“Educate your fricken clients,” she said.
“It doesn’t have to be hard,” she said.
“It doesn’t have to be hard,” she said.
Sounds like there should be a punchline, right?
Except, I’m the potty-mouthed woman constantly banging on about educating your clients … and, lady, it really doesn’t have to be hard.
In fact, today I’m going to make it super easy for you by sharing the three things you should be educating your clients on.
Except, I’m the potty-mouthed woman constantly banging on about educating your clients … and, lady, it really doesn’t have to be hard.
In fact, today I’m going to make it super easy for you by sharing the three things you should be educating your clients on.
Hell, I’ll even tell you how to do it.
HOW TO EDUCATE YOUR CLIENTS
You know how you’re meant to be consistently blogging, sending out newsletters and providing killer content on social media so you can attract and convert your dream clients?
Well, multitasking for the win, ‘cos that’s also how you should be educating your clients!
Think about it. You love my newsletters, right? You read them every single week, ‘cos I’m solving a problem for you. And guess what? I’m also educating your sweet ass! Oh, and showing you just how clever I am, all while I casually sip my coffee.
Cool, huh?
Okay, next let’s explore what you should be educating your clients on.
The three things you MUST educate your clients on
1. THE VALUE OF (GOOD) DESIGN
Funny thing, it turns out our clients aren’t designers (crazy, right?) and actually have no clue how important graphic design is to and for their business.
And with websites like fiverr doing their best to devalue our industry, it’s more important than ever to let your clients know what value you are bringing to their business. Which means making sure they understand that a cohesive, authentic & aligned brand can help their business punch above their weight.
Struggling to articulate the value of good design? Here are some easy benefits to remember: It will make them look more confident, experienced & trustworthy and most of it will help them make money!
And to really cement those points, you can:
- Do a case study of a super successful brand and explain why they have done things a certain way to connect with their ideal clients. HINT: Think of a brand your ideal client LOVES. Click here to see a case study I did on the brand LUSH.
- Show before and afters of your client work in your folio. You can include results (like increased conversion rate, traffic and brand appeal) in the ‘after’ section.
- Use your clever visual skills to show how colours, fonts and imagery can evoke feelings. Here is a ‘Colour Meanings’ chart I put together, you should create one too!
2. YOUR DESIGN PROCESS
It’s not them; it’s you. I believe at least 80% of your client complaints (“Help! They aren’t paying my invoice/getting back to me/respecting my work hours”) can be resolved by sorting out your on-boarding and communication.
If you want your clients to behave, you need to let them know you are in charge. Who’s the boss? You’re the boss. And here’s how their design process experience will go down …
By doing this you let them know that you’re confident, capable, professional, have a tried and tested process in place and are there to guide them every step of the way.
People loooove to know what is going to happen every step of the way. It makes them feel safe and looked after.
You can up-level your communication around your design process by:
- Including your process on your website.
- Offering a free 15-minute chat to anyone who downloads your price list.
- Doing a case study on a past client, showing the design stages from concepts to finished product & explaining your work along the way.
This is how I have my process explained on my design website:
3. YOUR KNOWLEDGE & EXPERTISE
This is a biggie. You need to start letting your peeps know how clever you are. You have loads of knowledge, a shit load in fact, but it’s all just second nature to you which makes it really hard for you to see.
I suggest doing a brain dump and listing all of your ideal client’s problems,
big and small. For example:
- They don’t know how to set up a business Facebook page.
- They don’t understand why a consistent brand is important.
- They don’t know where to download free stock images.
All that stuff! Go nuts. Once you have written down every little problem, write down next to each of them how you can supply a solution.
From there, you can:
- Write a newsletter/blog post about each problem and provide a solution.
- Do a Facebook live regarding problems & solutions and answer any questions live.
- Offer free tutorials, templates, e-books, webinar and content that offer solutions.
So now you know what you need to educate your clients about, and how to do it, no excuses 🙂
All the love,
Anna xo
All the love,
Anna xo
