Montgomery Scott, from the Star Trek fan site.

You remember when Scotty, the engineer on the Enterprise always came up with a solution to catastrophic damage to the ship in a third the time he told Kirk it would take? Or that he was “givin’ it all she’s got” when Kirk asked for more power and found just enough to save the day?

You can do that too for your users/customers. It’s all a function of expectation and perceived delivery. It goes something like this:

Customer Satisfaction:
Perceived Delivery = Expectations: Satisfaction
Perceived Delivery < Expectations: Dissatisfaction
Perceived Delivery > Expectations: Delight

So it’s fairly easy to manage your customer’s/user’s expectations and then exceed them as long as you make both propositions reasonable and that you deliver a quality product/service in whatever time frame you set.

Let’s say that you can build a site in 3 weeks and you tell your customer that it will take you 6. If you deliver something stunning in 4 weeks, great. But if you deliver something shoddy in 4 weeks, not so great. I’m sure that to get the business, you, your portfolio or your website made promises on your behalf regarding the quality of the product or service that you wold perform for them. Remember that expectations contains many dimensions.

A variant: You deliver a site in 4 weeks when you said it would take 6. Now you customer may have doubts on the value of the product that you delivered, thinking it was something you cobbled together. This is when you’ll have to defend the quality of the product and get them to refocus on the positives of being ahead of schedule.

It’s best to use this practice judiciously as you will have set a precedent for future interactions. The client may be inclined to give you less time to complete a project because you did such a great job beating the last deadline. Take care not to put undue pressure on yourself and your team to exceed their expectations again. You merely have to deliver when you say you will and the result will still be a net positive.

Does anyone have any examples when this worked or backfired?

Seriously.

It’s cool to take a design and develop a system around it. Right now, I am working on brand guidelines for a client that is undergoing a complete rebrand. It started innocently enough…”Hey, can you whip up a sales video for us?” “We need a new white paper design, can you help?”

Before too long, a style developed and the client decided that it was the look of their new brand. Most times, with bigger entities, there is a more prolonged process to defining the look, feel and voice (yes, voice) of a brand before it is deployed.  Small businesses tend to wing it just a little more. With the proper documentation of a project, you can define a brand based on the project at hand.

Many times, a new project helps the business owner(s) define what is important and what their brand actually stands for. When you have that information, it can be fairly easy to extrapolate to a brand standard. So it is with my new medium-sized client.

Todd Moto's Bulletproof Brand Identity Guidelines

Thanks to Todd Moto‘s posting his Bulletproof Brand Identity Guidelines, I have refined my brand guidelines to an easily digestible document that makes brand stewardship approachable and easy to comprehend.

One thing I learned early on is that the brand guidelines or style guidelines document should epitomize the best case scenario of use of the brand. Keep that in mind when you are creating a style guide. Something über modern, cool and sleek like Todd’s might not work for a more conservative organization, so keep that in mind as you are creating your document.

Something else I want to note…brand guidelines are just that. While in the corporate arena, I made my bones pushing, stretching and making the brand go places that it had not gone before. It’s a living document meant to foster creativity, not inhibit it.

I’ll post an image when the document is approved.

Here’s what it did:

• Established me as a subject matter expert
• Demonstrated that I’m interested in their success, regardless of their budget
• Indicated that I have more tricks up my sleeve

Sometimes giving information away is a great way to build trust and perhaps a client. I left the door open to them to work together if their budget permitted. I’ll keep you posted on their response.

I got a call out of the blue from a prospective client that found us on The Google. I love it when that happens. One of the most important conversations you will have with a client is the first call. Like a date, this is where you can determine whether there is compatibility between the two parties.

Here’s what I did:

Let them talk. One of the best things that you can do is listen. Most of my clients are owner/operators and have a lot of emotion wrapped up in their businesses. When you are actively listening to them lay out their business needs, you are also personally validating them. That goes a long way to establishing trust.

When you do speak, couch everything in terms of a benefit to the client. This is the time to process what the prospect has said and turn it into possible solutions. When I asked my latest prospect what his goals were, he said “I need to get some money coming in the door.” This tells me that he is price sensitive and that he is on a pretty tight timeline. I mention that the site that he has in mind is a simple brochure marketing site that will help people find him and pick up the phone to call him. I also said that based on the simplicity of his site (make sure you don’t use the word simplistic), he can be up and running fairly shortly. I also told him that part of building the site would entail search engine marketing which can help drive traffic.

Only promise things that you can control. Too often to get the sale, business over promise and then inevitably, under deliver. Make sure that you don’t fall into that trap. Tell him about your experience with similar clients. Tell her about the results of the project in emotional terms “You’ll have a site that you can be proud of”, “you’ll be well-represented on the web”. Specific numbers or results or dollar figures are out of your control and you’d best avoid giving them any specifics there.

You can offer information about past projects, but be careful to inform them that their results may vary.

Take them through the process. Your diligence and thoroughness as a creative professional is an asset. Briefly take them through the process and let them know how much thought will go into producing their web presence. Communicating your understanding of strategy and audience sets you apart from the run-of-the-mill designer.

Don’t weaponize your knowledge. Using acronyms, professional terms or idioms will only alienate your client, especially over the phone.

Give them a ballpark price. That’s the real reason that they called. The whole time that you’re talking, they are thinking, “This sounds great, but how much will it cost?” Prepare their expectations for what’s to come. If they want a proposal, then you’re looking good. Why blow it with sticker shock? Give them a ballpark and let them know that it is a ballpark figure. Chances are while you were talking, you had already formulated a price in your head. : )

Avoid yes or no questions. When I gave him the ballpark price, I asked, “How does that work with your budget?”. It implies cooperation and doesn’t put him/her on the defensive. Open-ended questions require more thought and you’ll get more information about how this project is going to work for both of you.

Recap and thanks. Tell them what to expect next and do it. Then thank them for calling and smile when you do so!

Hopefully, you can work these principles into your next First Contact conversation and generate a very favorable result.

This prospect has a great concept to take their brand’s product to the next level and wanted to discuss with me how to go about getting into the mobile app arena. They said that they have ideas that they wanted to keep secret. No problem, I responded, I will bring along a standard NDA (non-disclosure agreement) so everyone can speak freely. After a nice preliminary discussion and a few moments of wrangling over just what the NDA was supposed to protect, I finally said, “This document is designed more for your protection than it is for mine. ” When I began to volunteer advice about how best to tackle their problem, the owner of the company set the NDA aside and said “I don’t need this. I trust you.”

The reason for this post is that, yes, in the information age, information is power. Many people then guard information so closely that they come off cagey, vague and shifty. Not the best way to build trust with your client.

Establishing your expertise is one of the best ways to build user/customer/confidence in your brand. So how better to establish your expertise than giving away some information for free. Demonstrate that you have expertise to spare by being free with your knowledge. Don’t be threatened by sharing what you know because the implication of sharing is “what can they do if they really tried?”

So if you have a client that needs some free advice on a subject you know a lot about, do them and yourself a favor and just give it to them. You’ll be helping to win over a new fan and perhaps sales and referrals down the road.

This has been an issue with every freelancer in his/her career, and it also resonates with my small business clients. How do I get what I feel I am worth?

The simple answer is that you have to ask for it, be prepared to negotiate a little, and then move on if you don’t. But of course, there are some mitigating factors at hand:

The economy is still terrible for nearly everyone. Many businesses don’t feel as though they have the money to spend on design and strategy. My counter is that this isn’t a spend per se, but an investment. An investment in new customers and adding to their bottom line. Most small business owners don’t realize that when the market is sour, this is the very time to invest in marketing. While others are pulling back, your brand can be front and center and will reap the benefits of that exposure when things get better again.

There are so many free website plans out there. That’s a tough one. How can anyone compete with free or nearly free? Quality. Unless this particular client is a designer him/herself, chances are they will build a site that looks like it was built with a wizard. They don’t understand usability. They don’t get information architecture. They probably don’t know what their marketing strategy is or how to implement a multi-channel campaign. That’s where the service professional has an edge. Offer (and deliver) on quality, backed by expertise and experience.

People don’t value what I do. That can be true, but give them an example that they can relate to. Ask them about their favorite commercial or website. Let them know that it is quite likely a team of people worked on that site to make it that great. Let them know that it takes a lot of know-how (know-how that they don’t have) to make advertising effective and worth the cost.

So here are some things that you can do to get the dollars you want:

Emphasize your talents/skills. Make sure that your skills are on display on your website or on your business card. Your site should be a showcase of your abilities. If your site is impressive, then it will be easier to get to “yes” from your prospective.

Sell your services as an investment, not an expense. Focus on the results of the design plan. Remind them that you’re there to help them make money/get new customers/build their brand. Make everything you do about THEM, not you.

Have a contract. Contracts let people know that you are a professional and not to be taken lightly. Here is a sample contract to get you started.

Have an elevator pitch. Something short, sweet and to the point. Make a declarative statement and then provide two – three reasons that make that statement true:

XYZ Design is a full-service, multi-channel design and strategy firm. We handle digital projects, mass media design and marketing strategy for business just like yours.We’ve won a couple of awards for our work, and while we’re proud of that, we focus on the results we get for our clients. Our strength is in integration. We make sure that your brand/message is consistent regardless of the medium.

It will make you sound more polished and ready to get down to business.

Be prepared to give. A little. No one wants to be stonewalled when negotiating price. Build in a little cushion in your price and then be prepared to hand that over as a carrot in the negotiation, if there is one.

Walk the walk. This not a license to be arrogant, but through your body language and the words that you choose, that you are helping them, not the other way around. You have the expertise, not them. You have the skills, not them. Remind yourself of that before you walk into the meeting.

Get more work under your belt. I gave away sites for a long time, and still will barter services if there is a new technology/technique that I’d like to try. The more you do, the better you become at it. You’ll be able to go through your mental library and bring up a project that is similar to the one that you’re proposing. Just like surgery, you want the guy who’s done this many times before.

Get testimonials. Sure, you can say all the right things, but clients like to hear from other clients about your services. Have testimonials on your site. They do go a long way.

Get referrals. My business runs on referrals. Once you have a client that is happy with your work, create incentives for them to refer you to others. Offer them a free layout of a new flyer or business card if they bring you a customer that signs a contract. You can actually charge the new person a little more because you already have the leverage of enhanced reputation and a recommendation from a person that they trust.

While I am addressing this mainly to creatives, small business clients that are looking for their services would be well-advised to look for these characteristics when selecting a provider.

Jim was on point and had the following questions answered fully:

• Who are you?
• Why should I listen to what you have to say?
• What can you do for me?
• Do you have the expertise to back up your claims?
• What can I expect when working with you?

Many companies can’t answer those questions right off the bat and it’s up to the creative strategists like me to help them discover those answers and figure out ways to deliver that message to their intended audience.

It’s a lesson for creatives and small business owners alike that getting to the heart of the “why” is crucial to the success of any brand, advertising or marketing project. When a client comes to the table with those questions already answered in a clear, compelling way, then they are truly helping me help them.

Look for more info about this client coming soon!

Buuuuut, sometimes I get too wrapped up in seeing the person succeed that I forget that it’s not MY business. It can be easy to lose sight of what the client wants and instead try to impose what you want for the client. It’s a tough space to find yourself in and then have to re-establish the professional distance between client and vendor. It’s good to push a client to look at possibilities outside of their comfort zone, but at the end of the day they are the client and it’s their final decision.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

Do you find yourself helping the client to make internal business decisions that are not related to your role as a creative advisor?

Do you find that you are talking to your client as much about nothing as you do about projects?

Do you ever appeal to anything other than his/her business sense to sell a project?

Has your client ever hurt your feelings by saying no?

If more than one of these answers is yes, you may be too close to your client. You won’t be doing you or your client any favors by using emotional appeals, manipulation or trading on your buddy status to force projects through that may not meet business goals or limitations (budgets are key here).

Take a step back without jeopardizing your working relationship and ensure that what you are pitching is best for your client’s business as it is now, not as if YOU were running it. They will respect your professional distance and objectivity. That said, clients using personal relationships with their service providers to influence projects do themselves a disservice.

The client/service provider should be one of mutual respect and camaraderie. Just make sure that all the fun you’re having doesn’t interfere with the job at hand.

Please share your stories!

Following is a great example of the knockout version in use. The clients are Pennington Dental Associates in New Jersey. Here is their logo in full color:

Note that it looks great on a white or light colored background. Sometimes, that is not always possible.

Here is their logo as a knockout:

As part of the logo design process, consider how and where your/your client’s logo will possibly appear and prepare versions for those scenarios.

The folks at Pennington are still very happy with their logo and shared that photo with me. One of the reasons for that happiness is that their logo can go where they need it to. Something to, er, chew on.

One of the themes that I have found in my spelunking is that creatives found it frustrating that clients don’t /can’t buy in to their perfect design. And I realized that that clients (especially small business clients who have no filter) didn’t buy in because the design came as a shock to them because (surprise!) they didn’t effectively communicate their vision for the end product. We all know, unless it pops out of our favorite cake with a wad of hundreds, people generally don’t like shocks.

As a matter of course creatives and small business clients should demand that a creative brief be drafted and perfected so that each party can know what to expect from each other from a creative standpoint and minimize those end product surprises. That said, a significant problem with creative briefs is that they are prose documents and don’t give the client an idea of the look and feel of the finished product.

So how to manage that? Enter the mood board.

The mood board outlines the color palette, images, typography and other design criteria in a visual manner that the creative brief cannot.

The mood board is a way to get clients to buy into the visual aspect of the design project and can reduce the number of iterations before approval. So, especially when it comes to a project where M19 MEDIA is developing a new brand, style guide or critical design project, we will employ a mood board as part of our creative brief.

As a small business client (hell, as any client) you should ask for a mood board from your creative vendor. Creatives? Get the client buy in on the mood board. It will save you time and effort. Below, you will find a mood board for a current client. And yes, I was listening to Robert Plant while I wrote this post.

This is actually a time-saver. The mood board serves as the visual bible for any creative project and defines the sandbox in which the creative team can play. It is also a critical client buy-in checkpoint and should be a part of every designer's creative process.