Communicating clearly is the key!

Hello, Visitor (-:

I’ve been away on business for a while and thank you for your patience as I continue this blog post series on Learning from Difficult Clients.

This post is my brief advice and opinion on communicating clearly during the first initial project brief or meeting. In my personal freelance experience, listening to the client’s problem, engaging, and giving feedback during the initial project briefing is critical to achieving the very best design solution along with eliminating or greatly reducing the cost of redo’s.

Misunderstandings, not engaging the client, and getting all the details upfront can cause unnecessary loss of time and money through, numerous redos and loss of credibility. I make sure to document meeting details in writing and follow-up client project briefing details in my proposals before they sign off to begin work.

I use FreshBooks.com for documenting, invoicing and client account management. It’s an excellent app for Freelancers.

Overall a professional project briefing was done by preplanning, listening, asking questions, and engaging the client can save valuable time, money, and help build a long-lasting relationship with the client.

The next post will touch on follow-up on the client and maintaining that relationship to grow a client base and help with self-marketing.

Tags | client, communication, designer, freelance