8 Strategies For Successful Relations With Clients

October 9th, 2008 in How-To | 71 Comments

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By Jeff Gardner

Let’s face it. Some days, you want to just fire your clients. You go through one too
many comps, iterations or edits and you’ve had enough. It has happened to
everyone at least once and I’d be lying if I said it won’t happen again; you get to the
end of a project and realize that you would have made more per hour flipping
burgers at McDonald’s. Thankfully, as with most common problems, there are a few
simple guidelines that you can follow to help make sure that you’re never working for
below minimum wage.

Vamos admitir que, de facto, há dias em que temos vontade de despedir os clientes.
De reunião em reunião, após várias repetições e reformulações, eis que chegamos
ao fim de um projecto com a sensação que teriamos rendido mais por hora no
Mcdonalds a embalar hamburguers. Felizmente, à semelhança da maioria dos
problema comuns, existem algumas linhas orientadoras com o objectivo de garantir
que nunca trabalhemos abaixo do salário mínimo.

Due Diligence
“Experts often possess more data than judgment.” -Colin Powell

“Os especialistas possuem, frequentemente, mais informação técnica do que

opiniões”

Know your role

Saiba o seu Papel

Remember that the client will always know more about their product or service than
you do. They are the expert at what they do; their problem is usually that they don’t
know how to explain it well. That is where you, as the designer, step in to help. You
are a graphical communications ninja, but to effectively make your, and ultimately
your client’s, point you must fully understand what needs to be said.

From the outset, make it a priority to get as much information as possible about the
company, their product or service, the intended audience of your work and the
reason that your work needs to exist. The better prepared you are and the more
information you get out of the client before you start working, the quicker your
design will be accepted, and the quicker you will get paid. Use that overflow of data
from the client to form a coherent picture of what you’re trying to accomplish and
then use your good judgment to make something beautiful from the madness. By
spending ample time collecting information, you have allowed the client to share
their knowledge and participate in the project. This is a good thing. When clients feel
they are part of the process they are less likely to question the design decisions you
make.

Hire the right customers

“If you try and please everyone, you won’t please anyone.” -37signals

Remember that part of your due diligence is making sure that the project is a good fit
for you as a designer. You cannot be everything to everyone, and if you try to be,
you will not only look bad, you’ll lose money.

Remember the principle that carries the Vilfredo Pareto name: 80% of the output will
come from 20% of the input. In other words, you will make 80% of your income from
20% of your clients, so focus on the good ones and fire the bad ones. Stay true to
your strengths and don’t be afraid to pass on a project. In the end, everyone,
including your client, will be better off.

I repeat…

Don’t try to take on every project that comes across your desk, even when you’re
starting out. This will preclude a large percentage of your client problems. By picking
your two or three biggest strengths and building a solid reputation, you will attract
clients who are looking for a genius in your fields of choice and who, consequently,
will be willing to pay well for the service.

The Harvard Business professor Michael Porter states you can hold a competitive
advantage in one, and only one, of two areas: price or quality. Focus your efforts on
your strengths, build a solid reputation and you’ll never be forced to compete on
price again.

Communication
“The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.” -Peter
F. Drucker

Approach all communication with a Zen mind

Zen philosophy teaches you to approach every task with a beginner’s mind. This is
simple when you’re trying to teach yourself hyper-astro-meta-particle physics, but
not as easy as you think when it comes to something you do all day, every day. Try
hard to put yourself in the shoes of a beginner; you will be more apt to understand
and sympathize with your client’s point of view. You will also find that by using less
jargon (by assuming the language of a beginner) your client will understand and
internalize your point much more quickly, which in turn helps to create an evangelist
for your work in your client’s organization, which always makes your life easier.

But adopting a beginner’s mind isn’t as simple as dropping your haughty design-
speak in favor of a fifth grade vocabulary. You need to approach each conversation
or communication as a beginner does, with no expectations and no preconceived
notions. Without the benefit of assumptions or preconceived notions, you will be
forced to ask more questions and in turn draw more information out of the client; and
just like that, your job will have gotten easier. Disclaimer: If all this Zen stuff is too
new age for you, just remember the old adage: When you assume, you make an ass
out of u and me.

Listen for what isn’t there

What the client says: Can you make that text just a little bigger?
What the client means: This font might be a little hard to read. What do you think?

Everyone fears the dreaded “Make this text bigger” line, and everyone (well, almost
everyone) has probably cringed and then painfully capitulated. When faced with
clients asking for design changes, especially from those clients who don’t have any
design training (let alone a good eye for design), it’s important to check your design
ego at the door and ask a few pointed questions. What you really need to find out is
what the client actually means. Before doing anything to the design, pause for a
moment and ask the client to explain what it is about the design that doesn’t
accomplish the specific goals you outlined in the pre-work discovery meetings. (You
did set specific goals, didn’t you!?)

Here are a few tips to help you get to the point:

Ask blunt questions (but tactfully). Don’t start or get hauled into arguments.

Use feature/benefit terminology and plain language, not design-speak.

Use yes/no questions that push the client to reveal what they really think (e.g. “Do
you think this font is hard to read?”).

Take criticism well. (No one likes an overly sensitive artist.)

By your focusing on the goals rather than the implementation, clients will understand
that you are trying to use your craft for their benefit, not just to take their money.
Oh, and a note about that ego you left at the door: now is not the time to go into a
diatribe about your profession or your skill as a designer. No one cares; your client
just wants a functional design that they can be proud of when they show it to their
boss.

Do what you said you were going to do

But don’t die by the contract. I’ve heard of many situations where clients and
designers get into arguments about what was and wasn’t in the original contract. If
the client comes to you with something that is obviously beyond the scope of the
contract, you have a few choices:

You can do what the client wants and ask for nothing more in return.

You can refuse to do it and stick to what the original contract said.

You can try to renegotiate the contract to a new middle ground before continuing
work on the project.

There isn’t any one right answer here; different situations call for different actions. If
you’re not going to get badly burned by going the extra mile, it will probably be
worth it (so long as the client knows you’re hooking them up). That said, sometimes
the new request is outrageous and would take many, many hours to implement. In
those situations, it is a good idea to be open, talk it through with the client, make it
known that you’d love to help but it would be too much of a time commitment (you
do have other clients, after all) for the current numbers to work out.

If you approach things with an open mind, with a positive attitude (instead of a
demanding one) and on an even playing field, the client will generally help you out
with a bit more cash. And if they are livid at the thought of paying you more money
for more work, well, they may have just singled themselves out as a client who needs
to be fired.

Admit it when you screw up

Then do everything possible to make it right. Mistakes are okay; everyone makes
them from time to time. Hopefully you’re not a habitual offender. But the general
rule is: the sooner you recognize the mistake and take the heat for it, the better off
you’ll be in the long run.

By letting more time pass, the mistake only grows and becomes more difficult to
cover up, and the heat that was originally a small and controlled campfire is now the
roaring flames of hell licking at the bottoms of your feet. Get it out of the way, clear
the air and get on with it. Your client will appreciate your candor and honesty, even if
he or she isn’t that happy about the problem itself.

Parting Shot

Hopefully you’ve started to catch on here. Most of the things that can be counted as
“common problems” are fairly easy to circumvent, especially if you put in your time
doing your due diligence on the front end and adopt a firm but cooperative attitude
in your client communications.
Remember, clients aren’t supposed to be a burden. They are a blessing (they are
buying the bread on your table after all). But the relationship should always be
mutually beneficial. You are getting paid to do what you, presumably, love to do, and
the client is getting something beautiful and functional. Hopefully, you’re both
learning a little something along the way.

Further Resources
Design Process, Clients, and Web Standards

The Importance of Design in Business

Designing for Clients Made Easy

What you’re missing if you don’t challenge your clients

About the author

Jeff Gardner is a business nerd. He loves Excel, making graphs and helping
companies figure out how to perform better. He also enjoys writing, photography and
being outside. You can check him out at his blog or look at some of his photos on his
photography site. Stay tuned for his e-book on the business side of freelancing and
small business ownership, to be released soon here on Smashing Magazine.

Published in How-To, October 9th, 2008

Tags: clients, communication, workflow