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Archives for November 2013

November 25, 2013

How to Reel in Clients Without Landing a Stinker

Jesse Petersen Speaking WordCamp Orlando 2013One of the greatest challenges I’ve faced as a solopreneur is quality client acquisition. Thankfully it’s not something that is still a challenge because of the mistakes I’ve made and the adjustments I’ve been agile enough to change who can refer to me as their WordPress guy.

I was honored to speak at WordCamp Orlando and presented on the topic that is the title of this post. My goal was to help people identify six different types of clients as early in the process as possible to avoid some of the trials I’ve been through. This is the first in a 7-part series, so be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss any of them.

Six Types of Clients

Without watching the video and the lengthy but amazing Q&A, here are the six types of clients I’ve been quickly able to identify within one or two exchanges and nearly every first call (for those that go that far). They are:

  • the noob
  • the rescue
  • the know-it-all
  • the “Client from Hell” candidate
  • the cheapskate
  • the dream client

As you can tell from that list, it’s critical to determine a couple of those types immediately.

Here is the talk and discussion in its entirety. I’ll be writing on each type in the posts that follow to expand on each but I’d like to go ahead and discuss red flags below the video since that is separate from the specifics of the types of clients.

Beware Red Flags

Red card!Over the years, I’ve become much more in tune to my “Spidey Sense” to the point that I have lowered the threshold for a red flag to where my yellow flags used to be. My wife has said that I boot potential clients too fast, but my goal isn’t more clients for the sake of numbers. My goal is to have as many dream clients as I can handle.

Right now, I have at least a dozen dream clients. Some of them are harder to recall than others because they are both completely autonomous when we’re not making improvements and they don’t mess anything up. They pay on time, respect my time and experience, and we get along great. More on that in the last post of the series.

I used to have a 2 or 3 yellow flags limit and sometimes I’d even overlook a red flag. Those, in particular, usually came back to bite me. If you haven’t been afraid of losing your good name and getting some baseless lawsuit, you haven’t had a crazy client that you regretted allowing the process to continue because you thought, “I’ll be able to make this work with my charm and excellent communication skills.”

As time went on, I upped my standards to create this formula:

2 yellow flags = 1 red flag = not going there.

Of course, nothing is simple

Now for the tricky part, what about after the first few e-mails and the first call or two? What if that’s when you realize they are going to be a challenge?

I’ve got one client right now who has officially put himself in my dream client category, but it started out pretty good (if not a good bit better than that based on our first contacts). As the project moved on, the WordPress install wasn’t jiving and something was fishy about the whole thing.

My Spidey-Senses were going wild a bit too late in the process. I started to lose sleep and my appetite for a couple of days. I started working on other projects and avoiding the situation.

Finally, I went out on a limb and expressed my concerns about what was being asked and why because it didn’t quite match what I was seeing in the dashboard. I was so bothered by what I was seeing that I quietly asked two of my closest developer friends if they agreed with my concerns and the consensus was worse than my own assessment.

His reply was quick and appreciative that I cared enough to voice my concerns. It turned out that the previous developer actually was a crack addict (how many times do you hear that and it be a sad truth?). He did the work $50 at a time to support his habit, so what I was seeing was the work of a bonafide crackhead. Now, we have great calls and lots in common once I was able to get past that hangup. He’s fed me at least 5 new projects to work on together and we love what we do and who we serve.

Red flags are a grey area

The bottom line in that case is that if I’d seen that stuff in the first contact, I’d be gone. I’ve run faster than that dozens of times. On the flip side, look at the effort it took to clear things up: an exchange that can go either way and turn into that ugly mess that strikes fear of a request for refund or worse.

That makes all of these following posts on the initial interactions guidelines that I follow. Just like in fashion, once you know the rules, you can break some and get away with it. Ignore several at your own peril. Yes, I often have to change one or more items before leaving the house – I don’t know those rules that well.

When have you ignored a red flag and it bit you? Have you ever been glad you didn’t throw a red flag?

Business Tips

November 21, 2013

How Confidence Affects Profits

confidence-jesse-petersen

It’s a funny thing, confidence is. There is a fine line between being confident, cocky, and a butt-hole. I know this because I walk that line every day and I probably cross over onto one side or another more often than I realize.

Just don’t live on one side. Where you live in relation to that line affects your name, your brand.

At WordCamp Orlando this past weekend, the questions and conversations had a common thread: how do you have the confidence to charge enough, say “no,” tell people to wait, and be confident on a call with a prospective client?

the answer is easy – not easy to reach

It takes time. I didn’t start out confident, but I also started out moonlighting doing support beyond what purchasing a premium theme provides. That’s why my e-mail signature since Groundhog Day 2009 has had this at the end: “WordPress and Business Services – for the things premium support doesn’t cover.”

The key there is that I didn’t become confident with the caliber of client that makes for a dream client by my standards today. It was with the nervous, desperate, and very small/starter businesses. Knowing your audience includes knowing what level of confidence they expect. With some people it is okay to not have an answer or have to research things for a simple question or quote.

Others will smell weakness and pounce. “Pouncing” in these situations gives them the upper hand, gives them something to negotiate with.

This leaves you two choices when starting out: work on projects with less-than-ideal clients or fake it until you make it.

what is fake confidence?

It looks and sounds like someone who:

  • doesn’t jump at every request for work
  • can’t start today unless it’s a 5-minute job
  • doesn’t publish their contact info
  • has a clean website with relevant posts (doesn’t have to be epic)
  • has to look at their calendar and the scope and provide a price

It’s easier to exude confidence in an e-mail than on voice or video. Human communication has too many non-verbal signals to fake too much. Once the call is over, it’s just as professional in appearance to then research plugins, code snippets, themes, and ask a colleague before e-mailing back with a plan, pricing, and a recap of the call.

That is what being professional is: a great communicator.

the proof is in the pudding

I’ve had a season where I wasn’t confident. I don’t recall the reason why, but I couldn’t land a new project to save my life for two or three weeks. Back in the day, my wife would comment that she loved listening to my calls because I was so confident and professional on Skype. One day in the middle of the drought, we realized I wasn’t confident at that point.

Without confidence, I wasn’t giving those potential clients confidence in my work – in me. Each day was another vote of no confidence in my abilities — based on my confidence, not my abilities. I’ve hired far better coders than myself to tackle problems because their body of work showed their abilities.

Prospective clients don’t give you that opportunity unless someone gushed about your work and their experience working with you. Even then, if you’re hemming and hawing while discussing a plan of attack, you may change their mind.

Scroll back up to the beginning of of this. Put on that face before every call. Feel the difference. Own your price. Command your brand. Increase your profits, starting with improving your client acquisition and quality.

For more tips on client acquisition, take a look at a slide deck on the topic.

Business Tips

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