The 6‑Star Client Experience That Doubles Referrals & Repeat Work

379. 6 Star Client Experience

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Brian: [00:00:00] Referrals is the lifeblood of most freelancers, which is unfortunate because you can't just go out there and get a client on demand whenever you want through referrals. But that doesn't mean referrals are bad. Anything that brings in a client is not inherently bad.

Brian: It's just when we rely on that thing as our only source of clients is when it becomes bad. But if we're only relying on referrals or we just want a healthy business, I ask you this question, how can we get the absolute most referrals possible? That's what I'm gonna dive into with this episode. Now, I'm gonna walk you through how to provide a client experience that is so amazing.

Brian: They would feel stupid. Not referring you to their peers. no, that's stolen from, how to make an offer so good that people feel stupid saying no to it. But the point remains, it's not a three star experience. It's not a four star experience, not even a five star experience.

Brian: It is a six star experience. It is that mythical. Unattainable thing. There are not six star hotels out there. By the way. You've heard of three star hotels. Four star hotels. You've heard of five Star hotels. Maybe even some of you lucky people have stayed at five Star hotels, but you've never stayed at a real six star hotel because they do not [00:01:00] exist.

Brian: Now, there are hotels out there that market themselves as six star hotels, but there's no true six star hotel,

Brian: at least not officially.

Brian: But it is something to strive towards, and as a freelancer, you can striveto not just offer a four or a five star experience, but offer a true six star experience so that your clients would feel stupid, not referring you to someone else.

Brian: Now after working with over 500 clients myself over the last 15 ish years, I've had a lot of at bats with this. I've seen what works really well. I've seen what works, plain, terribly great way to ruin client relationships. And I've seen what's just kind of, know, what's kind of mid and mid is not good enough to be referred.

Brian: Mid is not good enough for a three star hotel.Min is kinda like a two star hotel and none of us wants to be a two star hotel. So this episode, I'm gonna dive into all of what I feel is a six star experience for your clients. And the fourth part of this episode is what 99% of freelancers just never do, and you are missing out on a lot of referrals and repeat work just because of that one thing. Now, if you're new here. Hi, I'm Brian Hood. Welcome to the six Figure Creative Podcast. This podcast is for you. If you are a creative freelancer.

Brian: you offer your skills as a service [00:02:00] and you wanna make more money from your creative skills without selling your soul, you're in the right spot. If that sounds good to you,

Brian: On this podcast, I take a lot of outside influence from not just the different freelancers that I see and work with, but other industries altogether that have a completely different approach where they have really solved the problem.

Brian: They call it a solved problem. A solved problem is something that has already been solved, right? sounds legit. And yet freelancers try to solve problems in a way that is not the best practice because they are trying to solve a problem they have never solved before. When another industry has mastered the solving of that problem, why would we us plebeian basic freelancers who are unsophisticated, have very little experience running businesses? Why would we not just follow the best practices of what other industries have done? That's what this podcast is all about in a multitude of different ways.

Brian: So let's first talk, what actually makes it a six star experience instead of a five star experience? We're getting to subjectiveness here. A six star experience is truly subjective. The things I cover in this episode is my best attempt at giving you a way to provide a six star experience to your clients.

Brian: But it's not just that you did the work well, it's not just that you're good at what you do. It is not just that your [00:03:00] client liked, how the process went or liked the end result, it's that through the entire experience from start to finish and beyond, that's a big key and beyond.

Brian: They felt guided. They had fewer questions than they expected. They got clarity. They didn't expect, they had aha moments, they had friction removed that they didn't even realize was there. They felt confident referring you without being asked because they think damn. This is smoother than I ever thought it would be.

Brian: This is an amazing experience. that is what creates loyalty, referrals, repeat business, a pricing moat, so you're not just directly compared to other freelancers,

Brian: and it is building up a bunch of little things to include that experience. Anyone who stayed at a five star hotel or a truly luxury resort or somewhere just really damn nice, you can start to see. All the little things at the hotels that they do to make your experience just that much better.

Brian: The tiny little things, and it's those tiny little things.

Brian: It's the turn down service, it's the chocolate on the pillow, it's the 24 hour room service. It's the overall design and aesthetic.

Brian: It's them putting your bags away into your room while you're checking in, so you don't even have to [00:04:00] think about it. all those little things add up to the five star experience. It's not just one thing.

Brian: So let's talk through the things that I think make up a six star experience for most freelancers. The first thing is just onboarding. that reduces anxiety, instantly reduces anxiety. When you think about somebody who just paid you on the low end, hundreds of dollars on the high end, thousands, tens of thousands, sometimes six figures plus for your services, think about the anxiety that that comes with.

Brian: Somebody's saying, yes, I'm going to invest with you. is likely a significant amount of money for me or my business.

Brian: And God, I hope this goes well. There's a lot of anxiety with that. it's impossible for it not to be. Think about anytime that much money's at stake Everybody has their own emotional junk around money. whether you feel like you do or you think you don't, you have emotional junk around money.And what a lot of freelancers tend to do is they get the money. They maybe send a confirmation. Thanks so much. I got the payment. Can't wait to start. And then it's basically crickets until when, with a kickoff call, the first email you send out, they don't know when that is. So think about the first thing you could do during onboarding to reduce anxiety.

Brian: That is send a welcome [00:05:00] video or a voice note, preferably, or a loom video or even worst case scenario. You write it all out. Here's exactly what's gonna happen. Here's when things are gonna happen and here's how we're gonna work together.

Brian: That alone reduces anxiety. They know what to expect.

Brian: Simply ask yourself, are you doing this or not? Most freelancers aren't doing this, I'm gonna be honest with you here, some of the things on this list today, I don't do myself, this is an episode for me to challenge myself to think through. What do I want to include in my six star client experience?

Brian: I still have a ways to go. A lot of these things we do, some of these things we're rolling out, some things we haven't done yet, but all of these things can be done. Next is just gather the info that matches the client. So you think through the process, you've gathered the money, you're onboarding the client.

Brian: You need to get information actually to fulfill in your services Freelancers make the mistake in one of two ways. Way. One tends to be that they don't know their client well enough especially in the B2B space, they're busy.

Brian: They got a million things going on, they got a million other problems, and you ask for too much information upfront. Things you could just, basic things you could have gathered by yourself. So you don't wanna hand a high-end client paying you tens of thousands of dollars, an onboarding questionnaire with [00:06:00] 30 long form open-ended questions.

Brian: In these cases, you can afford to hunt and dig and find any information you possibly can in order to start basically pre-onboarding the client instead of asking them.

Brian: So for high-end clients, you basically hunt and then you try to send them the minimum viable, effective dose of questions in order to get started on the kickoff call. but low to mid value clients, you can't really afford to do this.

Brian: You can't afford to invest the time, effort, energy in order to hunt down all the questions you need for onboarding.

Brian: And so in this case, which is most free interest cases, you can kind of create an onboarding form that gathers all relevant information for the project.

Brian: what I tell people here is your onboarding forum should gather. All the information you would need in order to kick off the project without anything else.

Brian: That's a good starting point, and then from there you can decide, hey, what makes more sense to discuss on the kickoff call versus to try to explain in writing on an onboarding form. Those are the things you can start to pull back on, but start from, I am taking this information in and I have to start the project with the information they give me, and I cannot ask any other follow up questions.

Brian: That's a great place to start. Because nothing's worse than having to send [00:07:00] follow up after follow up, after follow up, askingfor more and more and more and more things you forgot to gather during the onboarding phase. And this is especially after you've already done the kickoff call and everything should be ready to kick off, and you're like, oh, I forgot.

Brian: What's your X, Y, and Z? How do I Look at this. What do you want with this? it looks unprofessional and it's a very bad experience for the client. So, at this point, during this six star onboarding experience, you have set all the expectations. You sent them a nice note, maybe even a welcome gift in this case. you sent them a nice video going over all the details of what to expect. You've gathered all the information.

Brian: The next part of this is what I call the roadmap. This is basically a document that has the scope of all the things, the relevant links that you might need in order to show your client what you had in mind for the vision, the deliverables, the timeline, goals, expectations, all these things that,

Brian: think through and you have this in your head, but you haven't put it on a document to essentially pitch to your client because the kickoff call is basically your chance to resell them on the vision that you had in the first place for their project. and then to change things up, if that vision doesn't align with what they had in mind, because the goal is before you ever create one single [00:08:00] deliverable for the client, They are a hundred percent signed on and excited for what you had in mind.

Brian: Now, here's one final bonus for onboarding that I,don't think many people have ever done before, and I think this is a really good chance for you to. If you work in a problematic client group where you just work with a lot of bad clients because of the niche you're in, that happens, you can create what I call a here's how to be a good client cheat sheet.

Brian: It's just like, here's all the ways to be a great client so that I can actually help you the most. And if you work in a B2B space, or you work with clients that you actually like working with and you just occasionally have. Clients that rear their ugly heads in ways that are unproductive. You can reframe it as like, here's how to get the most outta working with me.

Brian: Depends on the niche and who you're working with, But I really like the idea of every freelancer having a document like this that they give out during onboarding, usually after the kickoff call, but you could put it really anywhere you want, that they can go through and say, okay, I now understand the best way to collaborate, best way to get feedback.

Brian: The best way to, trust the freelancer. The best way to, again, all the things that you've seen clients do that are [00:09:00] unproductive, try not to be extremely nitpicky here, and you want to write this from the perspective of. I want you to get out of your own damn way so that we can have a better end product.

Brian: That's probably the best way to approach that. This is optional, but I like this. And I think most freelancers can and should have some equivalent of this in, they're working with clients. 'cause if you think about it, in many cases, they've never worked with.

Brian: Your thing before, could be their first website for web designer. It might be their first full branding project. If it's a new business, it might be the first album. If it's a band being recorded, it might be the first time they've hired a copywriter to write something for them or to write their website or their sales page or VSL or whatever.

Brian: can't expect them to know intuitively how it is to properly work with someone. Of your caliber doing what you're doing, especially if you are at higher level. It could be the first time they've ever worked with a Grammy winning producer. It could be the first time they've ever worked with a high-end copywriter.

Brian: You,you just don't know. So think of it as your chance to educate them on what is the best way to get the most out of yourself and your work so that you can have a nice, productive, happy, healthy relationship.

Brian: another way of reframing this is an analogy just so you get this, is [00:10:00] if you've never stayed at a five star hotel or like a truly luxurious resort, you may not have any idea how to get the most out of those, amenities that they have.You don't know how. To book a spa, you didn't even know they had a pickleball court. You didn't even know how to do X, Y, and Z. There's just little things that the first time somebody stays at a very nice place. They may not know what to do.

Brian: They may not know how to tip properly. These sorts of things can help someone be a better customer at a resort. Better enjoy their time at a resort.

Brian: But I've never seen a hotel do this before. right, let's get to the next thing. So we've got through the onboarding stuff, and that's a huge part of this. They wanna feel, they coddled, taken care of. Remember six stars, truly luxurious.

Brian: which by the way, if you want my, ultimate five part onboarding process, you can go to six figure creative.com/onboarding. It has like a full PDF that goes over five different stages of onboarding process.

Brian: Some of this stuff's in there, some of it's not. It's more of like a tactical guide and you can kind of like overlay some of the stuff. I just talked about that to bring it up to like a six star level. So that's again, six figure creative.com/onboarding. If you haven't gotten that guide, it's really good.

Brian: I was like re-reviewing it before this episode just to see if I wanted to pull anything from it, and I did. [00:11:00] But now we're gonna get into the second part of this, and that is delivery that feels collaborative and predictable. Nothing is worse than going through awonderful, flawless onboarding process. And then you have a kickoff call. And you present a nice roadmap to them, your vision for the project, you've pitched it to them. Maybe there's a couple little things you need to change up.

Brian: They're excited, they sign off on it, they're ready to get going, and then crickets. A week goes by, two weeks go by, three weeks go by. They haven't heard from you, they haven't gotten anything from you. you're off in your cave. You're working hard, you're building all the assets out, all the elements out.

Brian: You're just tweaking knobs and dialing things. You're just doing the thing, right? Nothing about that is luxurious, collaborative, predictable. Nothing about that experience is six star. so there's a few things you can do here to have a better experience with your clients so that they feel cared for, they feel taken care of,

Brian: they feel.

Brian: Luxuriated made up a word for you?first is just use a, check-in rhythm, with a kinda a standard format. And this is for some freelancers, especially like music producers. You are in the studio with a client every day, so this isn't necessary for you.

Brian: This, one part,[00:12:00] still listens in head because if, when you get to the mixing phases, or if ever just mix an album, the stuff matters. But for most freelancers, you're not directly interfacing with the client every day, right? So using a nice weekly check-in rhythm or, twice a week, even sometimes is a good place to start.

Brian: the way you wanna do this is say it's every Friday, you're gonna give an update on what you did This week you're gonna ask for anything you need. You're gonna explain the next steps of what they can expect next week. And then you wanna never go more than one week without updating your client.

Brian: And when you're doing these looms, a great thing for this, like loom is like my favorite thing ever. ' cause you get so much nuance, the tonality, nothing's lost in translation with when you write things out. Some people just write very cold, even if you're an excited type person. Now granted, some of you are robots and.

Brian: Cave dwellers, and you should never make a loom video for your clients. In which case, if that's you, just write it out, that's fine. But you wanna show your thinking and not just your output. Don't just show, here's all the shit I did miss your client. Show your thinking behind it. I thought this was a good decision because of X, Y, and Z.

Brian: I heard this and I thought, wow, this is amazing for you guys.

Brian: again, we're trying to do delivery that feels collaborative [00:13:00] and predictable.

Brian: So from here we wanna decide on your collaboration hub. Think about where's all of this collaboration going to live. Now there's specialized tools like frame.io for video. There's file pass for audio, there's Figma for design, which can be web design or brand design.

Brian: All those are fine. Usually something with a good commenting system, so where they can comment specifically on a specific thing. So Figma, you can put like a point. On the video at the timestamp and leave a comment there. File pass. You can put timestamp at the specific part of the audio file visually where you want the change to be done.

Brian: And you can do comments and sub replies. And I know it turns into like a checklist that you can check off when you've done the revision. and they all reference the source material that you're collaborating on. and again, if there's a specialized type of software for your niche, go with that.

Brian: Start there. See if that works well for you. There's also things like HoneyBook. I have worked with a brand designer and HoneyBook, and it was a pretty good experience for me as a client. the tool is less relevant than how you use it. So the question is, can you wield it correctly instead of like.

Brian: Getting it and half setting it up, but not really getting overwhelmed and not [00:14:00] wanting to use it. So you never actually use it. And then you get a client in there and you don't know how to use it. So you never train them on how to use it. So they never really use it correctly. And so you have this really like shitty collaboration process.

Brian: We don't want that. That's a really bad way to use a good tool. So if none of those make sense, Keep it simple. Just find one place to centralize everything about the project. It could be Slack, which is me. It could be Twist, which is way better. Check out twist.com I have no affiliation with them. I don't get paid by them. I just use them for two of my companies.

Brian: You can even just use a, a shared Google Doc or doc, where you just have all of the each version in like kind of a timeline view. You can use the comments. I mean there's a million ways to use Google Docs, something like that. You could also use Basecamp. I've heard people using Basecamp for collaborating with clients because you have projects and you have chat in there and you can upload files and comment on things.

Brian: Like, again, I don't really care what tool you use. Just find something that actually allows you. To collaborate in one central area that's easy for the clients to use. For example, file Pass, my company audio collaboration software. We wanted to make it easy for the clients. So do we make the clients sign up for an account in order to leave feedback and comments?

Brian: No. The [00:15:00] last thing I want is for every single client I send a file to for them to have to create a damn account go to their text or their email and get the. Code to put in the thing to activate their account, or, I don't wanna do all that stuff. I just want my clients to leave comments, right?

Brian: So we keep it completely gateless. if you send 'em a file, you can put a passer on if you want. They can comment on things. They can just put their name in manually and then put their comments on things. And that's basically it. It's super easy for the clients to do. So whatever you use, make sure it's easy for theirclients.

Brian: Now, Basecamp might be overkill because they have to create an account to collaborate. They'll log into a thing, right? But some clients might love that. I dunno, it depends on your niche, depends on your clients. Same with Slack, same with Twist. Google Docs, most people have a Google account of some sort, so that's a lot less friction notion.

Brian: If they have notions of great collaboration toolfor a bunch of different reasons, you could probably create a great collaborationhub in notion.

Brian: If your client uses notion,

Brian: but the goal here is to create a place to track decisions and approvals somewhere visible so you can keep up with progress over time. You have a place to look back over changes

Brian: and ultimately prevent backtracking. It keeps the project moving forward. This is [00:16:00] something that I struggle with with clients, was before I had a really good revision process in place and collaboration process in place, we had projects that would go for like version 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. Final two, final three, final 3.2.

Brian: Awful experience for both. And what I found was generally after version four or five, definitely six, we start going backwards. Because if you look at the previous revisions they're asking for, they're now negating themselves.

Brian: They're essentially revising their own revisions, and that's,a terrible place to be. it's not a good experience for either side, but when you have an all in one clear place, you can have honest conversations with your client. And just because you're a six star resort doesn't mean you don't have bad clients or bad customers in a resorts case that you have to talk to about issues.

Brian: Humans are humans. So you can still have a six star experience that requires tough conversations with your clients. But if you don't have this nice backlog of all the shit you've done together where you can point to and say, Hey, you asked for this, and then you ask for [00:17:00] that, and that contradicts what you asked for before.

Brian: So I think we need to reset our process here and go back to where we were, because now we're actually going backwards in this project.

Brian: Next thing we wanna do is normalize co-creation. When you're working with a client, a lot of times it can be easy to just go off one direction, do a bunch of work, and then say, Hey, Mr. Client, What do you think? A lot of times, that can work out. But sometimes they're like, that is so far off than what we thought.

Brian: You're gonna have to undo all of that. and not only are you pissed because you just did all that work, Mr. Freelancer or Mrs. Freelancer, then we have to undo. I'm pissed because you went away for three weeks and hecame back with something I hate. So when he normalized co-creation.

Brian: You're able to loop them in early in the direction setting process and on each revision of things that you're doing and not what most famous to do is just reviewing it all after it's done. now, obviously you wanna gauge their interest or their, availability or their, even their wherewithal, even know how to collaborate with you during the onboarding process.

Brian: Some niches,it's gonna be busy. Clients they don't have time to,essentially micromanage you. And in those cases, maybe the best practice is just do the work and update 'em every Friday. Great. Some clients. Are not gonna have the skillset [00:18:00] required to really collaborate. So if you do collaborate with 'em or give them some direction stuff early on, you've gotta really hold their hand and make sure they know how to do it correctly without screwing your stuff up.

Brian: And then some clients are very much like a peer-to-peer type relationship. They know how to collaborate well. You're at a good high level, so you can actually have very productive collaborations together during the project. So know your client first and foremost.

Brian: But this will save you a bunch of time. It'll save you a bunch of frustration. It'll save your client a bunch of time. It'll save your client from a bunch of frustration. So it's a win, win, win, win all around here.

Brian: And finally, when you're working on projects, set deadlines on both sides during the actual delivery phase. There was a brand designer that we worked with for six figure Creative. And this is the first time I'd really experienced this. And I thought this was one of the best experiences from a timeline perspective, of anyone that I had worked with before. And here's what he did, I love this process. Hard to do because it puts pressure on you as well, but it ultimately is better for everyone involved.

Brian: So what he did was he said, Hey, Mr. Bryant, here's how this is gonna go down. This is the date that I'm gonna deliver your first version. I need revisions by this date. If you get revisions by this [00:19:00] date, I'll get the next version on this date, and then I'll need revisions by that date and so on and so forth.

Brian: And here's the final delivery. And so he set deadlines for himself to get things done, turn in deliverables, and he also set deadlines for me to give revisions. that kept me on track to actually give feedback sooner rather than later.

Brian: Because I'm a busy person. I got a lot of irons on the fire. I can maybe put that stuff on the back burner for way too long if I didn't have the deadline. And the deadline had a negative attached to it. He didn't say, Hey, if you don't get this back to me in time, we're gonna push the entire project back and maybe delay it for months.

Brian: He didn't say that, but it's implied. I know that if I don't get the revisions to him by this date, I'm not gonna get the next thing by the date that he told me and it's gonna push the whole project back. So it kept me on track. It kept him on track. It was a good experience for me.

Brian: It was a good experience for him. I think maybe he can say something.

Brian: But it was a five or six star experience, that part of it.

Brian: Let's talk about the third part here. So we've talked through onboarding, we've talked through the delivery. part is. Offboarding. offboarding that actually drives word of mouth. You ever heard the term offboarding? It's the opposite of onboarding. Onboarding is ramping the client up.

Brian: Offboarding is ramping the client down. You're wrapping the project up,

Brian: the way most [00:20:00] freelancers do this is they say, Hey, Mr. And Mrs. Client, here's an email with an attachment with a bunch of shit in it. I might write two or three bullet points on everything that's in here. Been great working with you. Bye-bye. And they just fuck off into the sunset

Brian: again. If you don't like money, if you hate referrals, keep doing that. Here's what I suggest you consider

Brian: when you finish the project, It's best to write up a recap that reframes what you helped them accomplish. we went from X to Y in the last six months,

Brian: and you wanna write this for the client, not for yourself. And here's what I mean. Some clients want metrics, they want numbers, they want results. And if that's the type of client. Then that sort of like framework for yourrecap email is gonna be, Hey, we went from this to that. These metrics to those metrics and this amount of time, it resulted in this revenue, whatever.

Brian: But some clients, they want emotion, they want feeling, they want vibes and they don't want a bunch of spreadsheet numbers. In the recap email. Hey, we did your brand in the last six months, and if we look at you before, that brand did not match who you [00:21:00] are as a human. And now we have this brand that is so much more empowering for you, Mr.

Brian: Or Mrs. Business owner. I'm not good at the emotion part, so forgive me if that's not a great email, but you wanna write it to the person, not to yourself. You can be super metrics driven and you still need to soften it up a bit for the emotional type client.

Brian: But a recap email basically just reminds them of all the value you've created for them, all that you've accomplished in the amount of time that you work together,

Brian: because we can look fondly over the past. Now It also could be good to include kind of a post project resource or checklist. Like, Hey, here's how to make the most out of the work that we just did.

Brian: now this is optional, this is only if it makes sense where what you offer is complicated or what you deliver is complicated or there's a lot of moving parts and they just wanna make sure they know how to use it all. an example would be if you're a branding designer and you deliver, you'll get a full brand package with branding guidelines and a bunch of elements.

Brian: It's probably good to say, here's maybe how to use these things the absolute best. From there, you can ask for feedback. We always want to ask for feedback before testimonials, before we ask for reviews, before we ask for referrals, so that we can actually use what they say. So first of all, when you [00:22:00] ask for feedback, if you didn't give them the outcome they wanted, then you don't deserve a review.

Brian: You don't deserve a referral. You only deserve to get better. And this, I wanna stop here and just highlight this. If you are not good at what you do, if the end product is not good. Your creative skillset isn't at the level that it needs to be. You will never be a six star freelancer.

Brian: I could go buy a Motel six and implement an onsite restaurant, a spa room service, put a pool in. I could do all these things, but still a Motel six. It's still very mid experience. The rooms still kind of suck. The beds are really uncomfortable. Cheap sheets, cheap comforters.

Brian: Probably got some stains on the pillow or something. I don't know. I don't wanna think about, it. Doesn't deserve a six star rating, right? And some of you freelancers, if you're being honest with yourself, are that type of freelancer, you're not very good. Now, on the other side, some of you are amazing and you've just never asked for feedback.

Brian: And so in these cases. When you deliver an amazing, exceptional six star experience and you just say, Hey, Mr. And Mrs. Client, I'd love to get your thoughts on how it all turned out. Are you happy with it? Are you unhappy with it? I've talked about this before, way back, [00:23:00] almost a hundred episodes ago, back in episode 299. Why you should ask your clients for feedback after every single project? It's part of our Infinite Client series. Infinite Client series was basically the same thing. if you got one or two or three clients for every client that you worked with, you would essentially have infinite clients.

Brian: It's viral coefficient and feedback is a huge part of that. You can take it and get better obviously, but you can also take that honest language if they're ECS static about how it all turned out. When you're finally good, you finally figured out how to deliver a great experience. You can take that honest language and that creates a very compelling, amazing testimonial and or review.

Brian: Instead of them trying to write it from scratch. If you ask them to write a testimony or ask them to write a review from scratch, your take rate will be so small. I dunno the exact percentage. I should get some data on that. let's just throw a number at it. Maybe 5%, maybe 10%. If you have a good working relationship, close with them.

Brian: And that's why in the freelance world, you won't see like Google reviews unless you're at a high volume, low value type of business model. So like in the audio world, I see it with mastering engineers. Mastering engineers work with so many clients that [00:24:00] five, 10% of clients that they work with that give reviews is, you know, a hundred clients, a hundred reviews.

Brian: But we don't have a lot of clients. In most freelancers cases,

Brian: the median client value of all the freelancers we work with is about 4,500 bucks. And you're working with a $4,500 client. You're not working with that two or three a month, maybe four or five. If you've got good systems together and a great model,

Brian: so you're working with 20 to 40 clients a year, tots 10%, you're gonna get at best, two to four reviews a year. So the better, more efficient ways to just simply ask for feedback, you'll get a lot of people reply to give you feedback. People love giving their opinions on things, especially when it feels like it's from a human.

Brian: It's not some automated form. could just be a text, it could be an email,

Brian: and then pin what they say. It's a glowing review. They love all these things. you can shape the feedback that they gave you into a testimonial and say, Hey, you cool if I use this as a testimonial? This is great to see. So happy you're happy.

Brian: There's your testimonial. Just sign off on approval. The other way of doing it, if you're trying to gather reviews in your business model, you say, amazing. That is so cool. Would you mind copying and pasting that into a review? This helps my business so much. Direct link to leave a [00:25:00] review on whatever platform you're trying to get reviews on.

Brian: Asking for feedback makes a huge difference on not just getting better, but also getting reviews and getting testimonials, which is social proof you can leverage for future marketing efforts. if they like working with you, them writing down their feedback that's positive, reinforces that you're good at what you do, and this is after the project is done.

Brian: and that again, increases the likelihood that they're gonna refer you to someone else because you're top of mind that just wrote up a nice glowing testimony and review of you and their feedback.

Brian: and so when an opportunity comes up for your client to refer someone else to you, they're gonna remember for a lot longer, at least. Next Now finally, for this part, this is optional. You can just give a nice small surprise at the end of a project. This could be handwritten note, it could be a physical gift, it could be a bonus deliverable, whatever you want. But this is the surprise and delight element.

Brian: This is something that's going to hopefully leave a lasting impression. You're ending on a high note. In other words, opposed to the freelancer, this like. Pleasure working with you. Here's a, a Dropbox link, or a Google Drive link, or here's a attachment of a billion things for you to sort through peace. That's the general thing. Instead of, it's like all this stuff I've talked about so far, and here's a nice, [00:26:00] surprising delight gift at the end.

Brian: This is where you can make the ask for the referral only when they thank you for the thing. This is how you can operationalize referrals. You send a small gift or a big gift depending on your client value. When they say thank you, you just have a soft mention. So glad you got it. Hope you like it. And by the way, if you know of anyone else who benefit from this kind of work, I always appreciate intros to something like that.

Brian: the more you do that, the more clients you're gonna get from referrals. It's crazy. The more you ask, the more you get. And most freelancers under ask. And this is a really simple, easy way to make the ask at a time when the,likelihood that they refer you as at the alltime highest you've already delivered.

Brian: They loved working with you. They give you a great testimonial. you sent them a wonderful, nice little gift. They thank you for that gift because most humans will do that because they're polite and I don't know many people that would just take a gift and not say a damn thing to you. And if they do, they're probably not very good people anyways.

Brian: So they thank you for the gift and you were saying. I'm so happy you like it. Been a pleasure working with you. You're one of my favorite clients. If you know anyone else like you, I would love to work with him because you've been one of my favorite clients. the, the [00:27:00] flatter method, but now we're on the last section here.

Brian: This is the fourth part. This is the part that I feel like most freelancers just don't do at all.you're missing out a lot of referrals from it. So the fourth part of this is a post-project nurture that feels like a friend. In some cases you might be a friend.

Brian: So let's first say what most freelancers do. I've already kind of talked about this. You deliver the project, you say thanks, and then you fuck off under the sunset,

Brian: and they might hear from you a year from now when you're looking for more work. honest with, so that's basically how you do it right now, right? let's talk about post project Nurture. First of all, use the CRM customer relationship management or client relationship management. Probably for our case, that's probably the better abbreviation your imperfect brain with all the shit you got going on.

Brian: You're not gonna remember to do this stuff. This is not gonna be top of mind. This is, this is gonna be so back of mind because if you're like most freelancer, actually most entrepreneurs, you're very goal oriented. You finish a project, you hit the finish line, you hit the goal, boom, what's next? You're looking around, what's next?

Brian: You likely don't even celebrate goals yourself. Big milestones in your own business. ' know this 'cause I don't do that. So if that's how you are, use a tool [00:28:00] like A-C-R-M-Aclient relationship management software to make sure this stuff is all essentially taken care of as best you can.

Brian: Now, we're not doing this automatically, we're doing this manually, but we're using a CRM to assist us. Here's what I mean. You can set CRM tasks. For 30, 60, 90 days check-ins somewhere around there. Sometimes you could even do 180 day or one year. Pick the cadence that works for your niche. And these are not automated emails.

Brian: These are not automated texts. These are you using your brain to reach out to your client. And the goal here is to make it feel like it's not transactional.

Brian: is to make them feel like you give a shit. And if you truly do give a shit, then this should be easy for you. If you don't give a shit, all I can say is at least pretend like you do so you can get more clients. I hope you don't feel that way, but just saying if you, if you do, if you don't care about your clients, at least pretend to so you can get more clients outta it.

Brian: Get referrals. you will get more repeat clients and more referrals if you do this.

Brian: Or if you do it properly, now you should know when the check-ins make the most sense for your clients. me, it's, it was this, if you don't know who I am or my background, I did music production for over a decade, I am based out of Nashville, which is a natural place for that kind of [00:29:00] work. So for me, post client nurtured, that feels like a friend. Looks like this. I've finished the album. We've finished the project.

Brian: I know it's gonna be roughly a year to a year and a half if it's an album before they come back to me in the studio. If it's a single, it could be a few months. If it's an ep, it could be half a year to a year, but no matter what I know, these are the key milestones to reach out to a client. The first is right before they release the music, you're gonna reach out, just excitement and encouragement.

Brian: The second is right after they release the music. Congratulations. Interact them with them on socials. They're gonna post a bunch of stuff, just interact in the comments, like things, share things just like a friend would do. Third look up reviews on the music, so a month or two or even three, after the music's released, I'll look up reviews and just see what the reviews say.

Brian: If there were any reviews for that specific client. And some clients are not big enough to get reviews for their work. Okay. I won't do this part, but some of the bigger clients I work with do that. So if there were reviews, I will reach out. To the client say, Hey, I saw this review the album we did together, so stoked that the reviews are coming in positively.

Brian: Something like that. Check in in six months. So at the six month mark, I wanna see how streams are [00:30:00] doing If the streams are doing well, I'm gonna send congrats and I'm gonna check in to see if they're working on any new stuff. That's basically the check-in. From this point, it's, I wanna know, are they working on new music yet? If they're not working on new music yet, I know that they're not gonna come to the studio anytime soon, so I can think about that for my future followups.

Brian: If they are working on new stuff, then I'll know roughly, it's probably gonna be a couple months before I need to follow up again. Then there's the 12 month check-in. This is where timelines get a little sketchy. Because at this point I see what upcoming tours they have. I'm gonna check in to see how their tour or tours went, and I'm gonna see if they're working on any new music.

Brian: that's the cadence here that works for my niche. Yours is gonna be completely different,

Brian: if you're completely brain dead and you're thinking, why would Brian do this? What is the even point of this? It's because it shows that you care beyond just the money and the invoice.

Brian: it keeps you top of mind. So it's reopening the door for more work, because I knowif I am top of mind when they're ready to record another album or another single or another ep, I will get the gig. If they liked working with me, if I'm top of mind when they're ready, they'll hire me.

Brian: So for you it's just whatever light personal messages that don't pitch you but do keep you top of mind is the best way to do this. It's not [00:31:00] necessarily marketing, but it's relationship maintenance. It's keeping you top of mind. So I guess it is kind of, it is marketing, but it's very strategic marketing and relationship marketing.

Brian: so here's some ideas. If you're just like, I don't know how to do this. If you come across any relevant content that they might care about. Like reviews about their work, congratulations. messages are always good. Anniversary, ping.I can't believe it's been a, year since we've worked together.

Brian: How are things going? Things like that. Any sort of value add. So if you're like a web designer and you spot some issue on their site, like, Hey, I saw you launch the site, the mobile view looks a little weird here. Here's the screenshot. Do you want me to go in and fix that? Or I saw if the call to action was this, if we say something else there, it's probably gonna be a little better.

Brian: Your copywriter kind of, fucked you over there. I wouldn't throw the copywriter under the bus, but any sort of value add that also increases your authority in their eyes if done tactfully and is actually a thing they agree with. You can also just send friendly dms occasionally based on social posts.

Brian: They've done. this is where it's an art, not a science.

Brian: If you truly wanna be somebody's friend, this part's easy. If you don't really like your clients and you don't really wanna be their friends, or you're just a social outcast, this is something you're gonna have to operationalize. You're gonna have to turn it into a [00:32:00] process. You're gonna have to turn yourself into a machine to get through this part, but the end result is worth it.

Brian: Top of mind, more repeat clients, So when they're ready to work with someone again, they'll likely choose you if they liked you. And you're top of mind, but also the more top of mind you are, the more referral chances you're going to get. Because think about this.

Brian: In my situation, the client that I just recorded an album for is on tour. They're playing in front of hundreds or thousands of people per night. They're on tour with three or four other bands. They have one or two other bands opening for them every day. Do you think there are more opportunities in this scenario for me to be referred to one of those people?

Brian: The answer is yes. Do you think that my clients are thinking about me on their tour? The answer is absolute hell no. They have a million other things to think about and worry about. So if I'm engaging with them on a regular or semi-regular basis, there can be more opportunities in those circumstances when they're out on the field on tour around my ideal clients that I will come up in their brain.

Brian: The band mentions, oh, we're looking tofor the next producer. We're doing a new album soon. Oh, who you going with? Cool. [00:33:00] We just work with Brian. He was amazing. You should go with him. You should hit him up. See how much he is.

Brian: It's the little things like this that adds up to the six star client experience

Brian: and there's even more if I just sat and just brain dumped even more things, I could come up with a dozen more things that you could do to make your client experience absolutely amazing. Now, the point to just have an endless list. The point is to actually take these things and implement into your business.

Brian: And thisis the hard part. It can be real fun to do what I call procrastination. It's like, listen to podcasts, procrastinate a bit. This is fun information. I like hearing listicles like this. I like hearing Brian yell at me and tell me how bad I am at running my business, but then he never changed anything and for real good reason.

Brian: No one's making you change, like I get it. it can be real easy to have a bunch of great ideas and then nothing ever clicks, so you don't ever do anything completely fine. I do that myself in a lot of different areas,

Brian: but if you ever wanna get serious about this stuff, the number one way I know to break that habit, that pattern of just like I hear new information that sounds interesting, I'm interested in doing it. Oh, a piece of candy. I'm gonna go off it this way and start doing something completely different. 'cause I'm gonna go find the next episode.

Brian: I'm gonna go listen to Brian's episode [00:34:00] about asking for feedback next, and after that I'm gonna go listen to Chris Doe. And after that I'm gonna go listen to Alex or Mosey. And then before you know it, it's been a week, a month, a year. You haven't really fixed anything or changed anything. Maybe you've,dabbled in a few things.

Brian: So if that's how you operate, it'll be very difficult to build a long-term, stable, sustainable business that you can enjoy to run and keep running for years to come.

Brian: So the only thing I know how to do is the thing that works best for me, and that is to get someone in your corner that can hold you accountable. And this is what we do with all of our clients. We proactively reach out, we give them one thing to work on at a time, and we say. Turn that thing in for us to look out when you've actually done it.

Brian: We want it by this date and the amount of people that actually do the thing is astounding. When you have somebody that will look at the thing that you're doing and say, Hey, this is great, do it. Release it, launch it, or, Hey, this is not gonna work. Here's why. Let's fix these things and then send it back to me.

Brian: That kind of collaborative process is why our clients actually do the work compared to you. The podcast listener who's been listening for forever and hasn't actually done anything, if that is [00:35:00] you, all I can say is just consider it. If you just found me, keep bending it through episodes, go for it.

Brian: But when it comes time to actually say, I wanna make change in my business, just go to six figure creative.com/coaching, fill out the short application, and go from there and it'll amaze you what having somebody in your corner to actually hold you accountable while you're fixing things, give you sounding board for feedback, why you're actually doing things, how much more you will get done in your business.

Brian: So yes, this episode had a lot of things in it. Yes, there's like a million more things I could have put in this episode. You should implement everything in this episode that you don't have any business already. But if the chances there that you're actually gonna do it, the chances are slim to none. The phrase that comes to mind is people who pay, pay attention.

Brian: And when you get a free podcast like this, and a million other free podcasts from people like Hormo and Christo, and insert any other amazing podcast here, not that I even consider myself at those levels, it can be really easy to just endlessly consume information and never actually do anything. So that is my challenge to you.

Brian: Again, just go to six figure creative.com/coaching. Fill out the short app and we'll see if you're a good fit. That's all I got for you today. Peace. [00:36:00] I'll see you next week on the six Figure Creative Podcast.