Putting Experience To Work

Well, on some things I am very quick on the uptake, on others; like changing the way I do business, it takes me a bit longer to make a move.

As I work with clients, over time we get to know each other and start to see where we can help one another in more areas than talent or freelance help. We talk, we shmooze, and soon find out that they have a need that I can help fill and/or I know someone who can help them out. With my client Anne Marie Concepcion, www.senecadesign.com, it has become a natural way for us to do business. We get together, talk about the daily grind and things come up where we can help each other. Anne Marie has been a great source for clients for my business, people naturally come to her for help because of her training and fantastic newsletter (designgeek - you may want to sign up for this, it’s great!), and when she can’t do the project, she suggests the client contact me.

Conversely, when I have ideas for Anne Marie on how I can help her grow her business, we talk about planning and new markets. I have turned some potential clients onto her and her training, as well as supplied some trainers for her courses.

Since this has been working well for us for a few years, I decided in the spring of 2007 to start talking to my other clients about a similar type of partnership. Every one of them has asked me to come by their office to discuss this option. In the meeting, I ask a bunch of questions and sometimes I give answers. The upshot is that I know a lot more about them and their focus than I did before. Not only can this potentially bring them new clients, but as they grow, they will need the type of talent I provide. A good match, I think.

I know, I know, everyone else is already doing this. I guess that now it is my turn. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I still think that a phone is the most effective negotiating tool and is the fastest and easiest way to resolve a contract negotiation.

I don’t know why it is, but there are people (sometimes clients, sometimes vendors) who think it is more important to document a negotiation, than it is to complete the negotiation and they insist on solely using email to communicate. I firmly believe that once an agreement has been made, it is imperitive for the terms to be written out and approved by both parties. My contractual preference (after watching too much court tv) is to get a comprehensive written contract signed by both parties with the specifics of the agreement.

I have had more than one experience in recent years with clients who are usually harried, their company is usually experiencing a growth spurt and they claim to not have time to read all their emails. Yet, they need my help or the help of one of my vendors and cannot find a minute to just pick up the phone to quickly negotiate for the services.

It is commonly known that emails are generally read as “negative”, especially when there is a negotiation going on and one or both people involved are emotionally attached to the outcome. See the article by the American Psychological Association. This factor keeps email negotiations very low on my list for favorable contractual outcomes.

My most recent experience with this phenomenon ended yesterday. It must have taken the client a total of an hour to write all of the emails he sent to me over the past two days, yet he insisted he was swamped. I suggested a 5 minute phone conversation which would have put his and my concerns to rest, but he would not return my phone call. We eventually resolved the issues via multiple (an not so pleasant emails from his side) emails and we came to an agreement, at which time I wrote him an email outlining our agreement, he agreed, signed and faxed it over, and the project started today.

The point I am getting to is that during the massive amount of email exchanges, he asserted all kinds of unfounded offensive remarks. In my opinion, barraging the opposing party with accusations never moves a situation forward, it usually stymies or kills the negotiation leaving bad feelings on both sides. Bargaining via email, is never a good idea. My suggestion is to Pick Up The Phone and then seal the deal in email. It makes for better partnerships and relationships.

In my next blog, I will address points regarding diffusing hostile or aggressive situations, either via email, by phone or in-person(which usually doesn’t happen, since most people read body language pretty well).

The Past
In 1999 after doing the “build a business” thing for 15 years with my former company - Freelance Hotline in Chicago, I left the corporate structure norm behind. Because of my natural tendencies toward care taking, and the fact I did not have children, my business became family and the workers, my “familial” responsibility. I am not saying that this was a necessarily healthy way to grow a business, but heck, I didn’t know any better and when I started the company at 24 years of age, I knew nothing of what it would become.

In 1999, middle age was upon me, and I knew I had to break the mold of caretaking, because, well, it was breaking me. I sold the company to one of my employees. (I also sold my car, my house, and moved. I know what mid life crisis is… a new start to the second half of life).

Fast forward to 2005.

I decided to get back into the game doing small business consulting; it was great but not enough of a money maker, so I took on creative placement and project management too. The difference? I work from home, all of my people work virtually from their offices or home. And thanks to Basecamp, all projects are worked on virtually.

Seasoned Professionals
Because I am working with seasoned pros that I have known for years, or I know through someone I have known for years, working virtually is mostly a breeze. Once the team members get used to the online software, everything pretty much flows. The clients love it too, they can see each stage of the project and where everyone fits and responsibility is not in question. Love it, love it, love it!!! No employee hassles, only the fruits of our combined labor.

What Do Clients Get?
Control over their project(s), lower project rates, and a team that shows up in person for presentations as necessary. Happy clients, happy team, happy me.

More On Virtual Teaming:
Making Work-at-Home Work for Everyone, on Harvard Business School Working Knowledge 
Team Building for Virtual Workplace, by Mike Dempster, in Business Edge

While working with hundreds of clients over the past 24 years, I have found that the relationships which are most comfortable for my team and especially for our clients, are based on partnership. You may be thinking either: well duh! or you’re asking yourself if you truly have this partnership experience with your clients.

“Partnerships” as opposed to “working relationships” come out of a deeper desire on both sides of the equation - the supplier and client - to create a true understanding of what the requirements are for the client company and how the client wants the product or service delivered. Each and every client has individual needs and requirements, some are dependent on corporate directives, but I have found that most are personal to the individual client contact. So, therein lies the need to create and maintain a deeper and connected relationship.

For those of you reading this who think that a deeper understanding of your client is not of interest to you, I suspect that you are in a “one-time sale only” business and therefor this does not apply to you. If however, you are in a business maintained and grown through your clients, there may be some pointers for you here.

Many of us subscribe to the idea that it is far less expensive to keep clients you have and grow with them than it is to keep finding new clients. Assuming this is true, let’s look at how it is possible to create longer lasting relationships with clients you already have.

Example
I recently won a new client through an introduction from one of my longtime clients: Rob Engelman. We’ll talk about Rob more in later posts. The client is a very large home improvement product manufacturer and they have a newly formed marketing department - about 2 years old. The whole staff met with me and it was clear from their questions that they were not happy with their current design group and were looking for a better solution. Here are some of the questions I asked them during our first meeting.

1. Who have you been using for your creative development for your products?
2. What have they done that you really like. Is their creative amazing? Is their customer service to your liking?
3. How long have you worked with them?
4. What don’t you like about your relationship with them? (Listen carefully to this answer as it is very important - you will learn not only what the supplier is not delivering - you also find out what the client’s real needs are). Ask for more information about this so that you get a very clear idea of expectations.
5. What are you looking for now that you were not getting?

Once I have a clear picture in my mind of where they are coming from, what the expectations and frustrations are, I then ask for information on upcoming projects that my team and I can look forward to bidding on.

Engage
So, the partnership begins, there is information, clarification and a request from me regarding potential work. The part of this that tends to deepen the relationship into a partnership is not only my laying out my capabilities, and the client laying out their needs, the true connection - I believe - comes from a true concern on my part for the client’s success and even more important, that the we both understand that we must co-create the project/relationship in order for the project to become successful.