Speaker 1: Dan, what do you think about that pop? Everyone, welcome to this week's vlog. In this week's episode, I'm going to be talking to you about how I communicate with clients when they're interested in doing some sketchnote work with me. I just recently did a little bit of a project with a client, and the reason that I say it was just a little bit of a project is because I made some mistakes in my messaging and in my initial communications that made it really hard for us to move forward. So there's some miscommunication there. I want to share what I wasn't doing that's leading to lost sales and lost revenue for my side hustle, and some ways that you can think through how to not have that happen to you at all. So I'm going to start out by showing you the four, the grid method that I use to get information from the client during our first call, and I'm going to also share with you what I screwed up on that led to the project not continuing, and the steps that I'm taking to make sure that that doesn't happen anymore. Let's go ahead and dive in. Ready? So here's the grid method that I use to make sure that I'm getting the right information from the client and making sure that we're all on the same page. This isn't necessarily the part that I screwed up on. I'll talk about that right after this, but these are the four questions. It's kind of just a variation on like the five Ys or like just asking the five W questions, but here's what I'm talking about. I'm thinking, I'm trying to figure out who is this person, like what's their missing, what's the message that they're trying to communicate, and so I make sure that I know first like who is this, and then we talk about what do they need. We need to talk about the core message. What do they want to see, like one to two sketches, maybe an infographic, send a couple of mock-ups, and are there any specific symbols or icons that they want to make sure are communicated in the sketchnote? So I'm talking about who is this, what do they want, or what do they need out of the sketchnote, and then we're looking at like why. This is really important for me, and it's funny to think about that the client doesn't always know like why it necessarily matters to them, so this is something that really matters to me because it's something that I can pull out of the sketches. It goes along with the mission and the message, but why does this matter to him or her? Will it help? And so there are a couple things like be able to communicate the ideas on screen, to be able to raise donor money, it was a non-profit, and so I do want to figure out any time like what is it that they need, and why does it matter to them? And the last part right here is just when, and this is really important obviously. When is it needed? How many updates are needed? Are more going to be wanted or needed after this? And then like I'll put a date on, and then like some different mock-ups, and this is not actually a thing. I put 1RD, first round, one round, I was like, Ferd, that is not a thing. So those are, these are the four grids that I go through, these are the four W questions that I ask any time that I'm talking to a new client to figure out is this going to be a fit. So all of that wasn't really where I screwed up. I had done really well up until this point, except for one thing, I didn't really have a clear set of communication guidelines and how a project would work, how I was supposed to communicate, what the expectations were. I didn't have that on my website, and I didn't really have that easily accessible to send them. So that led to a lot of miscommunication, even if it was really indirect, and it ultimately led to the project not continuing because we just weren't on the same page about what was needed and what I was able to provide. So right after that, I went to my bullet journal and I wrote down, this is the way that I want to make, I want to be more specific about how I work with clients. I wrote down some client work rules, like there's going to be $1,000 minimum commitment. Like for me, that's just the amount that it takes to put the time into it. And also the time that takes away from mostly being with my family or exercising. So $1,000 minimum commitment. And this was the biggest thing, a clear expectation and understanding of style. There was a little bit, and again, no one's fault, well, mostly my fault, but no, I needed to get past like, oh yeah, I can make it look like this person. If you like the way that it looks for a particular person, ask that person. And that just wasn't clear. I was like, oh yeah, no, I can make it look kind of like that. So a clear expectation understanding of the kind of style that I provide and know clearly what the client is using the sketches for and how. One of the big things is just figuring out like, are they getting any financial benefit out of having things clearly communicated through a sketch? Three phone call maximum and a one week minimum turnaround. So these were all things that I didn't communicate very well, that I didn't have in writing. And ultimately it lost me a project that I had been working on. So if there are any gaps like that, I encourage you, especially if you're working on a service like I am with sketchnotes, then think about what are the expectations that you want to set for your clients so that it's really clear upfront who's going to be doing what, what the number of revisions are, different things like that, what the minimum turnaround time is, and also set for yourself like a minimum income for a project. Now I'll make less money on something that is a lot clearer and a quicker turnaround. Like if someone just emails me and says, hey, I'd like for you to sketchnote this blog post, or I did this talk and I'd like you to do a sketchnote for it. That's something that's really clear. But even on that, it needs to be communicated from me like, okay, you're going to be going with my style on this. Being really clear with those expectations, with what the style is, what the turnaround time is going to be. That wasn't something that I had done very well. And it's something that I'm going to be putting into place this week because it cost me some money. And in the end, it's not worth that just to have clear communication about what you need out of a project and what the client can expect. All right, everyone, hope you enjoyed this video on client communication and how to get the most out of your interactions with clients over projects. If you like these videos, please go ahead and hit thumbs up and leave a comment and also go ahead and subscribe if you're not subscribed already. I really appreciate it. And it helps these videos spread and get more views and ultimately reach more people and how we can improve our own lives and the lives of others through our side hustles, whatever that might be. Okay, everyone. Thanks so much for watching and have a great week. Bye.