How To Avoid Revisions and Increase Revenue | #65

Hate Revisions?

Want to make more per client?

What if I told you these are directly related? And they’re tied together with one principle: good communication.

Now before you stop reading because you think you know how to communicate with clients, most creatives are actually doing this wrong.

They say communication is the most important part of any healthy relationship. And that is especially true with your client relationships. If you want to minimize client revisions and get repeat clients, keep reading.

Sales and marketing are incredibly important in the client acquisition process, but it doesn’t end there. Most importantly, we need to fulfill our promise. Whatever the contract was for, we need to hold up our end.

But the part that people often miss is a good customer experience.

A good customer experience leads to:

Repeat clients

Referrals

Better case studies

Testimonials

Retainers

All of these are directly correlated to how much money you can make in your creative business.

Yet most creatives ignore this part of the process. They think a good experience just means creating great photos or videos.

A good customer experience actually has a lot to do with your ability to communicate well with a client.

Good communication starts the minute the client signs a contract to work with you. As soon as they sign a contract to work with you, you need to reinforce their decision. They just agreed to spend a lot of money with you. Make them feel good about it.

You need to immediately send them a welcome email after they sign that contract. Not 4 hours after they sign, not the next day. Send it as soon as possible.

This email outlines what to expect throughout the project along with an onboarding form.

The form is actually key in good communication. It eliminates the need to email back and forth, and gathers all the info you need about the project.

Throughout the project, clients will email you questions often. It’s your job to respond to these as soon as you see them. Don’t wait an hour or a day. When you see the email, there should only be one touch point.

Open email → Respond or Archive

There’s no reason to wait.

I hear of too many creatives waiting to email their clients back. They will lose in the long run to others who respond right away.

I’m not saying that you should have email notifications on and always be bombarded by emails. Rather, schedule 2 or 3 times every day where you sit down and answer emails. For me, this is usually 8a, noon, and 5p after work. I batch my emails and as soon as I read them, I’ll respond or archive them.

As far as email structure, all your emails should clearly communicate the message.

Don’t use fancy vocabulary. Write your emails so a 5th grader can read them.

At the end of each email, be sure to include an ask. This gives each email a clear action. What do you need from the client? Be clear and ask.

Now this is just the beginning of good communication and a great customer experience. Start here, and build upon it.

In today’s competitive environment, you can’t afford to have poor communication.