The Marketing Mix | official blog of the Marketing Mentor community

Guest Post: Avoiding the free advice trap

Colleen's note: I met guest blogger Donna Gordon via the Ask Liz Ryan group  on Yahoo. She is a shining example of how to use social media well—i.e. be brilliant and helpful, and people will come to you. She's also a smart cookie when it comes to business in general. As with her previous guest post on networking etiquette, Donna's tips on good consulting practices were so awesome, I asked if she'd elaborate for our readers on the blog. Here are the (fantastic! awesome! thorough!) results.

Okay all of you self employed and small business owners, you’ve got that hot prospect at the table, and you’d love to get the project.  Then comes the question, “What do you charge?”  Seems like a simple question, but one fraught with landmines.  At what point does a meeting to pick your brain for ideas turn into a paying assignment?  Are you seeing lots of tire-kickers these days?  Do initial meetings turn into non-paid consulting sessions?  If you’ve been in business for any length of time, you have wrestled with this problem.  

My ‘aha’ moment came after tracking every 15 minute block of ‘work time’ for almost 2 months.  I was astounded at how much non billable time was spent on prospecting, meetings, and other things that did not produce a check.  It was then that I had to re-assess my service offerings and the kind of clients I was pursuing.  Here is my list of best practices:

Growing Your Business with Marketing, Week 14: Just go

This is Week 14 of a 52-week project/experiment in DIY marketing. Armed with nothing but a copy of the 2009 Grow Your Business Marketing Plan + Calendar and my bare wits, I'm applying the skills you need to grow a business in real time, day by day, and reporting on them week by week. I'll provide a topline of my experience here every Monday; see my companion blog, A Virgo's Guide to Marketing, for the full story, additional links and other marketing-related goodness.

This week, something has come up again and again in conversation and in action: the idea that you'll never be totally ready, so you might as well get going.

Ilise and I have been talking about it vis-a-vis cold calling, as we prep our upcoming webinar for Freelancers Union (rather slyly if accurately titled "Cold Calling is the Brussels Sprouts of Marketing"): you don't have the follow-up materials ready, so you don't pick up the phone to call. Same thing with...

• starting a blog (you don't have the perfect design/list of posts/title/theme)
• getting on Twitter (you don't know who to follow or how you'll get followers or what to say) or...
• going to networking events (you don't have your rap/elevator speech down or your business cards ready)

The thing about marketing yourself is that it is always a work in progress, just like your business is always a work in progress. (Or, if you want to get woowoo about it, like YOU are a work in progress.) If I had waited until I had the perfect verbal business card, I'd never have gone to a single event. I'd still not be going to them, since my focus has been slightly shifting and constantly narrowing faster than I can keep up with it.

The next time you find yourself saying, "Oh, it would be a waste of my time to (have cards printed up, go to this event, pick up the phone)," ask yourself: would it really? Could you print cards cheaply (or for free) to start collecting input? Could you go to the event to try out a new rap (or ask people about theirs)? Could you make some calls just for practice?

That's what I'm starting to do, and it's opening me up to all kinds of possibilities I'd never discovered.

You can read more about them and the rest of my calendar week at the Virgo Guide to Marketing. Just start at the jump!

Guest Post: Networking smarter, not harder

Colleen's note: Today's guest blogger, Donna Gordon, is a contact I made via the social networking, specifically the Ask Liz Ryan group (covering the nexus between work & life) on Yahoo. Donna is a shining example of how to use social media well—i.e. be brilliant and helpful, and people will come to you. Her take on networking etiquette was so terrific, I asked if she'd agree to elaborate on best practices here at The Marketing Mix. I think you'll love the very useful stuff she has to share...

Okay. So you're a solopreneur, or a small business with lots to do and you're supposed to NETWORK on top of everything else. As a solopreneur with the gift of gab, I loved the idea of getting out, meeting new people, and building my network..  But while my calendar filled up, my bank balance was shrinking.  Hey wait I'm networking, right? Where is all this new business the networking gurus promised?

Turns out not all networking is created equal. As I struggled to make sense of it all, a book called Business by Referral by Ivan Misner and Robert Davis somehow landed on my desk, and helped me trim the fat from my overly bloated networking calendar. The book argues that you should have a goal for your network; that your contacts should belong to one of 3 categories: information, support or referrals.

• Information contacts are those you can call on the fly when you need to know the answer to 'who should I contact if I need an HR perspective on my problem?'  Information is the lifeblood of any business, especially for a research business like mine, so keeping in touch with those whose expertise complements your business is worth your time.
• Support contacts are those who you can grouse to, cry to, or ask for honest feedback on that new website.  As a small business you can't keep a staff on retainer to vet your ideas, so an informal group of trusted advisors is critical to keep you on the right path. And remember this cuts two ways-don't be too stingy with your time or you might find it comes back to bite you.
• Referral networks are the holy grail for those who are looking to land that next big client or project. While there are marketing experts who claim that a contact that does not produce a referral should be dropped and given voice mail, I don't think it's that simple.  If you list someone as a referral contact, make sure they have the willingness, the tools and the incentive to send business your way, and don't just assume that they will think of you when the right situation pops up. Keep these contacts in the loop, and make sure they understand how much you value them.

Having a goal for your contacts means taking a good long look at how you spend your time. For example, the roundtable group of small business owners that filtered in and out with no stability was taking several hours of my could have been billable time but not producing any tangible benefit. Instead I joined a 'masterminds' group – 6 of us, all small business owners or solopreneurs who meet monthly to discuss our businesses and seek each other's advice. We've been meeting for over four years now, and the group is much more valuable than a packed Chamber event with dozens of people like myself, looking to commiserate but not really do each other any good.

For you, your results may vary. While having information, support and referral contacts are all important, your mix is determined by the work you do and your target market.

• Where do your customers hang out?
• Who do they turn to for advice?
• Where have your previous clients come from?
• What do all of your clients have in common?

If you can answer these questions, you've taken the first step to clarifying how you should be spending your networking time, and which contacts you should go the extra mile for to keep in your network.

Happy networking!

For more than 10 years, Donna Gordon has been dedicated to helping entrepreneurs. As founder and president of Investment Resources, she taps her vast network of contacts and information sources to help businesses start, grow, expand and acquire. She's counseled hundreds of clients in industries ranging from banking to life sciences and is often invited to speak on the topics of profitability and Internet research.

Guest Post: Is BNI right for you?

Business Networking International is what it says: an international organization of business networking groups with chapters literally all over the world: 5150 chapters in 39 countries.

It's a very structured environment that requires commitment from its members, centered around a weekly early morning meeting.

I am often asked by clients whether BNI is the right group to join. Of course the answer is always, "It depends."

After the jump are the pros (and a couple cons) from Patrice Robertie of Acorn Advertising in Arlington, Massachusetts.

Guest Post: How a copywriter uses Facebook (and gets projects!)

A recent post on the Marketing Mix suggested that Facebook is the least useful of the social networking services. I agreed when I first read it, but changed my mind a few days later when Facebook dropped a potentially lucrative prospect in my lap (more on that in a moment).

Facebook has enormous potential to be a colossal waste of time, but with a few simple strategies it can also be a valuable part of your marketing toolbox. It may lack the professional directness of sites like LinkedIn and Biznik, but its “ambient intimacy” can keep you visible to the clients you want most and put you on the path to valuable client relationships.

Here are four strategies to help your creative business get the most out of Facebook:

Growing Your Business with Marketing, Week 6: Expressing your expertise

This is Week Six of a 52-week project/experiment in DIY marketing. Armed with nothing but a copy of the 2009 Grow Your Business Marketing Plan + Calendar and my bare wits, I'm applying the skills you need to grow a business in real time, day by day, and reporting on them week by week. You can follow along here every Monday; check in with my companion blog, A Virgo's Guide to Marketing, for additional links and information.

This week: Sharing knowledge wisely

This week is all about generating helpful stuff to share with people who come to your site—specifically, a page of links and resources that will be of use to your market.

I already collect and point people to information in many ways—via delicious bookmarks, a StumbleUpon blog, and a trio of resources in each issue of my monthly newsletter (which you can sign up for here). I also have a page of links to blogs I like on my main site, communicatrix-dot-com, and helpful blogs and tools for fellow marketers broken down by category in the sidebar of the Virgo Guide to Marketing (a.k.a. the standalone blog that accompanies this project.)

In fact, I'm in so many places pointing out so much stuff, one of the first things I did with the relaunch of my site was to create a big "aggregator" page with all the places I live outside of communicatrix, and what I offer in each space.

So while I can and will keep refining the pages I use to point people toward The Good Stuff, I thought a better exercise for me this week might be to corral and update some of my own information more neatly—namely, my newsletter page.

Guest Post: Ann Strong talks about the 4 C’s of success

Back in the olden days, the only way to get new clients involved cold calling, prospecting, setting appointments, making presentations and -- when we hit the jackpot -- closing sales. Outbound marketing. Better known as pounding the pavement.

Today, we have the additional extremely attractive and quite effective option of bringing in new clients through inbound marketing as well. Also known as people asking us to become our clients! Ah, the life of inbound . . .

So, how do we create this beautiful flow of people asking us to become our clients?

Connection
Are enough people finding you or are you meeting enough people?

Community
Once you initially connect, are they attracted into your community?

Consult
Once they've engaged in your community, do they ask for or would they love a consult with you?

Client
As a result of the consult, do they hire you?

Through targeted on-and off-line networking, social media and blogging, you invite potential clients to your website.  Then you entice them with your wit, insights, fresh ideas or whatever strengths you care to share.

Once they arrive at your website, make them a free, no-strings offer they can't refuse. Give them something about which they'd like the inside scoop: results of a survey, a special report, a valuable resource in exchange for their name and email address (maybe also their phone number) so that you can regularly send them something of value to them -- keeping your name and ideas top of mind.

From these two strategic actions alone, some folks will call or email you, asking to hire you!

If you'd like even more business, periodically send an invitation to all those who have signed onto your list. Invite them to have a strategy consultation with you.  Ideally structure this consult to offer value and show them how much more value they'll receive when they hire you.  When you confirm the consult, let them know you have room for one or two new clients and if they are a good fit, you may talk about that, too.

Then, during the consult, determine if you would like them as a client. If so, after the consult, talk to them about next steps, which naturally include working with you!

What could be easier?

Retired logo designer, Ann Strong, now business coach, founder and leader of Thriving Coaches and a good friend of Marketing Mentor.

Growing Your Business with Marketing, Week 3: Cold Calls! Or, "You're only a stranger once"

This is Week Three of a 52-week project/experiment in DIY marketing. Armed with nothing but a copy of the 2009 Grow Your Business Marketing Plan + Calendar and my bare wits, I'm applying the skills you need to grow a business in real time, day by day, and reporting on them week by week. You can follow along here every Monday; check in with my companion blog, A Virgo's Guide to Marketing, for additional links and information.

This week: Making cold calls without it killing you

The good news is, I'm still here.

Laugh away, all you brilliant salespeople who pick up the phone over and over (with or without "the good leads") and sober-dial strangers for 15 or 30 or 60 minutes per day. Until last Friday, I had never made a cold call in my life.

Truthfully, I still haven't. Ilise and Peleg have very wisely repositioned the dreaded cold call as the slightly less dreadful "research call"—a small but significant shift, mentally. My one non-retail sales job—selling desk blotter ad space one summer between my junior and senior years—had me knocking on actual doors to sell, something that one either has the stones for or that teaches one to find other employment. Much like my brief experience in the food service industry, I chose the the latter.

But I digress. We're here to discuss cold/research calling...

Making practice calls makes (theoretically) perfect calls

Both the Grow Your Business Calendar and Ilise very specifically state that one should make a few (hundred, if necessary) practice calls on prospects who are not on your "A" list.

For me, selling my little marketing-for-actors talk, that means finding schools outside of easy driving radius of my home who have some kind of acting program where they're getting training in the artsy/tech-y sides of things, but not the business side. There are dozens and dozens of places less than a half-day from where I live, if not closer; ultimately, I'd like to develop some kind of ongoing relationship with them, where I come a couple of times per term or even get an adjunct professorship. (I very much like the sound of "Professor Wainwright", although there's no way I would let anyone call me that on purpose.)

So I needed to find acting schools outside of a 50-mile radius. Preferably, way outside.

Where to find practice "marks"

While I was whining to Ilise during our weekly check-in about who the HELL was I going to call and how the HELL was I going to find them, she went online, did a quick Google search and fired off an email to me with a URL. I believe the very complex search parameters she plugged in were "acting" and "schools". Without the quotes.

Several of the schools I recognized as so-called "schools"—non-accredited institutions designed to separate desperate would-be stars from their money; live long enough in L.A. and work long enough in the industry and you learn who the bad guys are. I didn't care about them, but I didn't want to call them, either: I want people at real schools with real acting programs, just farther away.

One school looked like a likely non-immediate prospect: branch of a large, state uni, stand-alone acting program, roughly 1,500 miles away. After a bit more searching using the the school's name and a couple of other terms like "professor" and "chair", I hit the jackpot: a downloadable PDF from the past academic year with the names and contact info of every chair of what looked like every college in the state! I went from having zero practice prospects to enough to practice on for the next four weeks in a few keystrokes.

Eventually, you have to pick up the phone and dial

While Ilise gave me permission to call after hours and just leave messages, I figured since I was doing it out loud here on the blog I ought to at least try talking to some real people. Granted, I wasn't sure who'd be answering the phone in a theater department on a Friday at 3:45 (this state is two times zones east of here), but at least I made a stab at calling during working hours.

My very first call, someone picked up. (Of course.) She sounded sweet and friendly and very, very young, so she was a good first gatekeeper. I went off-script and chatted about the weather and how lucky we were to be in states where it was good during the winter, then plunged into my script. Sort of.

What I mean is that I definitely used the script to keep me on track—to remember to say my name clearly and slowly, and for a quick way of summing up what it was I was calling about—but with a real human on the line, I felt the need to connect and let things flow. I added some things here and there instinctively, talking about my background in commercial acting and marketing, or adding a bit of embellishment or emphasis about how important it was to learn real-world skills, or just...being human. I mean, we've all been on the receiving end of those dreadful telemarketing calls (which is probably why everyone hates cold calling, aside from the potential for rejection); I did not want to be That Person.

She heard my pitch, put me on hold while she checked with her boss, and then came back and asked me to email him some links. Which means, of course, I'll now have to add a new landing page to my site specifically for this. No matter.

It was a great way to kick off the cold calling fest. It was also the only live human I got; everything else went straight into voicemail, so I had a chance to see how I was with that, as well. (Oddly enough, it was harder. It was easier with the give-and-take of a live human on the other end. Go figger.)

My best advice to those of you heading into your cold calls

I can tell that this is probably never going to be my fave thing; I'm a writer and a performer, not a salesperson. Plus, I hate the phone. But just doing it this once, a few things are a lot clearer, and I think next time will be easier.

• Don't skip the steps before this. Really. One thing I felt supported in was that I knew with absolute certainty what I had to sell and the kind of people I needed to get in front of. Calling is already a pretty random way of doing things; make sure you can make concrete what's in your control to do so.
• Work off of a printed form. I now have a list with notes I can use for followup, which is critical. You will NOT remember later, especially if you're nervous during. But more importantly, I got to check off each name. Never underestimate the power of a really silly motivator.
• Smile. Breathe. I don't remember if I learned the first from voiceover actors or some marketing book, but it makes a difference. You feel better if you smile, and I swear, it warms up your voice so the other person can hear it. The breathing thing is something I'm constantly having to remind myself of. I think I may put a big sticky note on my monitor next time.
• Write it down in your calendar. If you're like me, the calendar is sacred territory. If it makes it onto the calendar, I keep the appointment. If it's just an item on a list...well, that can be pushed to another day. A silly hack, maybe, but it helps.

Next week: More calls! And more (hopefully) illuminating stuff around making calls! And maybe even some feedback on and learning from previous calls!

Growing Your Business with Marketing, Week 1: Wrangling your contacts

This is Week One of a 52-week project/experiment in DIY marketing. Armed with nothing but a copy of the 2009 Grow Your Business Marketing Plan + Calendar and my bare wits, I'm applying the skills you need to grow a business in real time, day by day, and reporting on them week by week. You can follow along here every Monday; check in with my companion blog, A Virgo's Guide to Marketing, for additional links and information.

This week: Turning your snarl of contacts into a manageable database

If you've been around at all (meaning, in business, or even just an adult who's made friends and acquaintances along the way), you're going to have a ton of what is, for the most part, raw data. If you're like me—a great starter who's not so much with the follow-through—you're also going to have the added complication of multiple systems in various stages of implementation.

Choosing the right database solution

I've set up (and abandoned) systems in Palm, Entourage, Daylite, gmail, Address Book and various combo platters of same. I've also suffered more system crashes and database corruptions than I care to either remember or admit. Fortunately, I'm lousy with the former, so I'm not as worried about the latter.

A final borked-iMac situation made me decide to start from almost-scratch and implement a new system with the old data. Meaning, I started out with a clean hard drive, fresh installs of all software and hand-importing and sorting of all data.

After much gnashing of teeth about what kind of contact management system to commit to, I finally settled on Address Book, the vanilla contact system bundled with the Mac:

• it's light, so it's not using a ton of system resources
• it syncs to my iPhone (I like having my info with me at all times)
• it syncs to gmail contacts (see above)
• it's customizable via tagging and smart groups (more on that in a moment)
• it's the simplest solution possible (Good enough for Einstein, good enough for me.)

If I decide I need something more robust to manage contacts, I'll research other solutions with my particular goal in mind. Which brings me to my next point: before you set up your database, know your market.

Identify your target market, THEN build your database system

As I mentioned last week, I'm in a slightly unusual position in that I have built up a brand (communicatrix) and a business (design) already, but am trying to move into a writing/speaking/consulting space. Ilise and I talked over my goals and for the foreseeable future, I'm going to focus on creative solopreneurs who need help with their DIY marketing, with "actors" as a kinda-sorta special subset.

For me, this meant Address Book. It also meant going through all my my Address Book contacts, one by one—over 1400 in Address Book along at the start of the project—cleaning up each of them by hand, then coding it with a series of tags that would make the system useful.

Introducing Colleen's 100% Non-Patented Tagging System

(Note: this works in Address Book, a Mac-based desktop client; if you're using something else, test your tagging system on a few contacts before spending quality time revising your database.)

I knew I needed to be clear on my goals (target market and desired outcomes) before getting started with  the organizing. My friend and accountability partner (and organized diva supreme) Dyana Valentine suggested that I figure out my taxonomy first, then apply as I went through the list. I'd gone through a similar kind of exercise with my friend (and user experience diva supreme) Lea Ann Hutter before launching version 3.0 of my website and it was really helpful.

The idea was to create as many as I needed and as few as possible, to keep things sane. I came up with:

• #acting (actors and people in acting-related industries, like casting directors, etc.)
• #friends (I use this for friends and family)
• #design (designers and design-related services, fields, etc.)
• #clients (current or past clients)
• #prospects (self-explanatory...I hope!)
• #reconnect (people I know and have fallen out of touch with)
• #develop (people I don't know so well, but would like to)
• #maven (people who are the best at what they do)
• #writing (anything writing-related—my writing, other writers, etc.)
• #speaking (same as above, but with speaking)
• #reco (people I'd recommend to other people—I like looking smart by passing on good info, and I like being helpful!)

In addition to these, as long as I was going through everything, I added a few more for possible future sorting purposes:

• #admin (emails needed for whitelisting purposes)
  
• #blog #pr #journalist (for people who are plugged in, in case I have something I need to plug)
  
• #? (names I had incomplete info for or flat-out didn't recognize; for GTDers, this is like a "someday-maybe" pile)

I'll be honest: once I got started, I found a lot more things I wanted to tag for. Stuff like where I'd met people, if at an event (#CFC, #SOBCon, #SXSW, etc.) or time of life (#ETHS, #cornell, etc) or any other thing I might possibly want to remember, use or sort for (#connector, for times I need to reach outside my network quickly; #law, in case I find myself running afoul of it—you get the idea.)

I then set up some smart groups immediately: "Friends," "Clients," "Develop," etc. I intend to start going through these lists methodically, getting in touch—or back in touch—day to day and week to week. I'll also do another pass with the tags and pull out all of the actors who have requested being on a mailing list for workshops I plan to start up in February.

The beauty of Smart Groups, hashtags and flexibility

Smart groups rule when it comes to this stuff because when you add a new contact and tag them, they automagically get placed in the corresponding group: it continually updates itself!

And now that I've (mostly) got everything tagged, I can also do combo platters as the need arises:

• if someone calls for a copywriter recommendation, I search for (#writing + #reco)
• if I need to talk to a journalist who specializes in marketing, I search for (#journalist + #marketing)
• if I'm stuck on a Mac problem, I search for (#dev + #maven)

And so on. I can also search for location: if I'm planning something like my Seattle trip, I can create a Smart Group whose parameters include cities, states, ZIP codes, etc. (Apple, I'd love it if you'd make this stuff searchable on the fly in the iPhone! Oh—and Smart Groups ON the iPhone would be a great start, although I did find a roll-your-own scripting solution for the intrepid.)

Some words of advice before you start

In Address Book, the #hashtags go in the "Notes" section of the entry. The hashtag (# sign) means that when you do a search, it will pull up only the tag, not other stuff. For example, if you wanted "service" to be a tag but didn't use the # sign in front of it, a search would pull up every contact that had the word "service" in it instead of just your desired pool.

Write out your tags on index cards first. Go crazy with the first pass. Write down everything you might EVER have to sort for. Then edit, tweak, refine. See what redundancies exist. See if you can make tags shorter and easier to remember. If you can afford the time, do this over a few days, especially if you're a nitpicky type like me. I eliminated something like 15 with one pass. (I added in new ones as I went, but it would have been worse if I'd kept those AND added new ones.)

Backup! Backup! Backup! Do it as you go, and keep redundant copies, just in case. ALWAYS perform a backup before you sync to any other program or device. Most responsible sync-ware will warn you before you do it, but be hyper-aware and responsible about it. Data entry is a great task when your brain is fried; syncing data is not. I screwed up my database once after syncing with Facebook (which was great for importing missing addresses and photos, but still) and again with the gmail sync. Backup. Seriously!

I won't lie: this has been a far, far more arduous task than I'd anticipated. I've been combing through my various databases, email programs (gmail and local Mail.app) and stacks of business cards for weeks now in anticipation of 2009. If you've got a lot of contacts, or have been undisciplined about setting up a system and sticking to it, give yourself time. You're not just doing monkey work for nothing; you're investing your time to create a powerful tool for reaching out to your current contacts and building your network as you grow.

The Simplest Solution

If you're just starting out with a brand new business, you may not need a system even this complicated. What you'll want to do is just to collect all the names and contact information you have of people, and get it all into some kind of trusted system: an address book, electronic or paper; a series of index cards, alphabetized; a separate piece of paper for each contact that you put in one folder to start, then more as you go.

Start with the information you have, and use that channel to get more. If you have an email, connect to say "hi", say what you're up to and send some sort of friendly message. If it's appropriate, you can ask for more info right there; if not, move slowly, build the relationship back up a bit and then ask for contact info. You want to be real and authentic, not a shark; no one likes to be looked at as though they were chum.

Keep a record of each communication with that person. When I was an actor, I noted each letter, audition or call on a sheet of paper devoted to that person (and kept copies of stuff on the computer.) I also noted things I read about them that might be of interest, like hobbies, achievements, etc., so there would be things to talk about the next time we met or spoke. You can catalog family members, birthdays, job changes—anything that's not creepy. And remember, people LOVE getting snail mail, if it's personal. (Well, most people do; if you find out someone doesn't, note that, too!)

Make the system better!

This is definitely a case where many minds are better than one. If you see flaws in the system, or ways to improve it, please let me know in the comments. And if you have a fantastic, completely different system of your own that words—especially with follow-up, which I know is going to be the weak link here—I would love to hear it.

NEXT MONDAY is WEEK TWO: Drafting boilerplate for email & a script for (gasp) cold calling!

How wrapping up a project can become a useful marketing tool

Completing a project for a client, big or small, is a perfect opportunity to engage in a marketing activity that can only make you stand out of the crowd. Ask for client feedback through a “project wrap up survey”. Whether your project went as smoothly as it could go, or had some bumps along the way, asking your client for feedback send a message that you are listening, you care and that your goal is to provide the best service possible. And that’s marketing. That will set you apart from your competitors.

The wrap up survey should be done fairly soon after the project is complete and delivered. The momentum is important. Don’t wait too long or small details may be forgotten. Ask open ended questions only, make it safe for your client to share. Here are a few examples of questions you can ask:

• Did we meet your expectations?
• Describe the experience of working with us on this project.
• How professional have you found our staff to be?
• How have you found the value of our services?
• How efficient did you find our team to be?
• What do you suggest we could have done differently?
• What areas could we improve in the future?

Your client will be happy to give you feedback if you allow for him to do so in a safe way. Sometimes building in this phase into your process can strengthen the relationship and lead to more work. Try it, your clients will thank you. I promise.

Thank you to Eddie Hofmeister, principal of Hofmeister Design, for asking the question that sparked this blog post. If you have any burning marketing, pricing or procedural questions about running your small creative business, please feel free to email us, or just leave them in the comments!