After asking your client to tell you their deepest desires, and noting down everything they say, you need to turn around and deliver an overview of your solution. If you’ve done your due diligence you will note that all the questions you asked really helped the client open up begin to trust you as a supplier.

You are the professional – regardless of how long you’ve been in the business. Your client has come to you because what you offer is out of their skill set. Whether you’re self taught (like me), have worked at Blue Chip companies or are fresh out of school, you have put in the time and effort to learn your trade and thus you are now being offered the opportunity to be entrusted with a task. Don’t waste it. Make it fun.

Proposal writing made easy

Proposals are sort of tedious to write and they can be very intimidating. Here’s a pretty simple step by step of how to offer the final, customized sell.

1. Begin the proposal with a statement declaring that it’s not a contract, it’s not binding and want to clarify your understanding of the project.

This is really useful to help newer businesses keep from getting cold feet at replying with questions and also gives them the opportunity to correct you if you’ve made a mistake in interpreting what they want.

2. Write a short introduction describing what you think the ideal solution is for this particular client.

Usually by the time I get to my proposal I’ve been thinking about the site and what I want to do with it so I like to I like to balance the technical with evocative words that help the client see the end result rather than obsess about jargon they may or may not understand.

A recent client I worked with sells high-end baked goods at farmers markets. The chef is trained at an acclaimed culinary institute and she whips up unique treats and flavour combinations to tantilize the senses and satisfy your sweet tooth. Their original site was very simple. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t exciting and it didn’t do them any justice. For this client it is vital that users who view the site leave it with mouths watering or place an order online because they just can’t resist. My proposal introduction to them included sentences that used words like mouth watering and buttercream, to help them on the same page as me as far as the user experience.

3. After a little creative boost I then cover the technical details of the site in as simple language as I can. I talk about what the site will include as far as functionality (blog, calendar, easy to update galleries, twitter feed) and make sure to mention any specifics that may have been discussed such as including stock photography or custom mascot illustration.

4. Timeline and budget! Break it into weeks, or days, or months, or whatever works for you but outline how long you think you need to get it done.

5. Finally you want a simple break down of how long you estimate the project will take and relevant pricing by module. If you break your work into modules it’s a lot easier to come up with a fair price, and your client will hopefully understand the total number better when they see that home page design takes 6 hours and coding takes 12 hours.

So… this still isn’t very exciting and if you’re not a designer then you run into the problem of a template that looks professional and is reusable.

I found a solution. I don’t make money off of this by the way but I love love love this company. They have made proposals SUPER easy.

QuoteRobot.com

Cheap as hell, fully featured and fast. Use it.

All of my clients, and probably yours, want to make more money. If you can offer them a solution that makes them excited and confident, you can ask them to pay you almost anything to get there. (They want to make money, but you also want to make money.)

Keeping in mind that your clients are really all just variations on a theme (because you offer a PARTICULAR service) you need to weed out the hopes, dreams and fears of your client before you can put together a proposal that will blow their socks off.(proposal technique and software coming next!)

Asking the right questions and listening to the answers.

Aside from a summary of your qualifications, previous clients, expertise, or whatever interesting tidbits you want to share, you client doesn’t care about you. They DO care about what you can do for them. Shut up and stop talking about yourself. They want to talk about THEIR PROJECT. Take advantage of their enthusiasm and ask them to tell you everything. They will do it if you give them the opportunity.

Once you’ve scribbled down everything that they’ve said you should compare what you know about what your clients (in general want) to what this client has said they want.

Where do those things overlap and how can your skills & services provide a solution to their BIG hopes and dreams while also addressing the technical, tangible requests they’ve made (eg, how can you make them more money – BIG desire – by designing them a new website – Tangible request)?

That’s what you sell them. You sell them their hopes and dreams. You sell them the benefits of working with you.

Think about how informercials sell you. Do they emphasize the type of spring used in the thigh master or do you they tell you that using the thigh master will give you great legs?

This is the first entry in my short series on Freelancing stuff for design/dev professionals. Some stuff probably applies to other industries too.

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It’s common for freelancers to take any client they can get. If you’re new to freelancing you may be uncertain of your angle or value and you’re worried that it wont work out, so you grab whatever is in reach. You don’t know any better I suppose and that’s understandable. Everyone has to start somewhere.

In the case of a more seasoned freelancer who’s experiencing a drought- you probably know better (and you need to consider investing in some self growth/business education if this is still happening) but in desperate times we take desperate measures.

Grabbing the first thing offered often ends in disaster. If you’re really stressed out about money and work you probably didn’t really consider whether this client is worth the project fee.

A few ways quick tips on evaluating whether this client is going to suck your will to live.

Do they answer email queries in a relevant way or do they ignore your questions and jump around to different topics?

You say “Hi, can you please send me your logo file? If you have it in EPS that would be best but a transparent png will do for now. Let me know if you aren’t sure what I’m asking.”

They reply “cAn we make email go to a cart so that I can sell on the site?”

Are they extremely pre-occupied with price?

Not “how much will this cost on average?” but “if we use less colours on the site will it cost less?” preoccupied.

Do they refuse to give you any information about what they want before you give them a quote?

I don’t know if this spawns from a total lack of business sense or maybe not enough tech savvy but I’ve been approached by people who “want a website” but they won’t tell me ANYTHING about their business or what they want the site to do until they get a price. If this happens, give them a crazy high price. They will either go away, or scramble to tell you what it is they actually need so you lower your price.

Have they offered the thoughts of their wife/nephew/neighbours nanny/person they know who once sold something on eBay as part of the preliminary brief?

I feel like this scenario is so cliché it couldn’t happen anymore but it does. If they ask you to work with their nephew (who is 11, but has some great ideas) you’ve been had.

Does the client have a goal date for the end of their project?

Up there with “pre-occupied with price”, I think this is probably one of the most important things to identify when gauging a potential client.

Dates can be flexible but “whenever” is a warning sign that this person doesn’t really consider the job terribly important which means you’ve already been de-prioritized. That means your emails, revisions and most importantly, invoices, will be ignored.

How to identify a great client vs a terrible one

If you take a client who values his money more than his time you will get screwed.

Clients who value their time are confident in their abilities to communicate their desires and put trust into whomever they’ve hired to get the job done. They do their due diligence on you and have decided that you will complete their project. They will pay you whatever you ask and expect a high quality return.

Let me say that again in a golden rule sort of way

Only accept clients who value their time more than their money

They will pay you on time, they will pay you what you ask, they will answer your emails and they will make decisions – or defer to your professional judgement – as an expert in your field

A quick disclaimer – as a freelancer in this case you have to be meticulously organized or will suffer the loss of a golden client like this. You are also required to answer your emails, meet deadlines and be otherwise professional. I know it seems obvious but I’ve had many a php developer vanish mid-project and then follow up 4 months later.

As a freelancer it’s very easy to fall into the casual side of professionalism. At first it’s inexperience, and then later it’s laziness. You don’t put on pants before you plop down for a days work and that attitude bleeds into your communications and over time your documents, contracts, emails and invoices start to slip – or disappear completely.

Shocked back into reality by a very low-balance in your chequing account, you scramble to figure out who hasn’t paid you for what and how on earth did you end up with 278 emails in your inbox, all read, but none sorted?

The task of creating a system is daunting. A “system” reaks of corporate work. People in cubicles have a system. YOU are a freelancer. NO SYSTEM WILL HOLD YOU DOWN! YOU ARE FREE. A FREE. LANCER. Right? The whole point of working for yourself is to do it your own way, it’s fun, it’s creative, it’s relaxed and no pressure.

Yeah right. You’re totally screwed if you don’t have even a basic set up for covering your ass, getting paid, and keeping track of what you’re working on. Not only will your bank balance appreciate it, but your clients will adore you for being more organized than they are. If nothing else you will be able to step away from the computer and go to bed before your significant other looms in your office doorway, arms crossed, bleary eyed, lips forming the words “are you done yet?”.

In this multi-blog series I’ll review a few of my awesome, everyday tools that I use to keep my shit together and running smoothly.