Stand Out From Competitors—Here's How (FREE Design Cuts course)

hi I'm Chris do and in this course I'll be teaching you best practices to stand out in a busy Market standing out in your Market is always a smart strategy but during a recession when there's typically less work to go around it's essential when running my former agency blind we survived multiple recessions and ultimately achieved over $80 million in Billings I know working with many of the biggest brands in the world even during tougher Economic Times we ensured that we upheld the highest standards which allowed us to stand out and ensure a reliable stream of work this course is for any freelancer looking to rise above the crowd and ensure a healthy influx of projects even in economically difficult periods I'll cover a range of best practices to ensure that you make the best impression for potential clients we'll look at how to effectively serve your clients how to position yourself in a compelling way for any business and how you can ensure clients will keep coming back in the future probably the most important thing that you need to do as a freelancer is to establish really high quality of work what we do is we we make a snap judgment as to whether somebody is worth it somebody is experience and if it's somebody we can trust with our money from the client's perspective and the way we do that is we make decisions visually so whatever you can do to package your work in the highest possible way highest quality uh the best mockups the best lighting it communicates on a emotional level to the client that this is expensive and this person knows what they're doing so one tendency that people tend to make is they will show a lot of work because they want to show a breath of work but the problem with doing something like this is one it lacks Focus your clients are trying to figure out what the heck you're doing but two not all the work is at the same level of quality and so for me it's best just to put together three to five of your best work and put all your energy and love into making those amazing case studies to include multiple angles uh to to include different applications and to write about your creative process often times clients will look at something that's really finished and think oh this is wonderful but they have no insight into how you created this work so it's quite helpful to show something being broken down in parts and pieces this is the logo this these are the colors this is the topography for the package or the or the website design that you're building and so in doing so you make a small project look more comprehensive more thought out and therefore increasing the perception the value of what you're doing so in summary there it's better to show fewer high quality pieces of work than to show a lot of work that doesn't stand up to that same metric of quality here's an additional tip especially if you're relatively new to the industry it doesn't matter if you just graduated from college or you're starting over or switching lanes follow this principle at the very beginning when you get clients you're not going to get your ideal client they're not going to be bigname Brands like Nike or Apple or Google and you're going to work with smaller local businesses and that's totally okay and the chances are they're not going to pay you the kind of rate that you think you're worth but here's the thing what you don't want to do is to take on a smaller client for less money and not give it your all in this case and I want to say this with some caution here in the very early parts of developing your career it is okay to overd deliver and to overproduce as long as you meet the client's business objectives in doing so you're able to trade a smaller client with a smaller budget for potentially a much bigger client with a much bigger brand right so think of it like this the idea is you can take a small project and you can trade up but the only way you can trade up is if you put all of your heart and soul and energy into building the very best that you're capable of doing so when I was still running blind many years ago there were projects I wanted to get access to but our portfolio simply did not demonstrate that capability and I thought foolishly I could ask the clients to take that risk to take a chance on me to give me a shot and and guess what no surprise anybody no one ever asked and no one ever believed we could do it so I had to make a small investment in our own work so I gathered together a small team when we weren't super busy and I started to conceptualize a spot and that spot when I say a spot a TV commercial was for Mini Cooper a car that I loved and admired and so we we would do the exact same process we would for any client we would write a script create storyboards and and do look frames and from that we're able to build a 3D animation a full 30 second spot with liveaction for a very small budget because we were able to put our Sweat Equity our talent and our ideas into play that one TV spot got us a whole bunch of other jobs that looked just like it and it also even won awards when we submitted it for work so it was a nice feather in our cap and allowed the team to stretch their creative muscles and it's something you might want to do and that's why it's so important for you to give it your all in establishing your body of work here's another way of looking at your portfolio to elevate the perceived quality in production that you include for example if if what you do is design logos and you just showed a a white logo on a black background it'll look beautiful it'll look amazing and all our attention we put on that but what we often don't understand is what's the context how is this logo used how does it extend does it have legs that's an industry term like what else can it be used for so if you take a simple logo and you combine it with a texture and a color palette and you start to build out a system this will help you transform from being a logo designer to an identity designer to a brand designer and this is really important when when clients or prospects look at your work and they can see themselves working with you then you've done 50% of the sales work just by your website so take a logo apply it to a uniform apply it as signage on a building put it on on any kind of appropriate collateral that you can think of and really extend the use and I don't really mean to just take the logo and slap it on a whole bunch of different applications that's not really showing off that you know how to design systems but show it in interesting ways crop the Logo put it on a shopping bag turn it into a pattern uh do different creative things use all those creative muscles that you have to show in its best possible light and you you can make a project go from $100 to $100,000 in its perceived value so as a visual designer our tendency is to only focus on the visuals but that is only part of the job that you have to do pairing images with really smartly written copy not blocks of copy but just smart amounts of copy talk about the project the problem the solution and the impact that you created and if there was a novel concept about it talk about that in the fewest number of words be super succinct and to the point I read something really clever by Seth Goen he said that no one wants to read email they don't care about what you do they don't care about your your education your services all they care about is themselves what they want to read is M mail and I want you to think about someone who's going to land on your site through the lens of your prospect your client and what what's in it for them so when you present your work try to look at it from that angle talk about the solution and the benefit to the business not so much necessarily like what all you did unless it ties directly to some impact that you're able to create focus on business impact if you can if it's possible talk about the The increased time on website reduce bounce rate higher conversion ratio another metric would be customer satisfaction if you can tie your design or creative services to a business impact your value is going to go much much higher I know what I say sounds pretty obvious but you'd be shocked and surprised to see as many websites that I've seen from designers who ignore these obvious things what they do is they tend to focus too much on themselves and they don't present their work in a compelling way they don't speak to business goals and that's why they're really missing out on on business opportunities think about this you have a very short amount of time for someone to decide is this person worth investing more time in so first if they don't see the work if it's not focused if the copy's not written in a sharp way and you're not presenting in a way that benefits them guess what someone else will and they're going to get the call over you and you're going to get put into a category of people or clients who don't really care about the work they get you're going to command less money I want to point something out to you and it's a strange idea you've all been taught to be great problem solvers but when I was having a conversation with Brian Collins he says designers need to move from being problem solvers to problem Seekers and there's a big difference there so when a client comes to you what will happen is they will dictate what is needed they will come self- diagnosed and self-prescribed they'll say something like I need a new logo or I need a new Fillin the blank and this is where your your instincts and your Tendencies will be to say okay I can solve that problem I'm going to do this um I forget who said this but the quote is something like there is no such thing as the right answer to the wrong question so we got to get better at asking the right questions to surface what the real problems are this is what 99% of creative people get wrong all the time we're so ready to jump and get started into the project that we stop to ask the clients what's motivating this request why are you pursuing this right now why hasn't this worked in the past what problem does this solve for you if we start to have that kind of dialogue it will first a pump the breaks and put a pause on them dictating to us what it is that we should be doing and allow us to engage with the prospect in a more consultative way where we're rising in their eyes in esteem because we're helping them to focus on the real true problem underneath every problem or perceived problem is the true motivating factor and you have to ask questions to find out what that is I'll give you an example so if somebody says to you I need a new logo this is a pretty common request don't start talking about well what type faces are you thinking about what are your favorite colors what logos do you admire the most those seem to be the most typical questions somebody would ask this is us being kind of more of a of an ordert taker designer like do you want fries with that so here's what we do we're going to insert a little bit of something extra now I also want to caution you if you don't do anything other than logo design this may not be applicable to you okay but I'm talking to designers who are capable of thinking bigger and solving bigger problems you might say okay this is wonderful I would love to make you an incredible logo but before we do this what is driving this request and the clients May pause like oh no one's ever asked me this question before every other designer I've spoke to started getting into the work itself they could say well you know here's the thing I noticed that brands that are in our space have really professional looking logos and we don't have one in fact my cousin Vinnie designed this and I'm a little embarrassed and we're about to launch a a new product or service and we want to make sure moving forward that everything that we print and do looks premium so then you follow up with great thanks for sharing that with me I understand you want to make something look more professional that's more reflective of your brand values and your and your perceived quality let me ask you another question will changing your logo impact the business and how and let them describe that to you oh yes well I'll feel better and this is important I'll be proud and you know what we're actually going to print 100,000 pieces of a package I don't want to get the wrong logo I don't want to redo that that'll be embarrassing so what you're doing is you're contrasting the positive points about looking more prestigious reflecting the brand values and you're also looking at some of the negative outcomes in terms of getting it wrong so what's at stake if we do it well if we do it poorly and between that balance is where you're going to come in as a designer and be able to thread that needle and that's how you engage the client in a way that helps you to elevate Beyond being an order to Aker let me help you with a different framework or way of asking questions because I might be too complex and overwhelming for you this is where I'm going to reference Jonathan Stark he has the three why questions I'm going to first tell you what the questions are then I want to talk about tone and delivery because that matters a lot the first question is why this like why is it you want to do this and why not do something else that will get the clients to really stop and think and often times that's just enough to understand that this is necessary and we've considered other options besides this every once in a while the clients will say well I don't know that's a darn good question well what other options are there and then this is an invitation for you to contribute to the conversation and to engage in the client in a consultative way and this is a wonderful thing that's happening so then this is where you you can dig deeper the next why question is why now like why not do nothing why not not just stop and wait 6 months because if we can save you money by not doing anything why proceed this is a a combination of a couple different concepts and in the book win without pitching Manifesto Blair n says in a sales a buy s cycle what we want to do is Retreat and follow we want to retreat and see if the client will follow us in so by saying maybe the best course of action is to do nothing what happens is it it gets it it gets the prospect to think well no there's urgency behind this I need to do this now because X Y and Z depend on it we have a new product roll up um there's a new marketing director that's coming in they're going to want to see results so in that way you're you're asking the clients to check in with themselves to see if they want to move forward so you no longer have to convince them that they need to move forward now they convince themselves the last one is why me it's the hardest question to ask but it's as important as the others maybe even more important what this question is saying is of all the possible options of all the people that you could possibly work with why did you choose today to give up your very valuable time to speak to me and this is insight into the client's mind as to why they called you in the first place what is it that you saw in my body of work what did you hear who referred you what what search string did you find or what what piece of copy did you read on my site that made you think I would be a good candidate for this so simply ask why me you have many options why are we talking today and in this way again the clients are going to convince themselves by telling you why you're talking this also saves you from them asking you this question why should I hire you well they just told you so you no longer have to play defensive you can uh take the initiative to ask them this question up front now I want to talk a little bit about tone so if you deliver this in a in an aggressive um accusatory way it's not going to end up well for you like if you ask them say for example why me why would you ever hire me and you do it in that kind of tone they're like well really good question I have no idea why I'd hire you hang up the phone so you want to do it in what Chris Voss in his book never split the difference he describes it as the late night FM DJ voice I know that's a lot of words to remember just remember cool Jazz coasting as you're driving right slow deep methodical I'm curious you have a lot of options why choose to work with me and end it on an up note to insert a question it's not a statement why me see the difference one thing I try to impress upon people is your ability to anticipate next steps when we think about designing the optimal customer Journey we think about the client and what they do at every point of interaction at every point of contact so when a client works with you and they ask you to do one thing if you've done this properly you understand what the point of this request is what's motivating it what kind of outcome they're expecting so often times when when clients ask you to design a logo or a package or a website you need to keep in mind what else what else is behind this what other things need to be taken taken care of so that the clients get the outcome that they want think about this for example your asset is on a website and the problem is it's low converting and they think if they can get a couple more percentage in terms of conversion they're going to make another million dollars this is good news for you because you're going to be attached to this result and you design a website you do AB testing and you figure out all the user experience things except when the customers make a purchase you think your job is done and you go home you lie in your bed and you fall asleep and everything's okay but then the experience at that point could completely fall apart for example what else can we do about the packaging that creates the light and Amazon and and more more specifically glad to renew my Prime Membership every single year because of this and zapo did this also they would surprise customers with expedited shipping they might include something extra as a funny thing Johnny Cupcakes does this when you order a t-shirt sometimes he puts in a little gag gift or even money inside the box and these little bits of surprise and customer experience they Delight your customers and build loyal fans so when you're designing something for your client think about the entire experience and and see what else you can do to help them beyond the thing that you were asked to do one thing I want to share with you is something I've not been very good at myself admittedly I thought when clients hired us we were paid to do the best design work that we could do and that was the beginning and the end of the relationship I never really thought about customer service beyond that because I thought customer service do what you say you're going to do and then say what you're going to do but I realized then that's just what you paid for and so you want to think about your client relationship from beginning to end so for example we've talked about this before after you deliver a project put into your calendar a follow-up call to see if the clients have any issues any problems how sales are going are the conversions working and to monitor this with your client this keeps the relationship warm versus going cold I want to share a little story with you about customer service that kind of embarrassed me personally okay now I get this message on my voicemail and this is during the pandemic so I'm not in the office very much and I see the flashing light on my phone I checked the voicemail and it's from my real estate broker the person who helped me to buy the house that I'm living in and he said something like this he said Chris and Jesse Jesse is my wife's name I I just wanted to give you a little fun fact it's been 14 years since we helped you buy the your home I hope everything is going well with you and your kids and if you ever need anything let me know as always sincerely my broker and I was thinking wow he's built the system into his routine that he he will call because I assume I'm not so special that I'm the only person getting this call where he makes a note to call people on a on a specific anniversary it could be a time in which something launched a birthday a a wedding anniversary anything that's personal that connects us together gives him a reason to reach out and to show that he cared now here's the thing many years later my wife and I are going to sell our house and we we're going to sell our house and she asked me who should we call do you want to work with the same broker and without hesitation I said absolutely this person has kept a relationship with me for years and of all the Brokers I've worked with in my life he's the only one who's ever called to touch Bas to connect with me to make sure everything is good in fact he even follows me on social media and comments on my post now this is a person who understands customer service at the highest level so ask yourself this question what are you doing to build this kind of bond with your current and existing clients how are you handling your customer service and don't do like what I've done do as I say I want to introduce you to this concept it's called aidca and it helps you to design the ideal customer Journey the A is for awareness the I is for interest D is for design bu C is for conversion and a is for advocacy let's talk about this and how you want to design your relationship with your customer a when you when you think about it is about how clients find out about you and you want to sit down and think who are my clients what are their wants and needs what are their behaviors values habits opinions on things and where might I show up that is most relevant to where they're going to be some clients will spend time on Tik Tok some will spend time on Instagram or they'll read the Wall Street joural JN you have to figure that out and so what you want to do is to be at the right time at the right place and generate your own luck right so if they're going to spend a lot of time on LinkedIn because they're very business oriented you're going to want to post and share something that touches upon a problem that they're having or solution that they don't know that they're looking for that's how you build awareness and then you think about well what causes interest then well maybe they read this post and there's an extra downloadable thing for example if you were to to write an article that says here are the top three mistakes that entrepreneurs in this space make and that prevent them from growing to a multi-million dollar company and then they read that post and you say I just finished an additional seven points if you would like to read that please comment below with a special phrase like tell me more and that's permission from them to tell them more so then you could drop into their DMS and send them a link and follow up with them so that creates interest now when they receive this extra valuable piece of information and it's really good it can create desire so in this PDF thing that you share and it could be an ebook or anything that you put together a resource a template a guide anything you should probably include prompts and links back to your website and what's Happening Here is You're Building liability you're you're you're earning trust and they get a sense of who you are and that you're a person of interest and influence are like wow this is really cool uh seems to know what he's talking about maybe uh when the next project comes up I'm going to tell Mary and the marketing department to give Chris and his team a call and this moves us into desire so now you have a scheduled call with this prospect that you've planted a seed early on with a piece of content and now on the call you're doing what we talked about is you're diagnosing the problem you're listening carefully you're trying to surface the deeper motivations and you you come to some kind of insight with the prospect and so this along with your professionalism being prompt and a price matched against value gets them to convert this is the C and the aidc part and so you've made the sale they've agreed you have terms and you you're going to get to work and a lot of people stop here the last part of this is advocacy what are you doing to deliver Delight that this Prospect becomes your client and then becomes your biggest salesperson they're so happy and delighted with the work that anybody that comes close to this they're going to saywell you need to call Chris and his his team because they're the best bar none and then they go and tell more people and more people and they become an unpaid salesperson for you and how great would that sound so go ahead and sit down and map this out a i DCA and we'll provide you a template for that and you can just fill in how this customer journey is supposed to work and then once you fill out the ideal way that your customer is going to find you and how you're going to be able to convert them into an advocate you need to then write what kind of changes you need to make on your website in your Communication in your branding in your design in your copywriting and your overall brand experience to ensure that this is the likely outcome in this next part I want to talk about having a clear process system and being transparent with your clients so let me let me ask you this question if you were to hire someone and they walked you through the entire process would you feel more confident hiring them versus someone who seems to be making it up on the fly so this is what we know people who have been in business who are professionals have seen the same problem over and over again and when you do that you start to pick up on patterns and so you anticipate things happening here's the example if you designed logos for a living and you've done this for a number of years you probably need certain pieces of information from the client and you know what you have to deliver to them to make sure that it's a successful project for them and for you so when you're onboarding the client you might say okay here's a couple things I need from you to start and I need answers to a couple other things so that I can deliver this to you how would this be used what applications what resolutions that do you need so that I'm going to take all this into consideration n said this when there's low variance in process there's low variance in outcome the greater the variance in outcome the higher the risk you seem to be it's important for you to have a clear process and framework and be transparent with what it is you're doing from the very beginning your very first call to production and to delivery and the followup let me give you an example because most people tend to overlook what happens after you deliver a project the followup that I'm talking about let's say you asked to build a website when people bid on a website they think about all the parts like information architecture copywriting content design user experience user interface all the assets the deliverables but they don't think about what happens after they don't think about the maintenance part when you deliver a website there's bound to be other issues that crop up that you cannot anticipate in the build of it and so if somebody's been building a lot of websites they probably will just say to you you know what many clients ask me design a website for them but what they don't often think about is what happens afterwards in terms of updating copy and images and adding certain functions and features that we can't think of right now and also just making sure we're compliant with Google search and so therefore what I've done is I've anticipated this and built in an affordable maintenance program that you can extend every 6 months if you're interested in this I'm happy to proceed with this if not we will just deliver the main site now what this is communicating to the is this is obviously not your first rodeo you've done this for many clients and you've seen the problem and you're so thorough in your process that you can even anticipate what's going to happen after you deliver I think this is a really smart strategy and a way to make more money but also deliver better service to your client most creatives falsely assume that clients want you to spend more time working on something and therefore are working harder and earning your money when in in fact what they care about is saving time to get something done faster while getting the desired outcome and result that they're looking for so first and foremost they want the outcome to be there but if they can get it delivered quicker it's worth more to them they will actually pay more to get something done in less time and this is true in almost every aspect of our life like if you want to cut the line if you want to avoid the line at Disney there's a special pass that you can buy for that if you want premium seating at a game you can pay for that so and and also if you want to board first on airplane it's called first class and you can pay for that and so often times we get messed up in our mind to think that well if I work on this for more hours the client's perception is is going to be more valuable to them when in fact most clients just want to get the project done as soon as possible think in your own life think about anytime you've ever had a problem would you have paid more to get it done faster or pay more to have it done slower like right now I'm talking and delivering this course I want drapery so I can control the light in this room and if the vendor could deliver to me faster it would be worth more to me and even if I didn't pay more I would be a happier customer to know that my gosh the turnaround in this is so incredibly fast high quality work plus speed and efficiency and delivery saving me time allows me to concentrate on my next set of problems this is why it's important for you to develop systems and protocols to be as efficient as possible while maintaining the quality of your work here's a little tip tip that I saw uh none other than Aaron James drain do and I thought it was really kind of remarkable in terms of saving time and it showed that he does this often so anytime you ever watch Aaron work you'll see that he has mockups ready to go built into his palet and illustrator so a t-shirt a cap an apron or whatever else he's used to designing chachis for or whatever he has that built into his library and so when when he's he's demonstrating how to design a logo he's not searching on his hard drive for the file he's already built it into to his pallets so that he can just quickly pull them out and drop the logo in this is one kind of way of being more efficient with your design and showing that you're a professional that you've done this many many times before so if you just think of that example and look across the entire spectrum of the things that you do try to systematize as much as you can so that you're spending more of your creative thinking power in in the work itself and not looking for assets and it's like oh my gosh where's that file I can never find it let me give you two pro tips to help you stand out from the competition number one is when you're talking to clients and you're still in the onboarding process to get them to sign on the dotted line it's super important for you to follow up with an email to summarize the key points that you've talked about I got to tell you this seems so obvious and so simple to do but yet so few people do it that when you do it it's going to be like a breath of fresh air like wow this person captured everything that we wanted to do and they totally get us and they're super clear if this is what it's going to be like to work with them I can't wait to sign on the dotted line and I do this for their benefit and I do it for my own because if you're talking to five 10 different clients a month you're going to forget what's important but at least you can go back and look at your emails and say oh my gosh this is what we agree to this is what's important so that if the client says yep we're ready to sign on the do line you can go back to that document and not be fumbling around with like where did I write that note it's shared between you and your client one additional tip to that is to make sure you include the line did I miss anything or would you like to clarify anything that opens up the invitation you have to remember a previous uh point that we made was the client's time is Super valuable the fact that you took notes shows that you value their time and also the more time they invest in you the more likely they are going to proceed with working with you it's a good sign when clients interact with you tip number two is often times clients will say um I'm not ready to purchase right now or I'm still thinking about it can you send something over so I can review it with my team and maybe the creative who couldn't be on this call today and you're like what do I send and so you send them a Dropbox link with a bunch of loose files maybe you might send them to a website page but none of those things communicate that I'm a professional I've done this before so what they're asking you for is a capabilities deck and you should have one prepared already that from time to time you tweak like every 3 to six months especially when you can update it with new relevant projects what I have is a master's capabilities Deck with a whole bunch of different projects and then I I go in and I curate and select specific ones that are relevant to the client so I'll probably pick three so in my capabilities deck I will show relevant work I'll talk about the problem the solution and the impact and I will include bios on my team and the services that we provide and sometimes I'll include like a price sheet outlining the services that we do with a price attached in terms of like broad ranges and this is a good Standalone document that's well-designed great topography brand is on point well written colors are all there contrast great and when you send this through they're like wow this is such a professional company they have a whole team here's what they do this is their process and this is the work that we might do with them you might also include things like testimonials and you only need a handful of those like little quotes and you might include a logo quilt a grid of logos of companies you've worked with or for you'll want to do this because most creatives neglect to put something like this together and if you want to Rise Above the Rest spend the time energy and effort to put something professional together and especially when it's slow and you have nothing to do this is a great thing to work on one mistake that creatives commit all the time is they go broad because they think I can try to get as many clients in as many different Industries as possible but in fact when you do that you don't develop deep expertise and knowledge about a specific Market or vertical imagine two creatives walk in talking to a prospect at different times one creative works with the bakery uh consumer package Goods technology companies and fem tech let's say and they're talking to someone who is very specifically making like some uh bespoke product for men Men's Grooming and they're going like well I kind of like the body of work but I don't see anything in here uh can you can you speak to work that you've done that's relevant to this and they're going to scramble and it's the ice dance you know when you stand on Ice you're slipping the entire time I st take designer number two who only works in men's health care products not necessarily just Men's Grooming but just health care products they have experience with brands that are in the same vertical perhaps they've worked with a competitor or someone in the supply chain and what happens is when when two strangers get together we're looking for points of commonality what do we have in common so when they see that you've worked with someone that they know and recognize instantly Rapport is built like oh my gosh you worked with that company oh say hi to Bob for me and now you already have the inside track but more importantly to the client's business you understand things about their industry and their business that they might not even yet know because they're so deep inside the jar if you will so as an outside consultant with a fresh perspective with a broader view of the landscape of the industry and the vertical that they're in you can provide a tremendous amount of value to them now if you were the prospect who would you choose designer one or designer number two this is why it's really important for you to have deep knowledge in a single vertical and be successful at doing this before you expand wide so once you're able to secure a client what you'll want to do is to do the proper amount of research and learning and to not to make any assumptions the best source is to speak to the client and to the client's team because they are boots on the ground and they're closest to the customer but you also want to cross reference this against social media posts because sometimes people are a little self- delusional in terms of how great their product and service is and how much their clients love them or their customers love them and so if you check on social and and it all lines up for five star reviews raving fans then you can say okay the assumptions are correct but every once in a while you can find and discover something that the clients weren't aware of and bring to their attention it is important how you bring this to their attention and not just throw it in their face because it can come across as insulting and you being a know- at all you definitely want to avoid that so what I like to do is anytime I'm working on a new project I want to dive deep into the client's business I want understand who their customers are I want to know especially who their competitors are and what their unique selling proposition is that's a fancy word to saying what makes them different and what we want to do is we want to celebrate the difference and not hide from this is how we create a distinction in the marketplace and cut through the noise when you have the complete context of the client's business and how things are being used first of all that creates a much more informed point of view for you to come up with meaningful Solutions I don't know about you but when I don't know enough about the problem I could stare at a blank screen and be stuck for a really long time conversely when I know what the challenges are and things to avoid the parameters and the guide rails it's super quick for for me to come up with ideas when you understand the totality of the context of how things are being used and the challenges surrounding them you can provide better informed solutions to the client and by doing so your clients are going to pick up that you care and you're invested in their business so let me share a couple like business insights with you on how corporations work number one some clients have a budget that's under discretionary budget where if they spend spend less than this amount no one else has to approve it so if you know this amount and you have this kind of Report with your clients you probably want to submit the bid just underneath that number so that's one one Insider tip and if you haven't been in business long enough this can be critical for you tip number two is sometimes clients have sticker shock when you submit a proposal everybody agrees the value is there but they look at the price and like we can't do this now and so this is where I I want to introduce you the concept of of a phased engagement where you can break up one big number into multiple payments across time which will make it more palatable for them so in the case that a client is working with a quarterly budget you can break it across a three-month payment cycle you're still going to get paid you're just giving the clients more flexible payment terms and therefore making it easier for them to say yes thank you for participating in my class I hope that you found it helpful and are feeling more confident to stand out in your Market