Confessions of the designer. Principles of working with clients
This article is based on my personal experience, collected on the way from a hired employee through a freelancer to the owner of his own bureau, and is addressed primarily to freelancers. I will not make it in the form of a list of recommendations. Just talk about your path and principles, and the conclusions you do yourself.
The concept of “good” is very subjective, so I will tell you about my criteria.
I put deadlines in first place. The super-quality prototype, provided with a delay, is inferior to the prototype "for C grade", delivered in time. Moreover, this effect can be reduced to zero by making the client aware of the delay in advance. I have met very few colleagues who could calmly warn about the postponement of the deadline. Usually these were post factum stories about a sudden illness, deceased relatives, an unforeseen family holiday. I also walked this path. At first he could just disappear and appear without explanation. Then he came up with original excuses for the hours before surrender. And, finally, in the case of failures, I began to warn customers in advance. Another observation: if the performer is prone to loss, then completely eradicate this moment will not work. But it is not fatal.
')
The first principle can also be attributed to the ability to talk with the client. At first I blushed at all the talks in a row. The negotiations were forced, then I was still working in the company Webmaster.spb. The head of the hand brought me to the clients, and we communicated. Then came a series of negotiations on freelancing. I was still blushing, but less so. There was confidence, and then over-confidence in his professionalism. More aggressive negotiations went where I found myself out of the reach of stupid and dull customers, and behind their backs laughed with other designers and designers over the sets of those requirements and comments that they issued during the negotiations. All this snobbery disappeared immediately after I was on the site of my clients and talked with the same specialists as me. Having experienced this feeling in my own skin, I already communicated with my next client with great understanding. It became easier to figure out what he needed from me: use as a pencil for the realization of an idea in which he does not want to contribute any thoughts other than his own, or partnerships when he believes in my qualifications and experience. The second option became possible only after I started doing my own projects. Sounds loud? So your own blog on WordPress or a group gathered in a contact are projects. And if you have invested your own strength in them and maybe even means when no one asked you to do this, then it is easier for you to understand the client with whom you communicate. And to him - you.
When I stopped thinking about negotiations, as the difficult part of my work, my attention shifted to the subject of these negotiations and to identify common goals with the client. No need to say that I stopped blushing, and conceive and aggressively - and even more so. Strongly in my career, it helped me not to start talking about business right away, but to devote five to ten minutes to talking on abstract topics. This made it possible to relax and meet. Sometimes this time was enough to understand that it would be very hard to work with this person, and lined up further negotiations in such a way as to find out if any of my colleagues could work with him.
Finally, good pricing is part of a good job. In more detail, I will tell about it within the framework of another principle, and here I will outline only some points.
At first, I had difficulty evaluating the project and with even greater difficulty I could keep this price at the same level by the time of implementation. In principle, this is normal when there is little experience. Then, after a dozen or so projects, I learned to estimate how much they would cost as part of their implementation by the company in which I then worked. The next step was the development of the ability to call completely inadequate prices, if I understood that the client is willing to pay that much. Then the concept of evaluation lost its ceiling and brought a lot of profit in a short period. And finally, already deep in freelancing, I learned to call exactly such a price, which not only can afford my client, but also instills in him the confidence that this work is worth such money. At this point let's move on to the second principle.
When I finally left for free bread and my income depended solely on me, I often found myself in situations where there was not enough money. What did I do? He called customers who recently passed the job and asked where, supposedly, my money? I was fed breakfast, I called again. And he said terrible things. “I’m having another payment for an apartment on my nose, I’m counting on you!” “This month you need to close taxes for the quarter, don’t move!” And so on. That is, I unconsciously worked on the image of a person who financially depends on clients with whom he works. And this person designs websites for them that should bring in money. Nesostikovochka, yes? I changed this approach at a time when I really had problems with money. And at about the same time, my business went on the mend. I communicated with clients so that they understand, they will pay me, they will not pay soon, it will remain on their conscience, and they will not do me any weather, because everything is fine with me and so on. And it worked! Since I tried to observe my first principle all the way (to do my job well), then, observing the second, I created the understanding that if clients would not pay me, then after a while I would not want to work with them. And this is very bad if they like my work. This is not some of my guesses. When I came to the fact that I paid the performers myself, I paid first to those who did the work well, and lastly to those who were whining “where my money is,” and somehow didn’t work very well. An amazing coincidence: those who ached most often worked worse than those who silently fulfilled their obligations.
After a while, I really felt good, and I began to reflect more carefully on the prepayment policy. Before that, I tried to get as big advances as possible. As a result, doing the work for the studios, I completely refused to prepay, because we all know each other in the market and value our reputation. No one has ever deceived me and did not disappoint. And working with private clients, I take a symbolic prepayment, not exceeding 25% of the project cost. In the entire history they threw me only once. And, by the way, this prototype quietly lies in my portfolio, bringing new customers. The fear that the customer could cheat disappeared at the very moment when I realized that the prototype I was demonstrating was worth the money I called. And if he stays with me, his value will not be lost. After all, this is a great opportunity to put fresh work in the portfolio today, and not six months later, under the contract.
I began to avoid official communication. If something was not clear to me, I did not hesitate to call the first person and talk to him. If the first person was potentially unavailable throughout the work, I communicated with his staff, understanding how they relate to the project and what needs to be done to make everyone happy. This helped me experience in the same positions as the people with whom I spoke. Once I myself carried out the same tasks related to the creation of a site for a company that the chief assigned to them, and knew how I could help them.
All this led to the concept, which I have voiced a million times to everyone who asked me for advice: “to work on one side of the barricades”. To get something, first give something away. To understand who you work with, stay in his place. Experience shows that imagination alone is not enough. To speak with the client in one language, you need your own project. Once again: you need your project. Oh, I wanted to do without advice. Sorry.
Whatever I did, it brought me pleasure if I discarded all extraneous thoughts and devoted myself entirely to this occupation. But the success of the final goal. And the most understandable goals in the main work are monetary.
At first I, like all non-visiting students, lived with my mother. I got a job for pocket money, but nothing prevented me from leaving it at any time and not falling under the rink of life (as part of my story, I’ll omit the stories about my work experience outside the realm of design). And I quit by mutual consent about a year later. I was young (and now I’m not old), I wanted movement and freedom, and the everyday office was depressing. But I wanted some money! And I started freelancing. For a jerk, this worked out pretty well for me, and sometimes I squandered some good, honestly earned, money for entertainment. But over time, I realized that in such greenhouse conditions a wonderful vegetable would grow out of me. And I wanted something more.
Then I set myself the first goal. Move from mom to a new, rented apartment. Of course, I didn’t succeed right away, I had to invent a new job. And, oddly enough, I returned to the same company from which I left. We are talking about Webmaster.spb, this is not a secret. Since over the past year and a half I have been actively freelancing and have developed a good portfolio, I returned to the company already as the head of the design department. Well, the salary was unexpectedly higher than I had planned.
And then began the period of simultaneous freelancing and official work. The income allowed me to rent an apartment, and there was some good food too. But it was necessary to move on, and by nature I am a very lazy person and was well aware of that already then. Therefore, my next goal was to save my income, but at the same time to stop working officially, so that the hours on the way to the office and back belonged only to me. And let's be frank: no one actually works for eight hours a day. And instead of having fun at this time in the office, you can have fun somewhere else. Some also work better at night. And in the end I managed it! I almost did not let the boss in Webmasters, at the same time reduced the office hours and began to generate a stream of clients on freelancing. How I did it while I keep silence.
Finally, at some point I brought a person to the office to replace me (by the way, we are talking about Anton Grigoriev, now we are together with him and are the owners of the Protorate) and quietly disappeared from the company. I built everything so that my departure had no effect on the life of the company or on my own. And here I am completely on freelance, but already in a rented apartment, with my girlfriend and car loan.
Here the most difficult thing began. The flow of customers was not as reliable as we would like. And since my principles have not yet crystallized to the extent that they are now, problems have arisen with their (clients) satisfaction and solvency. I found myself in situations where I need to pay bills, but there is no money. And while I owe at the same time five people. These moments taught me two things. First, do not worry about it. Experiences never helped to solve the problems. Secondly, do not count on anyone except family, friends and yourself. Over time, the situation began to level off. I found a way to be constantly with orders, and came to the fact that if you wish, you could sell all your time in a month. But this laziness!
My income gradually increased on its own, and I set the next goal. Earn as much money by spending less hours. This can not greatly focus, because it did not solve the problem with laziness. Therefore, it was necessary to start delegating tasks to others, to train, to create their own company. But within the framework of my story, I will stop at this place and turn finally to pricing.
Everything that I wrote above just brings me to the components of this principle.
If possible, reduce the number of working hours per month, keeping income at the same level or increasing it.
Fill all your working time forward with tasks. And if there are no gaps, increase the cost per hour. And if there are gaps, do not abandon those customers who still can not pay so much money. In the future, these grateful customers will bring you much more. How often did you make prototypes for free? I have many times.
When I first touched a client, I could only show him the suspense of my own language and a lot of work in the portfolio. But without a well-known brand, this is not enough to call high prices. However, you can come to them if you show the client that it is very and very difficult to find competitive performers. And for this all you need to respect the first two principles. And in order to give myself the opportunity to demonstrate this, at the first touch I called the cost of work well below normal.
A few years ago, I made prototype sales on freelance, which exceeded 200,000 rubles per project. If you are interested in looking at such a prototype, go to the site of the Protorate, look at the empty portfolio and open the prototype of sea freight. It's him. It was still accompanied by a functional specification, but still, now I’m sadly looking at that work. The client was not as happy as we would like. I do not give the link, because good Habr will put our site and will not blink. So, since then, as a result, much larger sums were brought to me by clients who started working with me for the money they were comfortable with paying. These customers are still with me. If you know yourself, wink in the comments.
Returning to the goals: after a certain moment there is not much point in making work even more expensive, taking even more projects, shining in the professional community. I like to design, I initially engaged in this disinterestedly. And now I understand that it is time to share experiences. Educate others (sorry, but still publish here an invisible link to your Axure group, please contact us with any questions, we will always help you). Otherwise, why did I, lazy, make myself so much free time from work? To dedicate it to yourself.
Finally wish: constantly learn, do not arrogant, make your projects, gain independence. It is in this sequence. And remember: no principles of design and business should stand above the principles of humanity. And what the last looks like - everyone decides for himself.
Principle number one. Do your job well
The concept of “good” is very subjective, so I will tell you about my criteria.
I put deadlines in first place. The super-quality prototype, provided with a delay, is inferior to the prototype "for C grade", delivered in time. Moreover, this effect can be reduced to zero by making the client aware of the delay in advance. I have met very few colleagues who could calmly warn about the postponement of the deadline. Usually these were post factum stories about a sudden illness, deceased relatives, an unforeseen family holiday. I also walked this path. At first he could just disappear and appear without explanation. Then he came up with original excuses for the hours before surrender. And, finally, in the case of failures, I began to warn customers in advance. Another observation: if the performer is prone to loss, then completely eradicate this moment will not work. But it is not fatal.
')
The first principle can also be attributed to the ability to talk with the client. At first I blushed at all the talks in a row. The negotiations were forced, then I was still working in the company Webmaster.spb. The head of the hand brought me to the clients, and we communicated. Then came a series of negotiations on freelancing. I was still blushing, but less so. There was confidence, and then over-confidence in his professionalism. More aggressive negotiations went where I found myself out of the reach of stupid and dull customers, and behind their backs laughed with other designers and designers over the sets of those requirements and comments that they issued during the negotiations. All this snobbery disappeared immediately after I was on the site of my clients and talked with the same specialists as me. Having experienced this feeling in my own skin, I already communicated with my next client with great understanding. It became easier to figure out what he needed from me: use as a pencil for the realization of an idea in which he does not want to contribute any thoughts other than his own, or partnerships when he believes in my qualifications and experience. The second option became possible only after I started doing my own projects. Sounds loud? So your own blog on WordPress or a group gathered in a contact are projects. And if you have invested your own strength in them and maybe even means when no one asked you to do this, then it is easier for you to understand the client with whom you communicate. And to him - you.
When I stopped thinking about negotiations, as the difficult part of my work, my attention shifted to the subject of these negotiations and to identify common goals with the client. No need to say that I stopped blushing, and conceive and aggressively - and even more so. Strongly in my career, it helped me not to start talking about business right away, but to devote five to ten minutes to talking on abstract topics. This made it possible to relax and meet. Sometimes this time was enough to understand that it would be very hard to work with this person, and lined up further negotiations in such a way as to find out if any of my colleagues could work with him.
Finally, good pricing is part of a good job. In more detail, I will tell about it within the framework of another principle, and here I will outline only some points.
At first, I had difficulty evaluating the project and with even greater difficulty I could keep this price at the same level by the time of implementation. In principle, this is normal when there is little experience. Then, after a dozen or so projects, I learned to estimate how much they would cost as part of their implementation by the company in which I then worked. The next step was the development of the ability to call completely inadequate prices, if I understood that the client is willing to pay that much. Then the concept of evaluation lost its ceiling and brought a lot of profit in a short period. And finally, already deep in freelancing, I learned to call exactly such a price, which not only can afford my client, but also instills in him the confidence that this work is worth such money. At this point let's move on to the second principle.
Principle number two. Do not build vertical customer relationships.
When I finally left for free bread and my income depended solely on me, I often found myself in situations where there was not enough money. What did I do? He called customers who recently passed the job and asked where, supposedly, my money? I was fed breakfast, I called again. And he said terrible things. “I’m having another payment for an apartment on my nose, I’m counting on you!” “This month you need to close taxes for the quarter, don’t move!” And so on. That is, I unconsciously worked on the image of a person who financially depends on clients with whom he works. And this person designs websites for them that should bring in money. Nesostikovochka, yes? I changed this approach at a time when I really had problems with money. And at about the same time, my business went on the mend. I communicated with clients so that they understand, they will pay me, they will not pay soon, it will remain on their conscience, and they will not do me any weather, because everything is fine with me and so on. And it worked! Since I tried to observe my first principle all the way (to do my job well), then, observing the second, I created the understanding that if clients would not pay me, then after a while I would not want to work with them. And this is very bad if they like my work. This is not some of my guesses. When I came to the fact that I paid the performers myself, I paid first to those who did the work well, and lastly to those who were whining “where my money is,” and somehow didn’t work very well. An amazing coincidence: those who ached most often worked worse than those who silently fulfilled their obligations.
After a while, I really felt good, and I began to reflect more carefully on the prepayment policy. Before that, I tried to get as big advances as possible. As a result, doing the work for the studios, I completely refused to prepay, because we all know each other in the market and value our reputation. No one has ever deceived me and did not disappoint. And working with private clients, I take a symbolic prepayment, not exceeding 25% of the project cost. In the entire history they threw me only once. And, by the way, this prototype quietly lies in my portfolio, bringing new customers. The fear that the customer could cheat disappeared at the very moment when I realized that the prototype I was demonstrating was worth the money I called. And if he stays with me, his value will not be lost. After all, this is a great opportunity to put fresh work in the portfolio today, and not six months later, under the contract.
I began to avoid official communication. If something was not clear to me, I did not hesitate to call the first person and talk to him. If the first person was potentially unavailable throughout the work, I communicated with his staff, understanding how they relate to the project and what needs to be done to make everyone happy. This helped me experience in the same positions as the people with whom I spoke. Once I myself carried out the same tasks related to the creation of a site for a company that the chief assigned to them, and knew how I could help them.
All this led to the concept, which I have voiced a million times to everyone who asked me for advice: “to work on one side of the barricades”. To get something, first give something away. To understand who you work with, stay in his place. Experience shows that imagination alone is not enough. To speak with the client in one language, you need your own project. Once again: you need your project. Oh, I wanted to do without advice. Sorry.
Principle number three. Presence of goals and smart pricing
Whatever I did, it brought me pleasure if I discarded all extraneous thoughts and devoted myself entirely to this occupation. But the success of the final goal. And the most understandable goals in the main work are monetary.
At first I, like all non-visiting students, lived with my mother. I got a job for pocket money, but nothing prevented me from leaving it at any time and not falling under the rink of life (as part of my story, I’ll omit the stories about my work experience outside the realm of design). And I quit by mutual consent about a year later. I was young (and now I’m not old), I wanted movement and freedom, and the everyday office was depressing. But I wanted some money! And I started freelancing. For a jerk, this worked out pretty well for me, and sometimes I squandered some good, honestly earned, money for entertainment. But over time, I realized that in such greenhouse conditions a wonderful vegetable would grow out of me. And I wanted something more.
Then I set myself the first goal. Move from mom to a new, rented apartment. Of course, I didn’t succeed right away, I had to invent a new job. And, oddly enough, I returned to the same company from which I left. We are talking about Webmaster.spb, this is not a secret. Since over the past year and a half I have been actively freelancing and have developed a good portfolio, I returned to the company already as the head of the design department. Well, the salary was unexpectedly higher than I had planned.
And then began the period of simultaneous freelancing and official work. The income allowed me to rent an apartment, and there was some good food too. But it was necessary to move on, and by nature I am a very lazy person and was well aware of that already then. Therefore, my next goal was to save my income, but at the same time to stop working officially, so that the hours on the way to the office and back belonged only to me. And let's be frank: no one actually works for eight hours a day. And instead of having fun at this time in the office, you can have fun somewhere else. Some also work better at night. And in the end I managed it! I almost did not let the boss in Webmasters, at the same time reduced the office hours and began to generate a stream of clients on freelancing. How I did it while I keep silence.
Finally, at some point I brought a person to the office to replace me (by the way, we are talking about Anton Grigoriev, now we are together with him and are the owners of the Protorate) and quietly disappeared from the company. I built everything so that my departure had no effect on the life of the company or on my own. And here I am completely on freelance, but already in a rented apartment, with my girlfriend and car loan.
Here the most difficult thing began. The flow of customers was not as reliable as we would like. And since my principles have not yet crystallized to the extent that they are now, problems have arisen with their (clients) satisfaction and solvency. I found myself in situations where I need to pay bills, but there is no money. And while I owe at the same time five people. These moments taught me two things. First, do not worry about it. Experiences never helped to solve the problems. Secondly, do not count on anyone except family, friends and yourself. Over time, the situation began to level off. I found a way to be constantly with orders, and came to the fact that if you wish, you could sell all your time in a month. But this laziness!
My income gradually increased on its own, and I set the next goal. Earn as much money by spending less hours. This can not greatly focus, because it did not solve the problem with laziness. Therefore, it was necessary to start delegating tasks to others, to train, to create their own company. But within the framework of my story, I will stop at this place and turn finally to pricing.
Everything that I wrote above just brings me to the components of this principle.
If possible, reduce the number of working hours per month, keeping income at the same level or increasing it.
Fill all your working time forward with tasks. And if there are no gaps, increase the cost per hour. And if there are gaps, do not abandon those customers who still can not pay so much money. In the future, these grateful customers will bring you much more. How often did you make prototypes for free? I have many times.
When I first touched a client, I could only show him the suspense of my own language and a lot of work in the portfolio. But without a well-known brand, this is not enough to call high prices. However, you can come to them if you show the client that it is very and very difficult to find competitive performers. And for this all you need to respect the first two principles. And in order to give myself the opportunity to demonstrate this, at the first touch I called the cost of work well below normal.
A few years ago, I made prototype sales on freelance, which exceeded 200,000 rubles per project. If you are interested in looking at such a prototype, go to the site of the Protorate, look at the empty portfolio and open the prototype of sea freight. It's him. It was still accompanied by a functional specification, but still, now I’m sadly looking at that work. The client was not as happy as we would like. I do not give the link, because good Habr will put our site and will not blink. So, since then, as a result, much larger sums were brought to me by clients who started working with me for the money they were comfortable with paying. These customers are still with me. If you know yourself, wink in the comments.
Returning to the goals: after a certain moment there is not much point in making work even more expensive, taking even more projects, shining in the professional community. I like to design, I initially engaged in this disinterestedly. And now I understand that it is time to share experiences. Educate others (sorry, but still publish here an invisible link to your Axure group, please contact us with any questions, we will always help you). Otherwise, why did I, lazy, make myself so much free time from work? To dedicate it to yourself.
Finally wish: constantly learn, do not arrogant, make your projects, gain independence. It is in this sequence. And remember: no principles of design and business should stand above the principles of humanity. And what the last looks like - everyone decides for himself.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/205012/
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