Speaker 1: What can you do to retain your existing clients? Coming up. Hello and welcome back to the Freelanceverse. As you guys know, many of my videos deal with the grueling task of finding new clients. But not this week. This week I want to talk to you about customer retention. Customer retention basically means converting a one-time client into a regular client and then keeping them engaged. So keeping them from going to your competition, basically. Customer retention is really important for freelancers because it is basically the one tool that we have to gain the stability that many of us are striving for and trying to achieve, right? Because if you have only one-time customers, like people just getting your CV translated from you or something and then they will never come back. So companies that give you something every day is really the goal here. I read a stat recently that it's actually five times more expensive to find a new one than retain an existing client. That makes sense, right? Because if you want to find a new one, you have to, we all know it, you have to go out there, you have to find an opportunity, you have to negotiate and email, do a test potentially, etc. And so it's a huge hassle to find a new client. Whereas if you do the right things, and I have a few tips prepared today, it's quite easy to retain customers and keep them happy. Plus, another benefit of retaining customers is the longer you work with someone, the more likely it is that you get more and more jobs, right? You build a good relationship with the PMs, so they trust you more. It's more likely that you can raise your prices because you have more leverage, right? You can actually say, you know, I'm now versed in your guys' content and I have a good understanding, I have a memory, etc. So yeah, I'm worth more to you now, so I'm going to raise my prices and you can't really do that with first-time or short-term customers because they don't have the trust that you built up yet. So let's get into it. Let's talk about my 10 tips on how to retain customers. Number one is the most obvious one, deliver quality, right? Many people would say the video is over, that's just the one thing that you need. I also talked to someone recently about this and she also said just deliver quality and people will come back to you. I don't think that's all it needs, but it's definitely like maybe 40-50% of customer retention. As long as you deliver very good work, people will recognize you, they will remember you and they will get back to you. Number two, request feedback and improve upon it. That's really important because usually we only get feedback for negative things, right? But if you find the time, if you find the motivation, you should always ask for feedback. Also if you did a good job, right? If you usually when you do a good job, you don't hear anything back, but it might be worth it to ask the client, hey, can you tell me what the feedback was on this job? Can I improve something? And if they give you a specific thing that you should improve, it needs to be fixed in the next job, right? Don't make the same mistake twice. That's something that's really important. If they tell you, you know, you used this word for the blinds of the window, but we actually use this because the competitor uses this word, you can't then use the word that you used before. Otherwise, that's a very bad look. Number three, I wrote up anticipate problems and I really like this one. I did some research about this topic online and I found just resolve problems as one of the main topics, but I wrote specifically anticipate problems because if you can warn the customers about potential problem, that's even better than actually resolving it, right? So it happens often that I see an issue in like a project that is assigned to me that could apply to all the other languages as well, right? So I quickly write the PMs and I say, hey, you know what? This source is off. Maybe you want to inform the other translators for the other languages so that you have it all consistent. Or if you can already see that the project is not be able to be finished by a certain deadline, you can tell them that's not going to work out. They will need to implement this and this and this step, right? Especially when you work with direct clients, they are not really aware of the translation and localization process. So if you already anticipate problems, warn them beforehand. It's always a great sign if you can warn someone about potential problem because then they can save time and time is money in business. Number four, be on time. Very simple. Deliver on time, but not only that, also answer on time. I have a very strict rule in my business practice that I answer all my emails within one hour. The business emails, not the freelance emails. I know I'm slacking there. Within one hour I'm answering, even if it's just, I don't have time at the moment, I'm going to get back to you soon or I'm going to get back to you tomorrow morning. Just acknowledge that you received the email and be on time with delivery is just, yeah, that's just the nature of translation. You need to be delivering on time. That's the number one KPI that people have for translators. And if you can't, then be sure to tell the client beforehand that you can't deliver, not on the same day that you should deliver if it's not a really short project, but 24-48 hours in advance so they can either split it up or tell you, yeah, of course you can deliver a few days later. Number five, I named go the extra mile and there's a lot in there. That's basically building the relationship with the PMs, with the company, right? If someone, for example, if your client has an event, some of my client, one of my client will have an event in November in Berlin. And I find it really important that you show up there, that you're there, that you show them that you value the relationship between a company agency and you. If someone invites you for something, definitely be there. Go the extra mile also includes writing them when they don't give you a job at the moment, but you have capacity. You can tell them, hey, just to let you know, I'm free at the moment. If you have anything that I can help you with, I'm more than willing to help you very quickly in an express matter, right? So just show yourself, be there, show up. That's the extra mile for me. That's really important in relationship building, which leads me to number six seamlessly, which is foster a relationship. And that's specifically between the PM and you, because it can matter so much, right? And I worked as a PM before I was a translator, so I know both sides. And I hear a lot of negative talk sometimes from both sides about the other side, and it's just not fostering a good relationship, right? If you have these preconceived notions, and I mean, a lot of things that frustrate you from a PM perspective is not the translator's fault. And the most things that frustrate you from a translator side is not the PM's fault, right? There are always other people involved, we are just doing our job. So I like to have a very good relationship with the PMs I work on a daily basis with. I ask some personal questions as well, I make jokes here and there, you know, just lighten up the mood a little bit and sometimes pick up the phone and call them instead of emailing. A lot of things you can do in fostering a relationship, and the better you are connected within an agency, within a direct client, the more likely you are to get more jobs. Number seven, be transparent, be honest about everything that you do. Don't lie, don't say, oh, I'm sick, sorry, I can't deliver on time. Just be honest, be transparent. If you forgot something, tell it, because it's negative in the first moment, but it builds actually a relationship. It's a weird concept, but it definitely builds a more positive trust instead of just saying, oh, I have to go to the hospital, I can't do this, you know. If you are honest and you say, oh, I completely missed that one, I'm so sorry, can I do it right now? Can I do it in the morning? That's more human and that builds a better relationship. So be transparent about everything. That also includes if you accepted a job and you realize you can't do it, it's too difficult, just tell them that you took too much on to chew and just tell them you can't do it. Number eight, be available. That's especially important in the beginning when you're trying to build up a customer base. I mentioned this in previous videos. Now over the summertime is a perfect moment to find new clients. Same as around December, January, Christmas time, New Year's, because a lot of people are on holiday and not available. So if you make yourself available, it's a great moment to build a relationship for long term clients. So especially now, if you're looking for clients, do it right now, do it in July and August and do it end of December. Also write your existing clients that, hey, I am actually working, you know, other people are on holidays. If you have something urgent, let me know. I can help you also over Christmas. So especially if you don't plan to take on holidays in the next one, two years, then do that to build a long term relationship. But later on, also please manage to take time off and spend it with your family. It's not equally important. It's even much more important. Number nine, cross sell and offer alternatives. Alternatives I mean, if someone if a client that is very close to your heart and you work a lot with them, asks you something and you can't do it, offer alternatives. If you know a colleague that has time, why not give the email of this guy or this girl, right? It's it looks like in the first place that you would encourage the competition. But that's a whole mindset that I don't subscribe to at all. That's also why I did the YouTube channel and many people actually more from traditional business circles told me like, why would you do that? Why do you give information out for free? Don't you build up your competitors and then they take you over? But that's I think that's kind of an old an old time view. I don't think that's the case anymore. So I'd rather have good connections with people have to build them up so we can all succeed. There is space for everyone in the industry, right? Content is getting more and more every day. So there's definitely enough text for all of us. So whenever I have good relationships, I recommend people but I also get emails from people that watch my videos that ask me if I could recommend them. And then I always have to say no because I don't want to recommend someone if I don't know their work yet, right? And even if they send me samples, but it's in a different language, I can't really know if they are good. So mostly I only recommend people that translate into German and that I know are doing a good job unless I know also that the other person is speaking another language and I know that they are good and also recommend them. But I can't just recommend based on an email, right? I hope you understand. And the last one, the last point that I named is under-promise over-deliver. That's always a motto that I like to live by. As long as you under-promise and over-deliver, the client is happy, right? Don't over-promise. That's the worst you can do because you can't really live up to these standards. Don't take on jobs that require a week and you say you can do them in two days and then you work 40 hours and burn yourself out. That doesn't work. Others say, you know, I can do it until Friday and then deliver on Thursday already. Client is super happy. They think you delivered earlier than they actually needed it and you are actually healthy. So under-promise over-deliver is a very good mindset for this business. There you go. These are my 10 tips of retaining customers. By the way, I know many of you sent me emails about subtitling my videos and it is now finally open again. Anita took on this job and she will deal with the emails. So if you want to subtitle the video on a voluntary basis, if you want to gain experience and put it on your CV, put it in your LinkedIn profile, etc. Please write an email to freelanceverse at gmail.com and she will get back to you with the SRT file so you can actually practice the craft. Make sure to subscribe to the channel. As always, I appreciate it very much. Like the video and I see you next Monday with the next video. Take care. Bye bye.