Know When to Cut the Cord

Its hard to know when to let a client go, but its easier to make that decision when red flags start to pop up. Those red flags can sneak up on you or be super obvious.

A few examples of Red Flags that pop up could be:

• Red–Flag 1: “I don’t know what i want, but i’ll know it when i see it”
• Red–Flag 2: Money is stressed more than the outcome
• Red–Flag 3: Why deposits are important
• Red–Flag 4: “I don’t really have a budget right now”
• Red–Flag 5: Low to no communication
• Red–Flag 6: Sporadic Payments

In FHS 17 (Click here to listen), we chat about the red flags that we come across every once in a while.

Sometimes you come to a point where you can’t provide the services that your clients hired your for. Your skills may not be up to par or your availability changed dramatically.

Sometimes you may need to go in a separate direction. Did you decide to stop providing that service? Are you evolving your business to keep with the times? Your growth is more important than holding back and pleasing your client.

Sometimes you have to raise your rates which will then price your clients out. Don’t limit your income by keeping clients that wont move with you. The goal of every engagement is to help your clients gain a positive return in your services. There will be a few clients that you’ll hold on to at your old rate, but you should slowly plan on moving them up to your new rates.

But if you’re reached a point where you need to let them go, be specific about it. Don’t beat around the bush. Don’t lie about it. Be the professional in the relationship and let that client go!

Be SPECIFIC

Don’t be timid or vague about why you’re letting them go. At this point, you should have already had communication about changes you’ve needed to implement.

Maybe the client is unaware of able to resolve the issue. You can never really know what is going on with the client and having that open communication can move things along. A lot of times in your favor. You should have had open communication with your client when problems popped up. From there you may have been able to resolve the issues.

Let the client know specifically why you have to go in a different direction. Don’t be rude or curt, but be professional and firm with the reasons.

Leave on Good Terms (If Possible)

You never know when or if you will circle back to the client. You may have a reason to leave the client because your services outgrew their budget. Or you’re taking on different types of work.

Leave with a good taste in their mouth and help them transition (as much as possible) to an alternative. You never know how they may referrer you to other work.

If you DO want to burn your bridges, make sure this is a bridge worth burning. Don’t let your emotions take over and do a “scorched earth” type of scenario.

Stop Working on Work

Regardless of how you are letting the client go, you still need to stop all work for that client. Do not drag on additional tasks as “favors” or “to help them out”. It is not fair to you or the client if you keep sticking around and working on their tasks.

If you let the client go, that also means you let the work go. There is no obligation to keep working for free….and you should not be working for free!

Don’t Be Shy About It

Being firm and assertive when letting the client go is similar to ripping off the bandage. Its gonna hurt…but only for a little bit.

The post FHS 36 Firing Clients appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

How many times have you thought of an idea and said to yourself “I need to start a business around this!”? But you start and stop, sit and stew, or just do nothing. A lot of time we focus on how we are going to execute the idea rather that WHAT the idea is. Or if its even a valid one.

It’s very easy to get caught up in the weeds of how you plan on implementing your idea. Where you’re going to sell. What website you need to make. What the logo is going to look like.

But you’re more than likely forgetting a key step: Is this something that people are willing to pay for?

Your Baby

You need to sit down and specify who you’re wanting to sell to. Specifically, your goal is to finish this sentence:

“Oh, me? I help __________ to __(single group of people)__ which saves them a lot of time and money.”

if you’re doing services or  

“I sell __________ to _(single group of people)_.”

If you’re selling products

You’re then going to fill in the blank of one thing you do to a single group of people that helps them save time and money.

As a business owner, you’re going to need clients and customers. These are the people who are going to buy your idea from you. There really isn’t any way around it. You can’t operate on zero sales. Who doesn’t like sales?

We need to shift our mindset and take a hard look at our own product and idea and scrutinize it. Are we holding onto that idea or product because its “MY BABY!”? Yes, it’s your idea, but let’s take the time to do a little research to see if its a valid idea. Don’t be shy to modify and adapt. We’re going to do a little Market Research.

Market Research is a tool that will guide you to identifying EXACTLY who is willing to buy what you’re selling. Market research will help you find that group of people that your product may be interesting to. I generally break market research (finding and researching your customers) into two sub tasks; finding customers and reaching customers.

You’re going to want to do what is called “market research” to help validate your idea

1. Who, specifically, are you going to be facing (niche, market, clients, customers)
2. What is the problem that you’re hearing the most often
3. What are they willing to pay
4. Is it sustainable
5. Where do they hang out

I talk with Patrick Selby about how he focused on the “What” with a few pointers and what he learned from his mistakes. Check out FHS 19: http://freelancerheadstart.com/fhs-19-market-research-building-product/

Finding your customers, what their pain-points are, and understanding the value of your services is going to give you that head start that you’re looking for. It’s going to help get you out of that feeling stuck mode.

Finding and researching your customers is a shortcut to having people pay for whatever you’re selling. You’re able to accurately know what your customers and clients are willing to buy.

Finding Customers/Clients

That “group of people” piece from up above is now your identified customers and clients. Now we’re going to start identifying where your market lives.

The main tools that I personally use is Reddit.com, Meetup.com, and LinkedIn.com. This is the first step to finding and researching your customers.

Now that you know where your customers are, you can then start to research what you’re trying to sell them. You want to validate what you THINK they want to buy to what they are REALLY willing to buy. This is the second part of finding and researching your customers.

http://www.Reddit.com

Reddit is a forum style website that has millions of users and thousands of communities. One of these communities are going to be exactly your client base. On Reddit’s homepage in the upper right corner, you can search for what’s called subreddits. These are the specific communities where your clients and customers live. Within a few days or hours of using Reddit, you’re be able to identify at least 3-5 subreddits that focus on your niche. This may be one of the easiest places you’ll use when finding and researching your customers.

http://www.meetup.com

Meetup.com is a site that lists communities that line up with who your customers are. You can even find people who have similar tastes, ideas, or industries. Let’s say you’re that web developer that wants to find non-profit animal shelters. You could search “animal adoption drives” or “animal lovers of Atlanta” to find people who have similar interests. Then you can hone in on where and when they congregate. There are dozens of topics or groups or industries that meet all over the world and the States.

http://www.LinkedIn.com

You can think of LinkedIn as a social network for professionals. You can join specific communities within LinkedIn, connect with similar professionals, or target specific people in specific companies. LinkedIn has a very extensive search option that lets you find almost exactly who you’re looking for. You can pay for their premium level account and open up even more options for finding that specific client or audience.

Don’t be downhearted if you think you’re taking a while finding and researching your customers. What you’re actually doing is refining your niche and zeroing in on your customers and clients. I would honestly spend about 40-60 hours of effort to find and research your customers, and in turn, your product. If you can understand what your audience is thinking, what their pains are, and a way to help, you’re ready to position yourself as the expert!

Set Your Milestones

You may have a vague idea of what you’d like to accomplish with your product or service. And count that as good enough. But, each goal needs a plan, or it’s just a wish.

Once you’ve settled on WHAT you are going to be selling and to WHO, you can then slowly look at the vehicle to make it happen. It should be easier now because you know where your customers live, play, work, etc. You’ve gotten over one of the more difficult parts; now focus on getting your things in the hands of your customers/clients.

Create goals and milestones for yourself that can help you gauge if your idea and delivery methods are working. Don’t be afraid to change course when you realize something isn’t working. Your goals should have a something that is measurable behind it.

Say you want to sell T-shirts to concert attendees to a specific band. With your market research, you should have an idea on where those fans hang out (online, offline, conferences, etc) and you’ll be able to target them. Keep track of the performance of your sales when you sell in person, online, through 3rd party, etc. From those metrics, you’ll be able to refine HOW you are going to sell your products.

Now, this is a basic example but you can essentially track everything about your product and its performance. The HOW part. Eventually, you’ll find out a rhythm to what you’re doing and find that sweet spot.

Don’t forget, each goal needs to have a plan on how you’re going to achieve the goal and what ‘success’ will look like. One method in creating and achieving goals is the S.M.A.R.T. method.   

Focus on WHAT then HOW

Your product or service may go through many revisions before you will find if have an audience. Focusing on getting a product created and delivered before you even know if people will care will lose you a lot of time and money. Focus on the WHAT first; will people actually care about what i am offering?

If you find that the answer is “Yes”, THEN focus on How to deliver.

The post FHS 21 Figuring out the “WHAT” appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

Book Recommendation

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products – Nir Eyal

Why do some products capture our attention, while others flop? What makes us engage with certain products out of habit? Is there a pattern underlying how technologies hook us? This audiobook introduces listeners to the “Hook Model,” a four steps process companies use to build customer habits. Through consecutive hook cycles, successful products reach their ultimate goal of bringing users back repeatedly – without depending on costly advertising or aggressive messaging. Hooked is a guide to building products people can’t put down. Written for product managers, designers, marketers, startup founders, and people eager to learn more about the things that control our behaviors, this audiobook gives listeners:

• Practical insights to create user habits that stick.
• Actionable steps for building products people love.
• Behavioral techniques used by Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and other habit-forming products.

Click Here for Your Free 30 Day Trial and a FREE Audio Book with Audible

• Red–Flag 1: “I don’t know what i want, but i’ll know it when i see it”
  • Scope
  • Scope Creep
  • Agreement of what the scope is going to be
• Red–Flag 2: Money is stressed more than the outcome
  • Tire kicking rather than discussing the problem
  • Always wants a discount
• Red–Flag 3: Why deposits are important
  • Incremental payments
  • Milestones
• Red–Flag 4: “I dont really have a budget right now”
  • Value based vs hourly
  • Possibly not serious?
• Red–Flag 5: Low to no communication
  • Communication is unclear
  • Communication is lacking
  • Dragging their feet, yet requires you to run and tie your shoe at the same time
• Red–Flag 6: Sporadic Payments
  • Thats what deposits are for
  • Milestone payments help reduce the long payment cycles
• Use contracts to protect yourself
• Some redflags are not valid
• Trust your gut feelings!
• If its too good to be true, then it might be

Quick Picks

Lashia

• Audio-Technica headphones
  • Great sounding headsets for audiophiles that wont break the bank!
  • Link: http://www.audio-technica.com/cms/headphones/1000c1b0c122836e/index.html

Marion

• Audible
  • Free audio book download AND a free 30-day free trial. How can you beat that?!
  • Link: http://www.audibletrial.com/freelancerheadstart

The post FHS 17 Client Red Flags ft Lashia Levins appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.