The Friday Freelancer #011: Attract raving fans by adding these 8 important frameworks.

Hey! Huw here.

Happy Friday to over 700 new freelancers who have joined us.

Today's issue is about getting organised in your design business using frameworks.

What we are going to talk about is your client experience journey.

Enjoy!

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Firstly what is a client experience journey?

This phrase refers to the way your clients travel through your business. More importantly, it's defining what kind of experience they will feel at any given stage.

This is important because the experience a client has with you can define your business and personal brand. It can help you position yourself at a higher price point.

In this article, I'm going to break down each of the 8 stages you can have in your design business.

ps. it's worth noting that you don't have to have all 8 stages in your business. Remember it's your business so make it work for you.

(1) Initial Enquiry

This is the first stage a potential client or 'lead' enquires about your services. This can often come from a direct email, post engagement, or other direct marketing efforts.

(2) Discovery

This is where you actively ask questions to understand their pains, needs, and frustrations. For you to figure out whether you can help then or not. This is often on a quick phone call or in conversation in messages or email.

(3) Offer

Once you have discovered what the lead wants and you've decided that you can indeed help them. You will want to make them an offer. This can be done in many forms. Often it's a proposal of works, which may include a list of services, deliverables, and/or project timelines. Or it can be any number of offer combinations, eg. packages or subscription-based.

(4) Onboarding

This stage is often overlooked by many designers. I'm not sure if you succumbed to this but I certainly did early on in my career. Sometimes we are too excited about getting a new client that we forget to onboard them properly. We think YAY I have some money! And then forget about them.

In my opinion, it's really important to make your new client feel special. By that, I don't mean sending them flowers and chocolates! No, I mean try using this onboarding stage for the following:

• thank them for signing on and trusting you
• set some ground rules on when/how they can contact you
• show them your design process
• show them previous client wins or testimonials

(5) Service Delivery

The juicy stage, getting the sh%t done! This is where you're delivering your service to the client, pretty simple.

(6) Client relationship

I would recommend you stay in communication with your clients regularly and try to capture as much feedback as possible. For longer projects, you can also use this to capture positive feedback or testimonials at various points in the project. These can be used later in your case studies.

(7) Offboarding

Similar to onboarding but this time it's when the project is complete and has been delivered successfully. This is a great time to request a text or video testimonial when the energy is high. with the client and both parties are happy.

ps. this stage is super valuable! Don't wait weeks or months to send a testimonial request when the client has moved on to other projects. You want to capture their words at the best time and that is when they are riding high when you have delivered them an amazing service and experience.

(8) Next steps

This is the last stage in the client experience journey and is often overlooked. This is where you can let your client know how they can continue to work with you. If you design websites perhaps you set up a retainer or monthly maintenance contract.

This stage can also be very effective when added to your offboarding sequence.

Final thoughts

Well done for getting this far! You must be an action-taker.

That were the 8 important frameworks you should add to your own client experience journey. I hope you liked it.

For me, the most important stages, apart from delivery, are the on and offboarding stages to your business. If you implement those two correctly it can be a game changer.

If you are wondering how to add these stages to your own business, you have permission to email or DM me for more information.

All of this and more are explained and taught in my 1:1 coaching program called The Six Figure Designer.

Ask me about how one client increased his revenue by 40% and how you can do the same.

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That's it for today's newsletter, have a great weekend!

Huw :)