Speaker 1: What's up to all my freelancers, designers, and creatives. This is Nathan. Been a little while since we did some traffic talk, but I'm back. So yeah, as I mentioned, it's been a little while since we did some traffic talk. Basically, what I was working on was a marketing campaign for a client, and I was working on their website, their social media, creating different graphics for them, and signage and other things for a conference they were having. So yeah, a lot of work was done there, but I will actually release that in terms of what I did behind the scenes so you can see how I put together a marketing campaign for them. So that's something that I'm working on. I'll release later. But that's one of the reasons why. If you haven't seen me as much. As you saw from the title question, today is going to be a little bit about revisions, working with the clients, their changes versus your work, what do you do. But there's a lot of context here, and this question actually came from Reddit. Now, there's so much of an explanation, I can't even summarize or put the question up or the follow-up comments they mentioned to the question. So I literally have to explain what happened. So this question came from... So this question came from Reddit from a user named Brad Corp. And he was basically saying, he or she, I really don't know, but they were basically saying they worked with a client and they had an agreement and there was a creative brief. They had to do some writing and some other things. There was a creative brief that detailed what they needed to do. So they worked very closely based on that creative brief and they produced what they thought was sufficient. And then they sent it over to the client just for their review. So the client actually reviews the work and they made tons of changes. They marked up so many things that, you know, the original creator is thinking, wow, you changed so much. You literally changed the work that I did. And so they were thinking, hey, here's some changes. Do you mind making these changes? And they really were so many changes, it's almost like the client wanted to write it, not the freelancer. You're right, not the contractor. So the question is something like this. The client has taken my beautiful work and ruined it with their suggestions. What should I do? And this happens sometimes, or I should say a lot of times, whenever you're freelancing and working with clients. Revisions are sometimes easy and revisions can be very frustrating. Just before we dissect this question and really talk about it, I do want to make a comment and let you know, I have discussed how to handle revisions with clients. I believe it was an episode of freelance jumpstart TV, and I talked about revision cycles, or how to stop endless client feedback. In other words, if you don't set the precedents for how to handle revisions, you're making yourself vulnerable to endless revisions that will go over and over. And then you'll be working to make the client happy, not working to move towards an accomplished goal. So here's my point. the goal that's supposed to have a result. But yeah, I'll put that link in the description below in the show notes if you're listening so you can check that out. So really what's happening here is you worked on something and then you hand it off to the client for their review, which is fine. And it sounds like the client who you were talking with has to review it. Then they have to pass it on to other people to review it too. So now there's multiple people who need to see it. But just a quick comment. There is a book called Thanks for the Feedback. I'll also put that in the show notes in the description. There is a book called Thanks for the Feedback. And it breaks down how to collect feedback and the fact that there is different types of feedback. One thing that is a great takeaway from the book is if you're going to ask for feedback, it has to be guided. In other words, you have to ask for feedback. About a specific thing or someone is going to give you feedback that is very subjective based on their opinion, right? That happens a lot with art and graphic design. Somebody says, I want a logo. So somebody, a hand letterer or a graphic designer or an illustrator or whomever, they'll create a logo and ask for feedback and say, what do you think? Now that now, the feedback is solely based on what the person thinks. It's solely based on their opinion, their preferences, what they like, what they don't like, their experiences, what they interpret as right and wrong or good and bad. It gets very subjective. The better thing is you wanted a logo that was elegant, similar to your competitors, that was these colors. And the logo should have accomplished all of that. So you can explain, this is what I've created based upon the market you're going towards and what you're looking at. Does this accomplish or help you accomplish your goal? And you can remind them what the goal is. Then when they get feedback, it has context, right? There's a box around their feedback and they won't be reaching all over the place trying to explain what they like and what they don't like. In terms of this question, it was writing. So writing is very subjective in and of itself. But again, you can say, this is how I wrote it. Can you give me feedback on grammar, punctuation, whatever it might be? But put the feedback in context. So again, as it pertains to the question, the person came back, had all these suggestions, and the freelancer was frustrated because that I have to change everything now. And that's the thing. Because feedback wasn't necessarily set up. And also revisions weren't necessarily guided. You know, you may have to change it quite a bit. But there was an update of what the freelancer said after they, you know, gave it back to the client. You know, the freelancer went to the client and said, I made some changes. And for other reasons, I didn't make these changes. This is why. And the client said, this is excellent. And they passed it on. A quick comment about that. Basically, what you did was speaking up for your work. That is also another episode I did of Freelance Jumpstart TV, where I talked about you have to give context to why you made certain decisions. In other words, when you first handed the work to the client and said, what do you think? Or does this meet your approval? They didn't understand why you did what you did. All they said was, I see you follow the creative brief. But they wanted you to add your professional spin on it. Your professional value to it. And they don't know how you've done that if you stuck so close to brief. So all you literally could have done is explain why you wrote what you wrote and how you wrote it and how it helps them or why it's better based on research, based on other people you showed it to. Maybe you wrote it and then you actually gave it to somebody who had no knowledge of whatever it was and that it was accurate enough to help them do the task that needed to be done. But when you speak up for your work and give context to it, now people say, I understand why you did that. I get it. And it seems like some of that happened. And I'm actually happy the client came back and liked it. The other half of this person's question was they felt like the client ruined their work and they couldn't put it in their portfolio or they didn't want their name associated with it because they did the work. The client made all these edits. And if the client's helped me with it, they're like, I don't want my name on it because, you know, you ruined it so much. I just, it can't be associated with me. So on that point, because this happens to me too, you design something and based upon industry standards, design trends, you know, just overall intelligence and how people take things in, whatever it might be, you think it's better. The client comes in, adds their opinion, and you think it's better. You feel like it's ruined. Here's the thing though. Just because it wasn't accepted by the client doesn't mean you can't use it for your portfolio. You can't use it online. You can't post it and say, this is the work I've done. I did web design. So a lot of things I've worked on for web design, when I handed it off to the client, it looked the best. It looked pretty good. It was pristine. I asked the client, do you need me to maintain it? Do you want it? And they say no, because they want to save money or whatever. And then later on, you know, some months later, I go back to the site and I'm like, whoa, this doesn't look as good as originally when I gave it to them. So that's why it's important. If you feel something you've created or did was the best version of really what it could have been, then you need to save that. That goes in your portfolio. That goes into what you display online. That goes into when somebody asks you, have you done this before? And you say, yes, I have. Here's an example of the work I've done. And it's a case study. That's what you show them. You show them in a sense, the work that you're proud of, not necessarily whatever it got changed into after it got into the client's hands, right? So you always, as a creative, have the freedom to do it. In a sense, present your best work, not necessarily the most preferred work used by a client. And probably the last thing I'll say about this is, again, when you're working with clients and they're actually paying you, sometimes they treat you like an employee. That's just, that happens. They treat you like an employee. Or in other words, because they're paying you, they felt like, you know, they're employees. They have to look over your work and give input because that's what they do with the rest of their employees. I wouldn't take that personal. I wouldn't worry about that too much. Again, if a client is working and paying you, they just want to make sure that they've contributed to the project somewhat. I see that a lot. There's some things that I've witnessed clients give input towards that really don't add any value, but they just want to feel a part of the process. And that's important. As well. It's great to hand off work to someone and trust them a hundred percent to finish it. So when they come back, it's done, but people also want to feel like they've been a part of creating something great. And that's a lot of times why you get feedback. And sometimes it doesn't make sense. Sometimes it doesn't make sense. Sometimes it doesn't add value or you're questioning like, why is this person giving input when they hired me to do it? They just want to be a part of the process. And that goes back to what I said earlier about guided feedback. Let them be involved, but guide them because as a professional, you are supposed to make their job easier, not harder. If they hired you and you do work, but then they go behind you and do the very same work, they're no longer saving the value of time of hiring you. They're doing two jobs. And as a professional, you know, remind them that you want to, listen to them and try to get their voice and understand exactly what their goals are and that you're going to take care of it. Right. So you can get feedback to them as a navigational point of where to go next, but you need to take care of it because you're a professional and they're paying you. You can, you can literally say that you can literally say as a professional, I want to save you time. You know, tell me what you want. I'll accomplish it. I want you to focus on what you focus on. I can do your job best. Therefore I can do my job best. So it's okay to even say that because people feel like they want to be a part of a project. So they're going to want to partner with you. When I say partner, I literally mean they want to take the work from you and make changes and give it back to you. And you execute their will rather than a professional who is doing their work to reach a goal. But that happens sometimes and you have to be able to discern what you're seeing overall with this question. I'm glad the person. Had a good resolution because at the end of it all, they said, I like the fact that this is value based pricing. So in other words, they priced based on value. So even though they had to make a lot of changes that they didn't agree with, and then they went back and said, I'm not making these changes, even though they did all of that and they weren't happy about it because it was more work, they priced themselves accordingly to where. They didn't lose any money on the job. And that's another video I did about value based pricing. I'll post that up so you can see it as well. But that's another thing to think about in this whole process. So overall, traffic talk, we're back. I'm glad to be back. You know, just been busy with some things. Got a lot of good things coming up that you'll be seeing in the near future. But again, if you have a question, get that to me however you need to get it to me. It doesn't matter. If it's on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, on my website, however you want to get it to me, I'll take it and incorporate it into the show and make sure that your questions are answered. So thank you for taking the time to check this out. And until the next one, I will catch you later. See ya. I'll see you later.