Ask Rezzz

Jonathan Stark invited me onto his podcast where I unpacked being a platform specialist and how I built a productized service. I actually shared some of the fears I had along the way.

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How do I know Jonathan Stark?

Jonathan Stark, author of Hourly Billing is Nuts and host of Ditching Hourly podcast invited me onto his show.

We are a part of a Slack group together and as we were talking about Jonathan's platform migration from Drip to ConvertKit, he invited me onto the show to talk about how I productized my services as a platform specialist.

In this episode, I had a chance to talk about how I went from a burnt out generalist developer to an in-demand specialist.

How to become a platform specialist

In case you don’t want to read the rest of this, you can check out the full episode for all the details.

There is a lot that goes into specializing your business, you can choose a vertical specialty, a horizontal specialty, or a platform specialty.

In this conversation with Jonathan, we dive into many of the pivot points, thoughts, fears, and strategy behind how I built my business.

In the episode, I shared a variety of things including:

- How I put myself on the radar of specific platforms?
- How building relationships and being helpful in the community can create trust
- How I still choose those who I work with even if I’ve already helped them in the past

Specifically, I talk about how I became a trusted partner of both Drip and ConvertKit.

The main takeaways from this show are:

- How to identify pieces of your existing services and creating products to sell
- By being helpful first, your business will grow
- There are pros and cons to being a platform specialist, which both are that you are tied to that platform.

Definitely go [check it out](https://www.ditchinghourly.com/b87a8b24).

If you have a chance too, check out a few of the other episodes as well.

I’d like to thank Jonathan for being a part of it and including me along with amazing folks like Liston Witherill, Jane Portman, and Blair Enns

In the last episode you learned some things to delight and create the perception of value in your business. Today you will learn exactly what to deliver that validates that perception.

I get asked how to get more clients and I often say that it’s not about “more clients”, it’s about “right clients.”

I stress that it’s about getting the right quality clients.

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What you need to think about is how high-quality is that client that you are working with right now and how much are you charging them.

If you are looking to increase the budget, it comes from not just leveling up your skills, not just your experience, but also that you are doing more for them in your solution.

Which means that if you are including more, that, in turn, requires more time spent on the solution and obviously a bigger budget.

What is it in those budgets that allow you to charge more?

This could be strategy and consultation. Could be a weekly phone call. This could even be an add-on service like marketing on social media.

Maybe you are thinking that you don’t know how to do marketing. Or that you aren’t experienced enough yet to give a valuable strategy.

That’s ok.

Figuring out what you can add into the mix to increase those budgets isn’t about you.

It has to be about your client and what they want.

As a developer, I take pride in proper coding practices such as environments, coding standards, and efficient deployment scripts. My clients, not so much.

What my clients' value is communication. This comes in 2 forms.

The first is how we handle everyday communication. I tried Basecamp, Asana, and others for project management with clients. All too often though they would forget their password, forget the URL to go to.

It made working with me in their eyes, difficult.

So instead of forcing them into something that would frustrate them, I stuck to something that I know they know. Email.

They send me an email and then I do what I need to on the backend to file it accordingly.

The second form is a weekly call.

I asked my clients “how can I be more awesome?”

What I was told was that communication is great through the email, but having a regular phone call would be awesome.

So I added in a weekly phone call to my services.

Now I rather spend the time doing work than talking about it, but that’s me, not the client.

In order to make that phone call reality and provide more to the solution in that way, that would require time carved out of the week, and require prep and post time.

You may be thinking how can you charge more for something like a call when those seemingly are needed anyway.

Are you charged more for consultations with a lawyer or accountant?

Since my main form of communication is through email and the one-off scheduled calls, a weekly call isn’t something that is necessary to get the work done, in fact, it pulls me away from getting that work done.

However, the client deems it important enough for them to do business. If that’s the case, then I can charge for that added time for that level of communication.

To charge more is to get into the head of the client.

Don’t charge more for the sake of yourself, charge more because you are adding the value to your package that the client sees as valuable.

It’s not about how many clients you have, it’s the quality of the client. You want to attract clients who have bigger budgets so that you can raise your rates and get out from that hamster wheel.

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Where is the money

First is to know where the money is coming from.

I love music, I love listening, playing and exploring new bands.

I also like the design, the aesthetic of metal and hard rock music.

Though new bands often don’t have the budget to spend on their marketing or website development.

That’s often left for beer.

So I wouldn’t want to go after them as an ideal client.

However since I enjoy the creative arts, folks who sell services, sell products (both digitally and physical), makers of all shapes and sizes who already build their businesses online.

Well, those are folks could be potential clients.

Go get them

Once you’ve established where the money is, it’s time to go out and get the work.

They won’t automatically find you and come knocking on the door. You will need to prospect.

This means having to find people to have conversations with, sending emails to, and have Skype calls with.

Once you’ve established yourself with some sort of track record, which I talk about in episode 140 - How can I start freelancing as a web developer?, the prospecting becomes easier to do.

You’ll start to see that more clients come to you. But that does take time and that’s why prospecting is so important.

Put up the velvet rope

Sure clients with bigger budgets want their solution delivered to them with great success, but they also want to feel like they are spending wisely.

This means, putting up a velvet rope, or as I call it a Project Brief.

Even if you initiated the conversation, have them fill out an application. This velvet-rope not only shows that you have been down the road before, but it also gives the perception that you don’t just let anyone be a client of yours.

There is a bit of psychology here where if there’s a gated community, us humans want to be in it.

Then as that client progresses through working with you, delight them in unexpected ways.

Send a welcome packet. Send them personalized notes and cards. Send them unexpected gifts that relate to their business.

These tiny gestures go a long way in the good feeling of spending a lot of money.

Walk the walk

The final tip here is a bonus one, but it’s important.

You want to walk the walk. Meaning, have your energy and your language reflect that of what’s attractive to those higher budget clients.

For example: if you are going after large corporate brands in the finance industry, you best dust of that suit and tie and not show up for a face to face meeting, or even a video call in a t-shirt.

I think by now you that I’m big on communication and followup is the biggest piece of communication especially early on.

In episode 135, I shared 11 ways to stand out as a freelancer. And while that’s a great list and got awesome feedback, the one thing that is most often attached to that is the word “the most.”

I get asked “How to stand out as a freelancer the most?” so often that it’s astonishing.

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Yet, what I asked on Twitter how many of you have a formal follow up for leads with the choices of “yes”, “no”, and “just send ‘just wanted to check-in’”, shockingly only 19% said that they have a formal follow up sequence.

Let me say that a different way, more than 80% of freelancers do not have a formal follow up sequence with leads.

Yet, you ask how do you stand out in a crowded freelancer market.

Education and add value

When I first started doing follow up sequences, it was more manual than anything. Mainly because I was a generalist developer serving customers of all shapes and sizes.

But for me it made sense that if a lead contacted me, even if we hadn’t talked yet, to send them valuable pieces of content that were relevant to their project, business objectives, and maybe a fun joke to show that I’m a human too.

I would have a library of related links to articles or videos or podcasts that spoke to a number of stats, key metrics, case studies, and even how-tos.

I read the articles and got value from them to better my business, so why not share what I’m consuming with those who may work with me.

I would set a reminder in my calendar to send off an email that was quick, simple, and had a link with a few key points that I wanted that lead to walk away with.

I put those key points in there just in case they never clicked the link.

I’ve since automated this process a bit more and if you want to know how I do that check out Stop The Cycle.

How often do you email?

How many emails should I send to a lead? is the next logical question I’m sure you have right now.

You’ll have to play with this yourself to find the sweet spot, but I did some research on the topic to get a good idea of a ballpark to start with.

• Decision makers consume 5 pieces of content before they are even ready to speak to a sales rep
• Half of all leads that enter a sales pipeline are not ready to buy in near term.
• 80% of sales require 5 follow ups after the first meeting
• 44% of sales reps give up after one

That last stat I threw in there just to reinforce my answer to standing out.

If you look at the other 3 though, 5 seems to be the magic number.

If even talking to someone requires on seeing 5 pieces of content and 80% of sales require 5 follow ups, the bare minimum you should send should be 5.

Obviously you want to throttle this based on how fast they are moving with you through sales. But if someone is dragging their feet or that they set up a call with you 7 days from today, that’s plenty of time to send an email a day with a valuable piece of content.

It’s that simple. No need to overcomplicate it.

The great thing about this is standing out happens early on in the game. 

If your lead is shopping around and has a short list of 5 vendors to go with and you are the only one who’s providing valuable information on a consistent basis without them even paying you yet, guess who they are going to want to talk with and go with?

Today I’m going to give you 3 very small, yet powerful tactics to improve your sales process as a freelancer.

Quick, small, yet powerful tweaks you can make to your sales process that you can put into practice today.

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Find out how to close those who are sitting on the fence

This is something that is normally best done over a call or face-to-face. It’s much harder over email.

But when done a few times, you’ll know exactly what you are missing in your sales.

If someone says to you “I need to think about this” or any of the variations of that.

Respectfully respond with empathy on the decision and then follow up with asking them what it will take.

You do this by simply asking them, on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being we’ll never start this project together, and 10 being let’s do this right now, where do are you right now?

If they answer 6 or 7, which is probably where most will sit, follow up by asking “what do I have to do to make that a 10 for you?”

Add in a tactic to get more leads to your business with your current clients

I’ll be honest, I haven’t tried this tactic myself, but I’ve heard others do it pretty successfully.

When you get a brand new client, before you present your proposal to them, ask if they want to get $X off of the project.

When they say “yes”, then explain to them at the end of the project, if they can refer to you names of 5 other people who could use your services, they’ll get that discount.

I’m not a fan of discounting, but I can see this being a pretty successful campaign because if you landed 10% of the referrals, that would totally cover your costs on the discount.

Add in a strategy that involves you reaching out to new people

For example, every single day, reach out a business or to someone who could be your target client on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or your platform of choice.

By using a quick DM to say very quickly that you admire something that they are doing, something that you do and how you can add value to what they are already doing, it’ll go a long way.

If you do that every single day for a quarter and only close 5% of those leads, you’ll have 4 new clients. If you continue to do that over the course of a year, that’ll be 18 brand new clients this year.

I think you’ll agree that these 3 things aren’t hard at all to put in place today, right?

If you do all 3, then you’ll be improving aspects to bring more business opportunities in with leads, hot leads, and clients. Can’t beat that!

Which one are you going to try first?

In fact, let’s do this. Tweet me @rezzz on Twitter with a 1, 2, 3, or multiple of them and hashtag #askrezzz. So if you are doing the 1-10 rating, put 1. If you are doing the referral discount, put 2. If you are doing the DM per day, put 3.

Can’t wait to see how successful you are.

If you got some value from this episode and the show over the past year, how about starting the new year off by providing an honest review in iTunes.

I do read each and every single one and it helps to hear your voice to know that what I’m doing is helpful to you.

During any part of the sales process, whether it’s a call, form, or email, there are critical and absolutes, when it comes to questions to ask.

This is true if you are a developer, a designer, a marketer, or even a photographer.

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Before I jump into the must-haves when you think about these questions to ask, think about the end, what you are delivering and work backward from there.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the emotions and excitement of a new project and want to jump in. If you want the project to be as successful as possible, just like the client does, make sure you are on the same page from the start.

The key thing to remember is to not assume anything. Cover all your bases so that you both earn trust with each other and have a firm foothold on the project.

So if you are a developer and you need to work on an existing codebase, don’t assume that they have a code repository and different environments for testing things.

For any type of business that you are, don’t assume that you are the only one working on the project. Make sure that you know who else is so that it can be collaborative.

Which now leads me to the X questions to ask.

What are you looking to achieve?

This can also be “why is this important right now for the business?”

Aside from any technology, there’s a reason that the business has chosen this project right now and it is important to understanding why.

The reason could be sales based, could be philosophy based, could be they are looking to get investors, and so on.

The underlying reason will set the path for the success.

What does success look like in 6, 10, 12 months from now?

This is important even on the smallest of projects that may only last a couple of weeks.

Understanding the vision the client has for the work that’s about to be done is the measuring stick of happiness for them with you.

If they expect 1000 new users to sign up in 6 months, it’s better to know that than doing the work and you thinking that they would be happy with 500.

What does failure look like?

This is important especially when it comes to working with a client that’s had a bad experience previously.

Failure for you will be different than the client. That I’m sure of.

So best to understand what that is so that you can steer clear of that at all costs.

Oddly enough, failure for the client has to do with communication more often than not. Which makes it easy for you since you can always take 5 minutes at the end of the day to let them know what’s going with their project.

Why have you come to me?

This is also “what is it that I do that interests you for us to work together?”

Even though I don’t ask this explicitly, I can often tell by the way they got in touch with me.

Having this information is important because it’s often that there are cheaper and more expensive options out there. There are also options that can provide a similar solution to you.

How they respond to this is telling of your uniqueness. It says a lot about you as a business and what you do differently.

These are the Sales 101 questions you have to ask. Asking them as early on in the process will help you filter the tire kickers especially.

So put these questions on your forms or applications to do work.

If the lead cannot answer each of these with some level of conviction and thought behind them, then they are tire kickers.

Tire kickers are those that have an idea and looking for validation of the idea and scoping a budget.

Tire kickers are the fool’s gold of the client services world.

The internet tends to fool us. It creates this illusion that everything is a click of the mouse and we’ll be bringing in 6 figures or that if we do these 7 things in 2019, we’ll be sitting on the beach in a month sipping umbrella drinks working 3 hours a day.

This isn’t truth. There’s nothing about this that is valid. If a magic wand exists, then I haven’t found one.

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I get asked plenty every single week for a “quick win” or “what’s the best way to get clients” or “how long will it take before I get results.”

I always say that these questions are the wrong questions to be asking. If you are asking these questions then stop talking to me, and everyone else, and only talk to those that will pay you.

Get out there, ask your network of friends and family, even previous employers and see if there is something that you can help with.

If you want to build a business, you can’t do it without revenue bottom line.

You may fall into one of these

If you have zero clients right now and looking for them, spend the next day, 8-10 hours, making calls and reaching out to potential paying customers.

If you have one client right now and looking for more, then spend 6 hours today looking for clients by reaching out to potential customers.

If you have clients and need money to pay bills that are piling up, spend 4 hours today reaching out and looking for clients.

This is the hustle part of the business.

The first 2 are scenarios where you are most likely starting out or in a downturn in your business. The 3rd is often a matter of your expenses outpacing your revenue. In that case, you need to raise rates and get that higher paying and higher value clients.

Now don’t get me wrong, I get that this is all easier said than done. And seeking out on Google and putting into the search “how to get clients” is much easier, but that won’t get you anywhere fast.

In fact, you may find yourself back inside a cube.

That was only the first step…

I applaud you though for looking to better your business through education and coaching, but these are foundational lessons in business. They won’t land you a client today. I turn folks away from Feast when I get a sense that they should be cutting expenses and focusing on the hustle part.

Some still subscribe and buy-in, but they soon realize it’s not what they need right now, which is what I told them in the first place.

Searching Google and investing in your business as I said is the easier thing to do. It’s also the part that you have control over. Therefore, it may seem like you are doing what’s needed to get clients, when in reality the act of getting a client you honestly don’t have any control over.

You have control over all the possible actions leading up the decision a potential client has to either go with you or not. That’s what your focus should be on.

Early on, it’s about reaching out one-on-one and asking if you can help.

As you land those, then start the building blocks back from that to help you with all the things leading up to the close of the deal.

That’s where courses and coaching comes into play. These are the long games of building a business. If anyone is telling you otherwise, they are lying to you.

Here’s how this all works together

If you have no clients and need work today, spend 8-10 hours calling and talking with potential customers. Then spend 30-60 minutes thinking about and outlining a piece of content about a question a potential customer will ask you and you can answer.

If you have a client right now and looking for more, spend 6 hours talking to and reaching out to potential clients and then spend an hour a piece of content about a question a potential customer will ask you and you can answer.

If you have clients but need to pay bills, spend 4 hours looking for clients. But every potential client that moves forward in conversation, give them a rate that’s at least 1.5X what your current rate is.

Then spend an hour looking at your sales process and pinpoint spots where you can ask questions earlier on in the process to filter out clients that wouldn’t pay your new rate.

Benefits to increasing your rate when you have clients and need work

Increasing your new rate will do a number of things for you.

Bottom line, if you need work, go get it, stop distracting yourself from the thing that you know you need to do.

If someone gave me 8-10 hours in a day to find work, I’d find work.

But then after putting that hustle in, take some time and build those building blocks of the business so that in the future you don’t find yourself in this scenario again.

With the holidays, I don’t know about you, but I still get asked about the business in a way that the person asking is skeptical that I am stable.

To me, it’s a bit funny that they ask this because I’ve been in business since 2010 and often times this person I’m talking to has had multiple jobs with multiple companies over the same period of time.

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The best analogy of my point of view came by way of Troy Dean when he joined me as a co-host on Live In The Feast.

He said that he’s a terrible passenger. If he’s on the bus, he wants to his hands on the wheel. I love this because I feel the very same way. I want to be in control of my life. I wasn’t someone who enjoyed school very much and being shuffled from class to class by a ringing bell. I felt like I was one of Pavlov’s dogs where they ring the bell and I come running for the treat.

With that though comes great responsibility. When it was just me, I had bills and rent to pay but that was about it. Now with a family, I have other mouths to feed and other lives to support and nurture.

It requires some sacrifice for sure. Sometimes it’s an early morning wake up call, or a late night launch. But that’s the nature of the business.

So when someone asks me “how’s business” and then proceeds to look at me like a poor soul who’s struggling to make it, I often think to myself.

I feel for this person who’s been put in a box, whether by their own parents, society, schooling, whatever happened that they are trying to put me in a box.

I think about how grateful I am to have the ability to generate my own income and how empowering that is for myself, my family, and our future.

I usually smile and I certainly don’t diminish what I do.

What I mean by that is when I first started my business, I used to internalize this view that they were in better position than I. I would then vocalize something to diminish my accomplishments by saying something like “it’s tough, but it is what it is” or “business is good but could be better of course.”

Now when I think about how their situation is when they ask me about mine, I smile and think about how they’ve switched jobs 3 times in the last 9 years, commute to the city on the train or drive 45 minutes one-way to get to work, and I think about how they are lucky to get a 3% raise every year.

I’m in control of all those things that I hate about those boxes.

After I share how awesome things are, I often will ask the same question back to them which is the fun part.

Whereas many of my conversations with my friends and colleagues who run businesses love to chat about shop, those working full-time will often complain. I’ll hear about how their commute sucks, that they switched jobs because the company merged, that they are dealing with an idiot boss, and so on.

The next time someone asks you “how business is going?” smile and think about how you are driving the bus to your own destination and how many stops they have to hit before they get to theirs.

Embrace your accomplishments, not everyone in the world is built like you. Don’t let family, friends, a random person at a party put you in a box they have made for you. Who knows, they may be someone you hire some day.

If you got some value from this episode and the show over the past year, how about starting the new year off by providing an honest review in iTunes.

I do read each and every single one and it helps to hear your voice to know that what I’m doing is helpful to you.

So excited for today’s episode, because today will be the Ask Kim show.

Kim Doyal is all about content. I’ve known her from the WordPress space for years but she’s since pivoted her business to focus more on helping business with their content and the Content Creators Community.

She’s coined the phrase “Everything is Content” and since I know that you struggle with finding the time to and figuring out what to write about, I thought no better person to answer this than Kim.

Just like you plan your projects, plan for your business, you want to also plan for your content and Kim has the strategies to help you.

She’s going to share with you 2 strategies for making the time and then 2 easy strategies to get your content rolling.

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If you haven’t yet listened to Episode 207 - How to overcome objections in sales?, I encourage you to do so.

When encountering a “price buyer” there’s often nothing you can do to have them come up and see the value from a cost perspective.

I don’t want to beat a dead horse on what to say when this happens because I dive into what you should be doing and how to direct them down the path of a referral in that episode.

In Episode 156-What do I say when a potential client says I'm too expensive? -- yes, I get asked this question quite often -- you learn 3 strategies and how to tell if it's a negotiation tactic or not.

What I’d like to share with you though is that if you are getting this often in your sales conversations, put your prices on your website, Facebook page, or wherever you get your leads from.

If you get this objection more than a third of the time, then you aren’t clearly attracting the right kind of clients. You are also not setting the expectations early enough in the process.

Your leads will go down, there’s no question about that.

You lead quality though will skyrocket. 

You’ll get folks coming to you with an expectation of the kinds of budgets they need to work with you.

You’ll also gain back time in your schedule too. I don’t know about you, but when I take a sales call, it’s not just the 30 minutes for the call. 

It’s the prep time, looking into their business, looking around online to see if there are any red flags from them, maybe seeing if I can find past vendors they’ve worked with, looking at their customers, and so on. 

Plus all that time that pulls me away from other client work or my own business.

All this could easily be a couple of hours on top of the time for the call.

Lower quality of leads will result in no-shows for the call, wasted time for yourself and them, and your profits flying right out the window because you are not getting paid for doing sales. 

The payment for sales should be baked into your project costs. So just like any part of your business, your profits will increase if you are able to reduce the time spent on a task and increase the conversions through those points.

Setting the budget expectation as early as possible is a key component and major objection clients have.

A lead really has 3 things they focus on when deciding to sign on with you.

• Price
• Timeline
• If you can actually do the work

Addressing all these 3 before you even hop on a call with a lead will be beneficial to you improving your close rate on new clients.

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I’m going to get up on my soapbox here for a minute, so if you don’t want to hear it, scroll down a little bit.

Over the past decade, I’ve run into many leads and clients that have had terrible experiences from flakey freelancers who have either disappeared, communicated poorly, didn’t deliver a project, or just didn’t set the expectations the client had.

If you are a freelancer in business, please, please, do right by your clients. Be honest and don’t get in over your head.

If you find yourself in a sticky spot, there’s nothing that communicating to the client can’t fix.

If you are a freelancer and asking questions like “how come clients don’t respect my value?” or “how do I charge more than bottom dollar hourly rates?” The big reason is that of these flakey freelancers who don’t do right by their clients and then those clients are jaded and don’t want to be burned again.

If nothing else is taken from this, please communicate clearly and often with your clients so that it raises the bar for all of us in the services based industry.

Rant over!

This is actually an easier answer than you may think.

Be empathetic

Tell them that you are very sorry and can appreciate their apprehension based on their past experience. I’m sure you’ve had bad experiences in the past with either a product or service, right?

Put yourself in their shoes for a minute and support them. Don’t be confrontational.

Don’t throw anyone under the bus.

You only know one side of that story and you have no knowledge of the situation. However, you can call upon your own experiences of bad service in the past and how that made you feel.

You have your guard up and don’t want to be burned again, and that is exactly how they feel too.

Reflect the conversation back to how they found you

Once you are able to put your arm around them, next reference back to how they found you.

If it’s a referral, that’s great, because referencing the person’s name you pull that trust factor back into the conversation.

If it’s by some other means, say an article or podcast you were in, mention that big takeaway. No doubt it’s the reason why they wanted to get you to work with them in the first place.

Give them confidence

Tying in that takeaway, ensure them that they won’t find themselves in a similar place again because of how you run your business.

Share with them some behind the scenes workflows and processes if you need to.

But what you want to do is instill confidence quickly that you’ve got things under control.

By talking through these 3 points, you’ll find that most of that initial baggage the lead has, will be put aside. What you want to keep in mind though as you work together is that baggage is not gone.

They will be on the watch for the signals of getting burned again, so you need to be as well so that the trust you’ve developed and earned doesn’t chip away.

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You may have been in those projects when all is well and the correspondence is good going back and forth and then crickets.

Radio silence from the client.

You’ve sent a few emails that have gone unanswered. Maybe even a few calls have gone unreturned.

What do you do next?

There are a few things, but first, keep in mind that no matter how good the relationship is remember that you really don’t know the full story of your client.

So before your brain starts jumping to conclusions, be empathetic first and foremost.

## Are you ok?

First, you want to make contact, probably via email with a simple “Are you ok?” type of email.

Something simple, like:

> I haven’t heard from you in a while. I called X times and sent emails on A, B, and C but haven’t heard back. I just wanted to make sure everything is ok? Please let me know so I know everything is good or if there’s anything that I can help with.

## A nudge to move forward

After having sent that and then a couple of days go by and you still haven’t heard back.

> I know things come up unexpectedly. I just wanted to see what your thoughts were about X so that we can move forward with Y. If priorities have shifted, that’s ok too. We are at a standstill and the project is in jeopardy of missing the scheduled date of completion.

## Final call

If there still is no response, there’s a good chance it’s been a month or more since you last heard from them at this point.

It’s time to close the project and move forward.

> I haven’t heard from you since X. I’ve sent Y emails and called Z times. As per our agreement, I’ll be putting your project on hold. When you are ready, I can re-schedule your project. Re-scheduling the project involves 1, 2, and 3. Please pay your remaining balance by <DATE>.

Sending an invoice will certainly awaken a sleeping client one way or another. You may not get the payment, but you’ll certainly get some sort of response good, bad, or otherwise.

Item of note here is that if you don’t have a “ghosting clause” in your agreement, here’s the time to put one in.

You don’t want projects to linger on for months, maybe years even.

This is a simple paragraph in your contract that states what happens if they are unresponsive. Put strict parameters around what "unresponsive" means and the consequences of this. State what has to happen for the project to be re-scheduled to be worked on and any penalty fees that may or may not apply.

Clients aren’t bad. They don’t go into projects with the intention of ghosting, but when it does happen, you’ll be happy that you have that clause in place.

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Last week I recorded an episode of Live in the Feast with Andrew Askins. He’s a co-founder of Krit, a company that helps non-technical founders build their idea into a product.

Andrew asked this great question and I thought I’d share it here since one the episode won’t be released for another few weeks. And two, after last week’s series on being better at sales, this fits in perfectly.

For a little bit of context to how Andrew asked me this, we were talking about crafting our messaging around the company by who we serve, why they should care, and how they benefit from it.

As we were chatting we both agreed that the messaging is marketing. It’s who we target because it’s who we know we can serve n the most successful way.

But shockingly, that isn’t always who we work with.

When you specialize your business, you may be afraid of “the money being left on the table” when in actuality, you repel the bad clients and attract those people that can resonate with who you are.

So as a lead comes to the business, and maybe they aren’t the WooCommerce business, or they aren’t using Drip for them email marketing platform. Maybe they are using Teachable and ConvertKit, but all the other signals I have for taking on a project align.

We gel from a personality perspective. I can totally support their business and what they stand for. They respect my expertise and value my input.

Well, I’m going to try and close them. I may put some constraints around the project, but I’m going to close them.

There isn’t any reason not to. It’s these types of clients that have allowed me to grow my business over the past decade.

I work with non-profits, e-commerce, service-based, coaches, memberships, and digital product based businesses.

If I took a hard line approach with everyone coming in and didn’t expand my horizons as a business, I wouldn’t be in business today.

How I determine they are a fit

This is the time though I really have learned to listen to my gut on things. I also lean heavily on being able to read that person and making sure that we can work together well.

If anything my gut tells me or something is off, then I don’t push them towards the proposal stage.

I try and help them the best way possible and more often than not, will refer them to someone who can help them.

I go into every sales call with the intention of having that other person leave with value and in a better place than before we started it.

Letting go of the notion that every sales call needs to be closed is freeing and confidence building.

No one on the planet has a 100% close rate.

I’d much rather accept that, then be helpful and honest with the other person so that we both leave the conversation feeling good.

You may approach sales differently, maybe you want to close every deal. Maybe you feel you have to just to keep the lights on.

Well, that’s where the desperation comes into play, that’s where you lose your position as the expert and that’s where you become awkward around questions of budget and timelines.

When you let go of the thinking of having to close every deal, you’ll find yourself able to more productive sales calls and land more clients because you aren’t any of the things I just mentioned.

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This is the classic chicken or the egg scenario. Doing these 3 things will raise the bar immediately and have you stand out from the other 3 vendors your lead is talking with.

For the context of this episode, this is for those that are just starting out, maybe still full-time and looking to go freelance.

This could also be for those trying a new service or piece to their business. Maybe even niching down or specializing your business to where you haven’t had any experience in before.

So many of you in this area find yourself in a chicken or the egg scenario, where you talk about how you have no case studies or portfolio pieces. You don’t have experience because you haven’t done this type of work before.

You find yourself paralyzed because of it. You don’t move forward with anything because you get stuck.

I want to share with you 3 tips that don’t require anything other than a conversation with a client or lead when you don’t have the experience.

Find out why they are talking to you

Unless they are a friend of yours or existing client, there’s some reason for why you are talking with them.

Maybe it was a bad previous engagement.

Maybe someone referred you.

Maybe they found you online and liked what you do, but they are unsure if you can help them because of the business they have.

Whatever it is, find out. Because that will give you a quick insight into what is attractive about you to them.

Simply ask “How did you find out about me?” before starting in on the conversation. Or if during the course of the conversation they seem unsure if you can help, ask “There are a lot of choices out there, and I respect that, may I ask you why you are talking with me about your project?”

Set up the clarity for the lead, make sure they are clear of the problem

Making sure that the lead is fully engaged and clear on what problem they want solving.

Echo back what they are asking you for. State everything that you hear back to them to make sure that there is clarity on what’s being asked for and the goals they want to achieve.

If there’s some level of contention about the project based on a previously bad engagement, be empathetic but state how you work and the benefits to the client of the  way you work.

After briefly giving them insight, ask them if that process makes sense to them. Ask them if it aligns with their thinking and the goals that why are looking to achieve.

Get them focused back onto your conversation with them, not thinking about the bad experience they had.

Empathize with them and offer a lower risk opportunity to work together

If there’s still some level of skepticism due to lack of experience, offer them a lower risk opportunity to work together on.

I’m not suggesting discounting your services!

I’m suggesting offering them a phased project, where the initial engagement is a smaller win, lower cost, and quicker timeline.

Then when that engagement is a success (notice I didn’t say “if it’s a success) you talk again about moving forward with a larger piece of the project.

Most of your leads and clients come from word of mouth. Especially when starting out. If you are engaged in conversation, often times they haven’t even looked at a portfolio yet.

There’s a trust factor by proxy since they came to you from someone else that they trust.

You don’t need those portfolio pieces or full website with all the logos and badges.

You simply need to have a conversation that’s focused and has the objective of solving the problem the lead or client has.

That will prove to them that you are thinking strategically and pragmatically about solving their problem when others are stumbling or just trying to close the sale.

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In episode A207 - How to overcome objections in sales, you briefly learned about leaning into what they want and then directing them down the right path.

Leaning in, or being empathetic during a sales process is really about giving the lead what they want.

Whether they want the lowest cost, the best value, to comparison shop, etc, it’s in your best interest to give them what they want.

When you think about sales, instead of thinking about closing every deal, think about how to have them leave your conversation in a better place.

You aren’t going to convince anyone they need you. They have to realize that themselves.

If they feel they need something that you don’t have or do, the best thing to do is to put them on the path to getting that.

One of my favorite quotes is from Pippin Williamson founder of Sandhills Development.

If it’s hard to have a conversation with someone and suggest a course of action, how do you think a project will be working together?

Ever have a lead say “I don’t need the strategy, can you just write the code” or “Can you just design the logo without the full brand?”

The answer is simple.

“I will design you a logo, but how will you know it’ll be effective for the brand.”

“I can certainly write the code, but how will that code fit with the rest of the application and do what you need it to do.”

“Is that what you want?”

Lean in to what they want.

Explain that the strategy and process is all a part of the code or design. Without it, it’s just a visual element.

Without your process, you have no way of knowing with confidence that the solution you are providing will be successful.

This lead is often a price buyer, maybe a touch of the “know-it-all” buyer as well.

Explain that the price is the same with or without the strategy. Encourage them that there are other low cost options out there for them to use.

It’s like building a house without a blueprint. It may stand, be a 3 bedroom house. But you were expecting it to withstand a hurricane and be 5 bedroom house.

What they are looking for is your value, but for cheap and that just isn’t possible.

Let them go and come back.

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RFPs, or Request for Proposals, is something as a freelancer or consultant you should stay away from. An RFP is a document that talks about a project and asks you to write a proposal on how to solve it.

In the previous two episodes you learned to protect your sales process, and ultimately your business, by only pushing value buyers and those that give you a firm “yes” at the end of the sales call to the proposal stage.

RFPs are the complete opposite of this.

In short, responding to an RFP, have you reading through a document explaining the project from the perspective of the company and then drafting up a proposal with your time estimates, milestones, due dates, company history, and questions you have to bid on the project.

Then that company shows all the responses and selects what they feel is the best option.

If you are responding to RFPs, this is the epitome of the proposal writing business.

If a buyer presents to you an RFP, full stop. Protect your time! Protect your profits!

Simply say “Before we get into this - It’s not your policy to do speculative work.”

Because that’s what an RFP is, speculative.

You are speculating on the project based on what is in that document. You have no customer input, surveys, data or your own research to help you build a proper solution to the problem.

How to speak with a lead that insists on responding to an RFP?

Ask them if they are a gambler?

“How important is this project to you?”

“What is it worth to you to solve the problem?”

These are appropriate questions to ask the lead that insists on the RFP process.

The lead has to be a gambler, otherwise, they wouldn’t be hanging themselves out there asking companies to build and present solutions without any conversations and research into the problem, for free.

These 2 questions, refocuses the conversation you are having for the lead to get clarity around the project and what they are asking you to do.

You can further pursue it by elegantly and tactfully asking if the other companies pitching: 

• Have these companies interviewed customers
• Have these companies interviewed sales to see what the challenges are

“Chances are that you are going to say no. And since you are asking people for free work, they are just going to come up with answers on their own. They might hit it, but they might not. That’s why I asked if you are a gambler or not.”

Explain why you do what you do

Take some time and explain why your process is important to them and solving their specific problem.

This is where that clarity can hit them like a ton of bricks. Because here you can emphasize that you can give them a cookie cutter solution, but what happens when that doesn’t work.

They will have to then go back to whoever approved the bid and backtrack.

Explain to them that without your process, what they are asking is for companies to answer from a 1000 miles away, not an inch close and from all angles.

The best thing that they are going to come up with is superficial because that’s how deep they are able to go. There are no reference points to what is going to be the most effective solution to help them get sales, build a brand, code an application, etc.

The lead and committee are making a decision purely on a gut feeling without a true understanding of what’s going to work.

This is where you share the things you need to understand what the key metrics and goals for success are.

What are the trigger points for the customers to buy-in?

That the only way to know is to talk with you, your team, and potential customers.

Then it’s a matter of summing up and echoing back everything the lead said to you and leave them thinking about their process.

“So as much as you would like to work with them on this $X project, I can’t from this point of view. I can’t tell you with confidence it would work.”

Then sit in that silence.

In this short statement, you echo back what they say it’s worth it to them to solve this problem.

You are also planting the seed that if the other companies are not asking these things, then maybe they aren’t as good as they say they are.

Keep in mind, you are not in the business to write proposals. You are in the business to solve problems successfully for your clients and in turn make money and profits from that.

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The most important piece of your sales process is to overcome objections and direct the lead down the appropriate path they want to be on.

If you haven’t already done so, go back and listen to How to get better at sales?, where you will learn the first 2 steps to getting better at sales.

• Learn from every sales call
• Identify the type of buyer you are talking with

By the end of this episode, you will learn the most important piece of sales. That is how to overcome any objection to the 5 buyer types we identified in the last episode.

Once you key in on identifying which type you are speaking to, you want to embrace them.

Lean in to what they want and give them exactly what they ask for.

STEP 3 - Put the buyer on the right path

With any of them, you don't want to waste your time in writing a proposal unless you get a firm "yes" from the at the end of the call. 

You aren't in business to write proposals. If they balk at the time and cost investment and still ask for a proposal, tell them that "this is the proposal, nothing will be different in the document."

You aren't in the proposal writing business. 

There's no reason to waste time on writing up an in-depth proposal on something that's never going to happen. 

Explain to them that the proposal is a formality to get the ball rolling on the project together. If what they hear on this call doesn't make sense to them to move forward, nothing will change in the document.

When you identify the type of buyer, there's a different path you want to direct them to.

• Price buyer --> referral
• Value buyer --> a firm "yes" to move forward
• "Know-it-all" buyer --> empathy first, with a path of clarity for why they are talking with you
• "Wishy-washy" buyer --> add value and let them go and come back
• "Go between" buyer --> explain the process, but then full stop until ALL decision makers on the call

STEP 4 - Overcome Objections

To help you identify which buyer a lead depends on the objections they have. 

As you have your next sales call, or if you've recorded the calls in the past, listen very closely. 

Break out a piece of paper and write down any of the objections you hear from the lead.

Statements like:

• "that seems like I a lot of money for this"
• "this should be simple"
• “This sounds great, but I have to talk with so-and-so first"
• "I'm not sure"
• "I had this other person and it didn't work out"
• "I'm talking with a few other vendors"
• "I have someone else who can do this work but wanted to see what else is out there"

I can go on, but I think you get the point. Not every objection is in the form of confrontation or conflict, like “you are too much money.” Statements like “I’m not sure” or “this should be simple” are objections that are telling of who they are.

Write them all down and work through them where next to each objection, you put the type of buyer you think they are. Practice this on each call you have and you'll start getting better at identifying the type of buyer.

Once you can identify the type of lead, you can then use that as a trigger to push that buyer towards the appropriate path.

Only pushing value buyers and those that give you a firm “yes” to move forward, to the proposal writing stage. 

Two things happen immediately with this. 

1. The feeling of not closing enough deals starts to go away. 
2. You start to identify the buyer type earlier in the process so that you don't even get on the phone with them.

Do this on your very next sales call. As you push the various types down the appropriate path, you’ll maintain your position as the expert and that feeling of getting lots of people on the phone but not closing enough will go away.

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"I'm an introvert and I don't like sales" -- "How do I close more deals?" -- "How do I get better at sales?" By the end of this episode you’ll know the 3 steps to do just that.

"I get a lot of folks on the phone, but think I should be closing more." 

This is something that I hear quite often and it’s the wrong statement to be making.

You want your sales process to eliminate leads from becoming clients. 

You want each stage of your sales to be a locked gate. Keeping out the leads that shouldn’t be your clients and only letting through those leads that you really should be working with.

Getting better at sales is difficult, but not impossible.

It requires practice.

It requires close attention to details.

It also requires you to accept that this is the most business-y part of your business. Which means, you have to build up a bit of a thick skin here. Don’t take rejection personally, instead learn from it and adjust.

There are 2 things that helped me get better at sales.

• Knowing the type of buyer I'm talking with
• Being able to answer objections

STEP 1 - Learn from every sales call

Being present during a sales call is a must. You have to be in the moment, listen to everything being said and concentrate on closing the deal, not learning about the interaction.

Though, that’s the only way to learn and get better at sales. Is to be able to listen to and see patterns in your process to improve.

The ideal thing to do is to record the call so that you can listen back to it later with your learning ears on.

If you can't, or the lead objects to it for some reason, then be in the moment, but as you take notes, be mindful of objections being said and write them down among your sales notes.

The most important thing to sales is being able to answer objections, so take note of them.

STEP 2 - What type of buyer are you talking with?

Understand the type of buyer you are talking with. In the services business, there are 5 types of buyers:

• Are they a price buyer and want to just get the lowest price they can?
• Are the a value buyer and want quality and price isn't a concern?
• Are they the "know-it-all" buyer that feel they know how to do your job?
• Are they the "wishy-washy" buyer that really doesn't know what they want?
• Are they the "go-between" buyer that say they are a decision maker, but not really?

One lead can be a mix of these but identifying which one they are as early as possible will help you in figuring out how to handle them and where to lead them.

Tomorrow we’ll go into how to overcome objections in sales.

Each of the different types will have different objections. The fun part is that objections don’t always come in the form of conflict or trying to corner you to do something you don’t.

We’ll dive deep on this important piece to the puzzle tomorrow so that in the next sales call you have, you’ll be better prepared to not just overcome them, but maintain your position as the expert in the conversation.

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Finally it’s landed. The #Gutepocalypse! 

I say that in jest because this has been the biggest anticipated release since Star Wars Phantom Menace.

WordPress 5.0 is what I’m referencing here, and before you tune out because you aren’t in the WordPress space, I encourage you to stay tuned because this is not about that as much as it’s about technology and your clients.

When Apple released the iPhone back in 2007, most people with a Motorola Razor said “that is huge and what would I even do with that?”

When Amazon released the Echo in 2015 and I bought it, my wife said, “what’s the point of this thing? There’s no way I’m ever going to talk to this.” Now she’s using it all day and much more than I ever have.

In case you aren’t in the WordPress space, 5.0 is the release of Gutenberg. It’s the brand new default editor for WordPress, which has the whole place in an uproar. It’s been this way for a couple of years to be honest.

Some people hate it, some people love it - both have very valid reasons. When asked, I usually respond with indifference.

I truly am indifferent of an opinion to any change in technology, especially when it comes to my business, mainly because it’s nothing I have control over. 

Whether or not I like the change that’s coming, it’s coming. So no use distracting myself with the drama surrounding it. It’s a matter of figuring out if the change in that technology still aligns with the need of my clients.

See I’ve always lived by the rule, business should drive the technology and not the other way around.

Does change affect business, sure, I’m not denying that at all. But I’m saying that when using technology for our clients, we ultimately have little to no say in the direction of that technology.

Companies have their own agenda and purpose. We have to serve our clients the best way we know how. We have to solve our clients’ problems. 

Our clients come to us for our experience and expertise on how to solve their problems.

That’s what we should worry about most.

Not whether there’s a UI change. 

Not whether there’s a leadership change.

I’ve been a web developer since 1998. During that time, I’ve developed in Frontpage, Homesite, Java, PHP, TCL, VB, COM, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Javascript, and countless platforms like Magento,  BigCommerce, WordPress and others.

These are all tools to solve a particular problem at the time. 

I encourage you to look at technology as a tool in your tool belt. If that tool no longer serves it’s purpose in solving the problem the best way and there is a better one, time to move on.

If you resist any change for the sake of staying put, you aren’t serving anyone, your client or yourself in a good way.

Avani Miryala is a UX designer who specialized in the Cryptocurrency space. She’s the host of Beyond the Status Quo podcast.

In this episode we discuss the reasons why finding your freelance niche can increase your revenue, strengthen your relationships with clients and create a smoother funnel for recurring business.

We connected on Instagram and when she told me the name of her podcast and invited me to come on, I had no choice. It was a no brainer. If anything, I had to be a part of anything named Beyond the Status Quo.

In this episode, I had a chance to talk about the how to find your niche.

In case you don’t want to read the rest of this, you can check out the full episode for all the details.

In the episode, I shared a variety of things including:

• Strategies for finding your freelance niche and methods for developing your specialty 
• How to introduce your niche to your network and the price tag that comes along with it
• Best practices for circumventing negative emotions attached to client and revenue ‘FOMO’

Specifically I talk about tips for gracefully declining work that does not fall under your scope of work.

I think that this is an important part of the process. Once you figure out what niche to go for, it’s a matter of not falling back into bad habits.

Once you draw that line in the sand for your business, anyone that’s defined as not a great client should be referred elsewhere.

Definitely go check it out.

If you have a chance too, check out a few of the other episodes as well.

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