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Mar 10, 2021

Podcast 16: Get Returning Clients

Podcast 01 on what you can learn from the design startup show

Episode Transcript:

Hey design starters. So today I would like to talk more about how are you going to get work from the same clients over and over, you know, without having to keep on trying to get new leads, you know, because that can be really tiring. That’s full for sure. And at the same time, you’re just thinking, Oh man, it’s like a rollercoaster ride.

You know, sometimes I struggle with lead sometimes it’s good. It’s, it’s killing you like emotionally and mentally, right? Because today you can have like 10 leads and tomorrow you have zero leads. So, you know, it’s like, it’s just, when I was doing freelancing back in like five, six to 10 years ago, some, some were there.

You know, I have, uh, friends, I have family asking me, so, you know, how what’s your average? Salary. What’s the average income. It was so hard for me to answer. So I would always tell them, see, sometimes it’s zero, sometimes it’s hundreds. Sometimes it’s 1000, sometimes 10,000. Yeah. I’ve, I’ve reached up to six, like five, six figures in a month before, and then the next month I go dry and, and my income goes down to zero.

So, so that’s, that’s really bad because. Everything is up and down all the time. And I couldn’t even answer that question. And they’ll just give me the look that, you know, that Tel told me, like, uh, do you even know what you’re doing? You shouldn’t be, be getting up and down, leads up and down income. You should be able to average get a minimum.

Right? So in those days, I didn’t even know there was such a thing for, for, for freelancers or entrepreneurs. I thought. Isn’t that what I sign up for, you know, the, the unpredictability, the, um, the very unstable and risky and, and the thrill that I can get from this kind of life. So until I truly ran drive with clients and leads that I realize.

That that that couldn’t work. Right. So, so that’s when I figured a way to get recurring leads, recurring income, and just something that is repeatable, not with many clients only. Yes. I can get repeatable clients, client work from, from new clients, but as well as current clients. So. How are you going to do that is basically, there are a few, few things that you need to think about.

Firstly is the offer that you have is this offer something that can solve a recurring or repeat repeatedly kind of occurring pain and problem that your clients are having. So you just have to look at one client that you have right now. So you may be freelancing. You may be running an agency and you may be doing, say a logo design service, for example, for a client.

Right? So out of all your clients, you pick one and right now you pick that one already, you know, you’re giving the logo design service to this client, or you have already given a logo design to this client before. Okay. So now that you have that, then you have to ask yourself, Right after providing this local design service, what other problems does your client struggle with related to this local design?

You don’t want to veer too far from the design. You may want to expand your service. Yes, but you may want to niche in an area. So. If you are thinking to niche such that you don’t want to provide too many offers, you don’t want to just give local design brochure, design, uh, social media design landing, page design, too many, right.

That could be too many. And that could mess up your processes. You want to keep to local design to the same client. And what other areas around this logo or graphic that you create. Can help this client. Okay. So one book that I’ve been I read, which is really good, is built to sell and built, to sell, um, talks about logo design as well in his, in his book.

Uh, th this, this, um, the person who writes this, uh, talks about this, like a story where there is, um, There is a, uh, a person who is selling global design as well, and figuring out how to kind of productize and niche down and narrow in a way where the processes are always the same all the time and giving the S the same recurring, repeated solution to similar customers.

So this author is John Warrillow and you should try to reach out to get this book. And really to understand how he uses this story to work an offer around the design. So that’s one, um, Back to the logo design offer to a client. You want to think about, okay, with this logo, is it branding they were talking about for these client?

Shall I provide a monthly offering with regards to branding to this client? It can be something like that. It can be a month of consultation and it, it may not have to be you during the consultation. You can train people to go through the same processes and asking the same set of questions. To the same client every every month, just to keep up with your same clients, branding, brand work and brand growth, it can be strategy.

It can be a brand guide, style guides, something along those lines to keep things going every month. So in this way, you can charge as a retainer. You can, you can come up with different ways of charging. If it’s not a retainer, it can be yes, per project. But you know, this client where the come back to you the next time for the next round of either consolidation or the next round of marketing collateral or branding collateral or branding strategy, it can be anything around this logo design or related to this logo design.

Right? So for example, I am offering simple graphic solution or simple graphic work for my clients on an ongoing basis, knowing that these clients need ongoing graphic help every time. So I have clients and customers who have stayed with me for at least five years. Since the time I started this company.

And, and they’re just coming back to me and I, I don’t have to keep looking for leads to cover the base income that I need to pay my bills to pay by my team members, because my customers are already coming back for the same service every month. They are not doing the same thing, but they are creating new collaterals and they need that similar service.

Right. So. So back to your, your own offering, you got to figure that out based on the problems your customers are having. So the problems my customers are having is if they were to go through a one time change of a graphic, it may cost them more than a retainer because maybe in a month, they need to change something a hundred times.

And if let’s say someone charges say $20 a hundred times, that’d be $20,000 to $2,000. Yeah. $2,000 a month. That’s crazy. Right? Because I’m only charging $500 a month and I can change a hundred times for my client. So you can compare. This is a pain for them. If they are going to fork out $2,000 a month, not knowing they have to come up with that in the first place, right.

It’s only after they’re done with the changes, you send them the invoice and you get a shock. So, so this is, I’m trying to give you the problem first and then create a solution. So you, you have to come up with that problem first with your client. First. Yeah, that comes first. And then your solution rather than keep thinking, Oh, I’m great.

At logo design or I’m great at branding. I need to provide that. No, that’s not, that’s not the right sequence to create a productize company or a business or an offering. The first step is to understand the recurring problem. Your one customer has first. Right. And then. Then you start to offer of course, related to your design work and then you offer that particular solution.

Right. So keep that in mind and do that brainstorm first. And, uh, just let me know what you have come up with. You can just, uh, Just send an email to me or sent center, sent a message to me via my website@neverlandbull.com. I have a contact form in my contact page. Just fire it to me. I will, I will definitely read what you have to say.

And yeah, we can discuss over email or you can just add me on LinkedIn and we can discuss on what you have come up with.