client doesn’t want to be bothered and just give their critique of a design and move on it means they do care, its just how much they understand about good design that needs to be worked on.

Teaching While Creating

This can be tough depending on the situation. In all projects there is a process of making sure the client understands what they’re getting in return for their money, the conception, creation, completion, etc. Somewhere along the lines of making sure the client understands what the agreement is, its important to teach them what seperates the good from the bad. I love to have a conversation with clients that inspires them by showing them similar things out there that were well executed and explaining to them why they are so good. There is nothing wrong with explaining to a client what you do and how you do it in terms that they will understand. They will automatically have a picture in their head of what they’re looking for, which is fantastic! Its up to us as designers to create that image by interpreting their words, thats our job right? What if we have a conversation that changes their image in a way that will improve the project, establish us as the expert designers they’ve hired, and opens their mind to something a little more “out of the box”?

Start From The Beginning

As a freelance designer one advantage we have is controlling our sales leads and where they are generated. Small business owners working with freelance designers can work together on a very personal level, which is a huge key to success both for the project and both parties involved. Building trust with them is the first step. There are many ways to do this of course but building relationships with potential clients beyond “sales lead” alone can change the way a client will relate to you. Contact local business groups, get involved in niche advertising circles, offer to do presentations or seminars for business owners, all of these will improve relationships with potential clients before they even consider your services for future projects.

Be Professional

As the old saying goes “it takes a long time to build a reputation, and a moment to ruin it”. These are words to live your professional life by. All the hard work you may have put into not only getting clients, but GOOD clients that have confidence in you can be lost relatively quickly by missed deadlines, careless spelling mistakes, and the like. Misspelling a company’s slogan on a rough design comp is never a big deal to us because we know it can be changed, but to the client it comes across as careless and disrespectful.

Be Available

Keeping clients engaged in a project keeps momentum. Momentum in turn makes things much more enjoyable, keeps ideas flowing, and keeps the project on schedule and everyone wins. Sometimes this means that you have to be available to your clients at (virtually) all times. Make sure they feel free to email you, or call you if they have any questions or concerns and follow up with them as soon as possible. People like to feel important and a lot of times they tend to forget that we may be working on a dozen or more projects at a time. This can’t faze you, it just means you will have to be your own customer service representative along with every other hat you must wear as a designer.

Is this all more work? Yes.

However, we can all agree that a great client means a successful project and pride both on their end and ours. I believe it is worth the extra effort to make the process more enjoyable, more often.