6 Tips for Improving Client Relationships - 32

This is Law and Wit, Episode 32: 6 Tips for Improving Client Relationships. Welcome to Law and Wit, Creative Counsel for Entrepreneurs. I'm your host, Brittany Rettell, mother of 4, entrepreneur, naptime lawyer, and attorney for creative entrepreneurs. I'm here to share inspiration and action so that you can tackle your business blocks and confidently own your business in every sense of the word. Thank you so much for being here. Hello all and welcome back. Thanks so much for being here. I really appreciate you and taking the time to listen to me, to listen to something that's for you and for your business, and that's going to help you move forward in whatever it is that means something to you that you're working on. I want to share a brief high and low, as we call them in our house. We do it around our dinner table. So my high for the week was that I got to go skiing on Saturday with my oldest daughter Eleanor, who's 8. And she has finally got to the point where we can go down a hill together, like a green kind of quasi-blue, like an easy blue. For those of you who ski, that's kind of like a beginner intermediate. Um, but she was like weaving in and out of trees and going over these little bumps with some friends, um, that we were with, some cousins. And anyway, it was just— it was a really proud mama bear moment, um, because it was something that my husband and I have dreamed about. This is what we wanted, is for the kids to, um, get old enough and get proficient enough in skiing that they wanted to do it, that they really got it. Because skiing, like a lot of things, is one of those where it doesn't get fun for a while. In the beginning, it's cold and you're wet and you're falling down, and it's a lot of effort to get up to the mountain and get all the gear and get everything ready. And it was a lot of that this season, especially getting 3 out of our 4 kids we were trying to get up and kind of get working on skiing this year. But anyway, it was— it finally came to fruition, so we had that awesome snow moment, even though the weather wasn't that great, snow wasn't that great. But you know what, any day on the mountain, I'm not going to complain. So that was awesome. My low was that my hard drive crashed on my main Mac, my large Mac desktop computer on Friday. Um, so that's why I didn't get a podcast episode out. I missed a week, so I'm trying to play catch up, um, which I know you guys don't care, and thanks so much for not caring and just being here. But I'm trying to do better this year about being accountable and really being consistent with getting this content out. And so that was a bummer to miss that. But, um, yeah, sometimes life happens, and it actually will play a role into what I'm talking about today, which is why you need to have stuff like a force majeure clause, which is a fancy way of saying in your contract, um, sometimes stuff happens that we don't plan on, and how are we going to handle that so that we can move forward? Because all of us deal sometimes with circumstances beyond our control. Things happen, um, and then now we have to choose how to respond to that, um, and we're trying to do that in the most positive way possible while maintaining business relationships, friendships, and everything else that we've got going on. So there's that. OK, brief disclaimer before we move into our awesome episode that I have outlined for you guys today is that I am Brittany Rettell. While I'm an attorney licensed in Utah and soon to be Idaho, I am not your attorney unless you want me to be. And that means that you chat with me, you sign a formal engagement letter— well, you like e-sign it. I mean, this is not the 19th century here. And then that's I'm your attorney. And then you get to brag that you have an attorney, you have a legal eagle in your corner, all those things. You can say that you've lawyered up. If you've ever been one who wanted to use that phrase, you're welcome. You get to say that now. But none of that is happening on this podcast. This is just me sharing information, education about business topics relating to the law, and then giving you guys information, and then you get to decide how you're going to use that and apply that to your case, to your particular set of business and business facts and circumstances. If you have any questions about any of this stuff, please talk to an attorney who practices in this area wherever you live. Okay, and most of the stuff I'm going to talk about today is obviously American law. That's what I know and that's what I practice. And if you are— but if you— if even if you're based somewhere else in your business, you do a lot of business in the US, it could still be relevant to you. So don't discount it that like, oh, I'm, you know, off— I'm off the grid, it doesn't apply to me. Because depending on where you are, I imagine that the US is probably a big customer base for you. So it could be still something that you want to take a look at and at least make yourself aware of. Alright, so let's get to it right after I read a review, 'cause I wanna reward you guys who take the steps of going on your iTunes and leaving a review. I know it's a pain, I know it's a pain when people ask about it on podcasts, but it really does help people find the podcast and let 'em know that it's legit, and so I will keep asking for it. So here's one from Adri Lars, and this person said, there are a lot of podcasts out about how to be an entrepreneur, how to run your own business, et cetera, 'But no one goes into the nitty-gritty like Brittany does. She talks about all the details that are legally necessary to actually running your own business. She's so helpful with putting legal language into everyday language and explains things so clearly. Thanks, Brittany.' Thank you. Thank you for saying such nice things and for leaving a review. I really appreciate it. So keep it up, guys. And if you haven't done that yet, I would really appreciate it. It'd be great. So if you can do it, um, from your Purple Podcast app if you have an iPhone. If you don't, then yeah, you have to get to like iTunes, um, And if you don't, if you're not on the Mac train at all, then, um, yeah, I guess that's, it's probably not going to happen for you. But thanks, I appreciate the good karma. So, okay, let's get into talking about serving our clients. Okay, this episode was really spurned by— I had an Instagram post that I posted, um, like a week or two ago that got a lot of good discussion on it. So I knew I was hitting a good vein and it was something that people were talking about, um, and really reacting to and sharing and tagging friends and um, and it actually drew because I was dealing with some of these, um, fallout from this not happening, um, from one of my clients who was having a tough time with one of their clients. They're a creative service professional, um, and we were just kind of talking and going over about, hey, trusting your gut and what to do with, um, you know, improving client relations so we don't get to the point where you're working with someone like me and we are doing cease and desist letters and we are drafting settlement agreements and we're talking about litigation. Um, and, you know, this is the worst case scenario, obviously. This is where, you You know, like they say in Lilo and Stitch, you know, I'm the one they call when things have gone wrong, and things have definitely gone wrong. Okay, I am your Mr. Bubbles. But that's why I'm here on the beginning of that, because if we can head off some of that angst, if we can follow some of these steps I'm going to lay out here on this outline, then you hopefully will not have to use someone like me. You can use some of the tools, some of the resources that I can, some of the tips to make sure that you're on top of your client communication, um, so that we don't get to this— into the point of the relationship where things are deteriorating, um, and people are getting so angry or frustrated that we're talking litigation and, you know, lawyering up. So, okay, so let's get to it. All right, the first thing, um, that will help you if you are working with clients is, um, to spot a tough client and to trust your gut in looking for those red flags that come up when you're starting to work with clients, okay? And when Um, and when we talk about this, I think most people, they, they immediately know what I'm talking about. They've either had some of these clients, or, um, they've, they've either had them and they went forward with their work even though it kind of gave them the willies, even though they were like, oh, am I making a big mistake here? And then they regretted it. Or they have friends who've been in the same position. So, um, so the ones that I cited in my, my Instagram post, which I know not everyone saw because the gram being what it is, sometimes you guys see stuff, sometimes you don't, um, and are here is that if you ever hear these phrases, um, coming from a client when you're still kind of in the proposal stage, um, when you're— they're shopping around, or maybe it's for your— on your consult, or, you know, you're— you guys are still dating, okay? Nobody— or even maybe dating, you're still just talking, okay? You haven't even asked them out on a date yet, um, then you should run, or at least really seriously consider your pricing and the protections that you might have in place in your contract, okay? If you hear, you are so much better than the last few people I was working with on this project, guys, that is not a good sign. I know that might sound like amazing flattery, like, I know, hair flip, I'm great. Um, but what really is what it's saying is this client is hard to please. This client has already hired and then gotten rid of or fired multiple people to do the same thing that you're hiring from you. Um, this person is either difficult to work with, um, they might change their mind all the time, they might not know themselves or know their business. Like, if you are the website designer for this person and, you know, they're— they keep on saying, oh, I don't know, and yeah, I'm gonna get you that copy, like, no, guys, this is a bad— this is bad news bears, okay? You do not want this client, okay? They are going to cause you a headache, they are going to cost you money because you are going to spend way too much time holding their hand and fixing and changing stuff, okay, then you're gonna lose money on this. So you need to hasta la vista, baby, and get out of there. Okay, next one, um, is, aren't we doing a handshake deal on this? I don't— I don't— I just hate contracts. Okay, um, and here I can get in the beginning if you were maybe working with a client who is, uh, maybe in the beginning stage of their business and they haven't had to deal with a lot of contracts yet. You know, there's just not like a larger medium or larger size, like corporate business, like they, they really are used to more just handshake deals and friends and maybe doing trades and stuff, um, then I could get that sometimes, like, delivering that contract seems a little cold. It seems a little, um, you know, forward. And like, why do we have to be all like legalese about this? You know, can't we just, you know, agree and, you know, trust each other's word? Um, but the problem is, is that sometimes those people who say that and that, can't we just trust each other, and isn't this all great, and I know this person, it's going to be fine because they're a friend, family member, member of my church, member of my community, someone's dad, whatever, you know what I'm saying, are also the people again that can cause you a lot of stress and heartache. And it's sometimes it's precisely because of those reasons that you maybe have an outside connection to the someone, because maybe you are friends or you have some other relationship that you care about, that you need to get this stuff on paper, okay? You, you have to have a contract, you have to have something in writing, you have to have some of those awkward conversations which granted are not so awkward when you spent time and forethought into how you're going to phrase this, and it's all going to be part of your beautiful client service agreement and your onboarding packet, um, that you go over what the relationship is going to look like. What are you doing for this person? What are you not doing for this person? And what does that look like? Okay, um, and the problem is, is that people who don't like contracts or immediately have a problem with that sometimes just don't— they don't, um, they just— they don't treat other people well. Sometimes they take advantage of people, they want deals, they want discounts, they want like special unicorn privileges because that's what they think they are. Um, and you're setting yourself up again for disappointment and frustration with this client. Okay, so, um, be like a Monty Python knight and run away. Run away, get those coconuts and move them in gear. Okay, the third phrase that you don't want to hear is, um, from your client is, I, I could totally do this myself. But no, no, no, no, no. Okay, you want someone who's excited about your work, your talents, your enthusiasm, your nest Okay, to quote Mr. Owen Wilson, you want someone who's excited for your thing and they want you to solve their problem. Okay, just you. If they are already second-guessing the value that you're bringing to the table, if they're already like, I could really totally do this, or, oh, that logo, that seems really simple, I could do that in Illustrator, you know, that type of person, um, they're going to be giving you pain on your price. They're going to be second-guessing the what you're doing or the revisions that you're making. They're going to ask for favors, they're going to ask for special privileges, they're going to ask for discounts, they are going to ask and ask and ask, okay? There is going to be— mark my words, guys— there is going to be scope creep, okay? And you are going to be working too much on this project for too little, okay? So you need to let them go like you were Elsa, okay? And with the snow swirling around them, let them go. Do not take on a client who doesn't appreciate you. It just— it doesn't sound like a good fit. It's not a good fit for them, it's not going to be a good fit for you, okay? And the last one here, phrase, is that if there is just a general overall Jiminy Cricket voice in your head you know, call it conscience, spirit, God, the universe, um, that says, I don't like this client, this is giving me the heebie-jeebies. Um, you gotta just lean into that and trust yourself and know that you have your own back in your business. Um, and I know those words maybe may seem a little empty when you're maybe at the beginning stage of your business and you're like, Brit, I, I gotta pay the bills. Like, I don't know about you, but you know, I don't do free. And I need to make some money, and if this is the only clients who I'm getting contact with who are coming in through my doors, then I gotta take the work. And I get it, I get it, you know, I've been there, we are all there at some points. Um, but there also come— sometimes comes a point where you need to trust yourself that you can hustle, that you can get good work or better work or better clients. And that may mean that doing even uncomfortable things, that may mean in making a few phone calls, it may mean asking clients like, hey, do you have anybody who's in need? I'm just, you know, making sure that I'm taking advantage of my referrals. Or is there anything else? You know anyone else who's needing some new branding or whatnot? I mean, and that's— yeah, I understand that's an awkward thing to ask. It's awkward sometimes to go to networking stuff and meet new people, and especially if that's not your jam, if you're more introvert, you know, you like— you want to be behind your screen. I'm just saying, the more opportunities you have to get yourself out there, then you get to be the one who's picking, you know, from the dates on your dance card, okay? And picking the right clients, the are going to be the better fit for you instead of having leftovers, and then you get in the tough spot. So just keep that in mind, that, that balance, and, you know, really just try to trust yourself and back yourself up there because, um, you'll, you'll just be in such a better place, and you'll, you'll know that you have your back no matter what. Okay, so that's kind of spotting a tough client. So if you see some of those things, some of those behaviors, um, really evaluate whether you want to continue and whether this is going to be a good fit. Okay. The second piece that I want to talk about here is that, say you've now— you've gone through the client and you guys are going to work together, you've sent off the proposal, or you've had your discovery call, your consult, whatever your procedure is, you're deciding you're moving forward, this is happening. Okay, now make sure that you have really clear onboarding, communication, and a contract. Okay, so those are the things we're going to talk about here. So onboarding, um, and really the onboarding and contract can really go hand in hand. So I recommend, you know, for my clients that I either do custom work, that I'll draft a contract for them. Some people, they, they have something or they've been using something but they don't love it, or it's time for them to really address some of the shortcomings that they have because they go through and they kind of look at what, what's been happening in their business and where have they been wasting a lot of time or money, or where the hang-ups have been, and how can we kind of maybe tighten some of those holes in their contract. And the other thing that I highly recommend is if you have no contract yet, and you would like a good one, or if you have one and it maybe fell off like a legal Zoom truck somewhere or got handed to you by your professor and you've just been rinsing and repeating it, or some friend in a Facebook group, but you don't even know if it's that great or if it's protecting you in all the ways it needs to, or if it really applies to your business, um, then I sell client service agreements in my shop, okay, creativecontracts.co. And the client service agreement is the one that you basically— you are using as the business owner and when you are doing services for your client, just like it sounds looks like. Um, and this is a piece that you can make it— you can take the text in it because I provide it, you know, editable Word document. And I show you here your options for how you want to handle payment. You know, you pick one of these highlighted in pink. And here's how you want to decide how you're going to handle rights. Um, here's how you can specify how homework is going to be done. And this becomes really important for you guys who are in those, you know, creative design fields where you're going to have a lot of back and forth. You know, if you're a website designer, graphic designer, branding strategist or something, you know that you're going to need client to do something, and then you do something, and then client needs to do something, whether that's approving, revising, they need to submit photographs to you, they need to submit, you know, commercial photographs or stock photography or pick out stuff, they need copy that they need to get to you so you can put that on the website. There's going to be a lot of back and forth and working with each other, and so you want to make sure that in that, that you have it really clear You know, how many days do you have to wait before you can just assume that they approve something to move on? Because sometimes people just, they just sit on stuff or they get busy and they forget, and you don't want your whole calendar being held hostage by a client that's just not good on their time management. Okay, you want to make sure that your contract is addressing confidentiality or a non-compete if that's an issue. You want to make sure, and most contracts should have something in there, but you might have access to kind of some secret sauce behind their business stuff., and you're going to want to make sure that you're protecting, um, you're giving them that, that protection that they're going to want and need. And the same for you, if you— they have access to, you know, your special questionnaires or business processes or layouts or other special stuff that you have. Yeah, you just want to make sure it's really clear what you can and can't do with that information. Um, you're going to want to talk about force majeure. Like I said at the beginning of the episode, this is the clause I'm sure you guys have seen that talks about, you know, acts of God and war and disaster and droughts and floods and fires. Um, which sometimes that stuff happens. What happens more often are memory cards failing, okay, like data loss, um, you know, hard drives crashing, which I just had the experience with that. Luckily all my stuff is backed up, but you know, things like what to plan for when things happen that we don't plan on. And yet we, we kind of should plan on them because it's, it's life, you know, and it's Murphy's Law that eventually something like that's going to happen to you and your business. And so you need to have plan on, um, how are you going to recover? Is there someone who can replace and do what you do? Is— how are you going to maybe refund some of the money or move forward? Um, and what happens if your client drops off and they can't fulfill their end of whatever they're supposed to do with you? How are you going to handle that? But make sure that you've protected yourself so that, um, if you are prevented from doing the services— you know, if you're a wedding planner and stuff happens where you can't provide the wedding services that you need to and it's outside of your control— that no one is coming back and suing you. You know, that you're protected there. So, um, and then the other issue, like I said, is rights or intellectual property. So you want to make sure that you've— this is probably the most important part— is really want to make it clear that who is owning the work and under what terms. So if you are creating something for the client and they are— and you are turning over all the rights to them, you are assigning or transferring the rights, as we would say, all the intellectual property rights, all the all the copyrights to something, then that needs to be spelled out because maybe that's a separate price from if you are only licensing it to use to them. This especially gets important because I've seen some designers who are very particular about their work and they, you know, their brand or their photographs. They could say, oh, you can only use these photographs in this way or at this size and format. You're not allowed to edit them. You're not allowed to put filters on them or You can't have them out in this way. If you want to, you know, use them in print, it's a separate fee. And you can really slice and dice depending on how you want your work to be used and control it. And some people don't care about any of that, and they just say, no, I created this as a client, I just want to pass it off to the client and want them to be used. So I see a wide spectrum of people and how they approach that discussion of rights and licensing versus like a work-for-hire situation, which is you know, more that you turn over everything to them and it's basically all becomes their property. So you just want to make sure that you're definitely on the same page and the client knows and is no surprise to them what they're buying, what they paid for, and what they can do with that. And again, it's, it's just that communication. Yeah. And because they're going to go check through the contract, and ideally it'll be in the contract and maybe even explained in a different way in your onboarding. I was talking to Someone recently who, you know, in their onboarding packet, they, they kind of, they take some of the terms, the kind of the, that stuff that they know is most common for people to ask about, and they take it out and they also set it in their onboarding packet outside of the contract, knowing that some people— and this, you know, boggles my mind, but I know it happens— some people just sign a contract and they don't read any of it. They don't read a stitch of it. Um, and so you can't overtell people too much of this stuff. So if that sounds like— I say steal that idea, you know. Take those terms, those payment terms. I would say like payment and rights terms are ones that are probably the most often, you know, disagreed about and people fight about that. And, and paste them in another part, you know. Put them in an email again that you're sending with this. Put them in a different part and with a cute little box around it designed out, whoever, to your heart's content, um, to make sure really crystal clear that everyone's on the same page. Because that's going to do a lot to avoiding some of this frustration that you have, which usually the first step along a client situation gone bad is bad communication. It means that people are not understanding what's going on. It's, it's, it's rare. I mean, it does happen that people understand and have good communication and then they decide to just be mean or be unreasonable. It does happen, but certainly the communication is the first line of defense in there. Okay, okay. And again, if you need one of these agreements, go check out my shop. The link will be here in the show notes, but creativecontracts.co. And actually, if you, if you need one of these agreements, I'm going to give you guys a special listener code. So you can put in Law and Wit and you'll get 10% off. Okay, so that's just for you guys who are listeners to the podcast. Really appreciate you. So use code Law and Wit. Okay, um, the third thing I want to talk about is to just be consistent with your policies. Um, and again, with that communication, that if nothing else happens, if stuff starts going wrong— say you get too many projects all at once, say you, you know, you have a miscarriage, you have a death in your family, you get sick, you find out that you're going through a divorce— like, life happens to you. Don't go dark, okay? Please don't stop communicating with your client about what's going on, even if it's, you know, I'm sorry I haven't checked in, I, uh, I'm working on stuff, but I'm dealing with this right now. Um, even just, you know, because a lot of times people are reasonable, they understand that stuff happens that you don't plan on. Um, and no one wants— I understand no one wants to deliver bad news like that to a client, that, um, they might be behind schedule, that things are not going as planned. Um, but none of that is going to get any better if you go dark, because what happens is that people start to play out in their minds the worst-case scenario, which is this person has just, um, they've just ripped me off, they're just stealing all my money, or they're not doing anything on my site, or, um, you know, I've, I've just made a horrible decision. Like, their mind will start to wander about what, what's happened. And so you want to cut that off, that really bad spiral of, you know, bad fantasy, bad nightmare, and say, what, this is what's actually happening. Okay, with this, I recommend, you know, take advantage of Mel Robbins' 5-second rule, which If you're familiar with it, it's basically the premise that if you have something that your mind is telling you you need to do, you need to act within 5 seconds or you're going to be able to talk yourself out of it. And all of us have like these incredible brains that are capable of dreaming and ideation and fantasizing and coming up with problem-solving, all these great ideas, and they can also be our harshest critics and the harshest voices of fear, uncertainty, doubt in our heads saying, "You can't do this. This isn't a good idea. You will embarrass yourself. You will shame yourself." So you got to get ahead of all of that talk. So if you know you need to make a tough phone call, give yourself a countdown. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. You know, be like Dwight Schrute on the episode of like, you will buy this car now for $15,000. You will buy it now. Offer going 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Because guess what? They buy the car and you can make the phone call, okay? Or you can write the email and just send it. Just send it, okay? Do the hard thing. Do it now. It doesn't get any easier. You just have to make the decision once and that's it. And then you You just have to do it. Okay. All right. Number 4 here is how to— we're going to address leaving a tough client. So what if even after all this stuff, if you've taken all this advice to heart, you know, you've absorbed the gospel of Brittany or other experts who are trying to help you out with your client services management, and you still are in a spot where you just cannot continue working with your client, what are you supposed to do? Well, you go back to your contract, okay? So hopefully you have a good contract, um, mine, one of mine, or someone else's that's a good solid contract that addresses what you do and what can happen when things go wrong and you guys just simply cannot work together anymore, it's not working in the relationship. And sometimes these are called kill clauses or cancellation clauses or termination clauses. And so that's the language that you're going to be looking for and you're going to see what do you need to do to cancel or kill the contract and to walk away. Now keep in mind that depending on how you have structured payment and milestones in this project, that you might not be getting all your payment if you haven't done all the work, or if that's simply the way that it was structured and that, you know, payment was going to be at the end, or it was going to be a monthly retainer, or, you know, a little bit here, deposit here, you know, 10% here, then 20% at this date, that by killing the contract you might not walk away with anything, everything. Also keep in mind that it means that you might have to negotiate, um, that I'm also might depend on how workable or usable is the stuff that you've always created. So sometimes some contracts will have language that addresses, you know, if someone walks away or cancels or terminates a contract, then any work that has been done or any that hasn't been paid for needs to be billed or invoiced at, you know, the kind of the going industry rate for how usable it is. So, and this is kind of a fancy way of saying if someone's already done the work for something, you're not going to get that for free. Like, we need to make that right, you know, have at least a fair price so that, you know, if someone's done 80% of the website, then they should hopefully have 80% of the fee. Now, I know that gets tricky sometimes because it's maybe the polishing up work or the work at the end that really makes it possible, or You know, if you've written all the code for something or done all the work, but you know, if you've done all the planning for the wedding but you're not actually going to be able to execute it, well, is that really worth 80% of the fee? You know, a bride would probably argue no. So I know that's going to be really probably fact-specific depending on what it is that you do for people and how you structure your payment, and especially what that looks like in your contract. But those are some of the kind of common clauses and terms to keep in mind that may come into play in terms of walking away. And again, going back to that contract, you hopefully have some language in there that addresses if that happens, you know, what about confidentiality, um, what about non-disparagement. So, and this is a— this means that are you guys going to be prohibited or from saying mean things about each other, you know, from flaming each other on social media, from bad-mouthing or giving really bad reviews. So if you don't have anything like that in your contract, then That's also maybe something you need to think about. If this is a close-knit community or if this is a really major client with a wide reach, then that's something you need to consider. Is, is it worth walking away from this client or angering this client in a way that can really hurt your business and hurt your reputation in the future? So all things you need to consider. Non-disparagement clauses, just to let you know, typically have some sort of timeline on them. They're not open-ended, meaning you can't talk bad about someone forever. A lot of times you'll see somewhere in between the range of 3 to 5 years. So if that's what you see, don't be alarmed by that. You know, don't be alarmed, I'm fine. Um, another— again, Ben Stiller from Heavyweights. Um, no, no, you don't have a deviated septum. What you have is a normal disparagement clause. That's like a normal length of time that you should be concerned in terms of how long people have to be to be quiet. Um, yeah, if you're having issues with people putting, you know, stuff that's like slanderous or libelous in your reviews, um, then reach out because that's kind of a separate issue in terms of if they're actually using the kind of language that's reaching legal conclusions and that, you know, is false and more than just giving their opinion. And so that can get a little tricky. I've had some clients had some issues with that, and you got to certainly be careful about how you throw those words around online because you can end up just aggravating people, making the situation worse. Okay, so that's kind of what walking away will look like. My number 5 tip here is to report, report, report, follow up on people. And by this I mean that if you had, you know, if you're a brand manager, if you're like a social media manager for someone, if that's what you were doing, if you were organizing a website or anything else where you accomplished something and you were looking at what would happen, you know, what would the user experience be, you did a campaign and were wanting to know what the shares were, what the metrics were. Um, make sure that you're doing a really good job. If you are a blogger, influencer, content creator, and you were creating something or campaign for someone, make sure that you have packaged together all those numbers that a person is going to want to see. Because the easier you can make it for them to see that this was a good, successful project, that it met whatever the key progress indicators were, whatever goals they had, you know, those were met, it's going to be easier for them to feel like it was successful and for them to see exactly what successful looks like for this project. For them to share that, especially if you're working with someone that has higher-ups. If you're in a corporate structure, then like reports are the name of the game, people, okay? They— everyone has a boss that they have to report to and show, okay, this is the budget we gave to you, you did this with it, how did it turn out? You know, they, they are going to need that. And so that kind of, um, really clear communication will put you leaps and bounds above your competitors or other people in your space who are not giving clear reports about what happened This is what we did, this is how it turned out at the end. So make that really easy, then just surprise— even if it's not something you talked about with your client beforehand, then surprise and delight them with the report. But hopefully it is something that you talked about, or maybe even one of the ways you differentiated at the beginning of your relationship. And then my last tip, number 6, is to follow up in, in the case of getting feedback on the experience. And maybe this is a questionnaire that you sent out, maybe this is a phone call, Maybe it's an email or just kind of close up the relationship and make sure that they have what they need and ask them what worked here, what didn't work, or, you know, just trying to improve my client service relationship with the way that I work with clients. Can you, you know, let me know how, what was key in you choosing to work with me and maybe how I can do a better job of, you know, explaining that to my clients? Because this is a golden opportunity for you to figure out why did this person choose to work with you. What was it that drew them to you? Because if this was a good client and this is exactly the kind of person that you want to be working with, is this your ideal client avatar, then find out what made them tick and what made them choose you, and how can you rinse and repeat that again and again. And this is obviously really important and a really appropriate time to ask for referrals, to see if they have any friends or buddies in space to see if there's anything that they— you can do to make it easy for them to recommend you. You know, I, I always put a little line of text in my invoices that say, hey, you know, happy clients are the best way that I get new business. Please let me know if there's anything I can do, any questions I can answer. I'm always happy when people refer their friends to me. Okay, and it's also an appropriate time to ask for a testimonial of your services. Now for this, you want to make it really clear what you're asking for and what you're going to be using this for. So, um, and again, this is a, this is a space where I, I recommend the best practice would be to have some sort of little release or document that clarifies this. I also sell this in my contract shop, um, because if you're planning on using this kind of testimonial and it's a key part of your, um, you know, say you have an online course or you have a website and you know that you're going to be sharing this material, you're going to want someone's, you know, headshot on there and you know, the name of their business. And especially if this is like a really important client, then you want to make sure that you've done the steps necessary that you can use all that information and that you have the rights to do that, to connect this person with your business and to sell your services. So yeah, a testimonial release is going to clarify that and say, hey, I can use your, you know, image or likeness, I can use and release your name or your business and release this information that give me a testimonial, or I can use this in my promotional materials for some length of time. Again, something like 3, 4, 5 years is kind of common, um, not, not open-ended forever. So if you need one of this, if testimonials are something that you've been meaning to use or you have been using but you'd like to kind of put a better workflow in going forward just to make sure that you're on the up and up, then, um, snag yourself that testimonial release from creativecontracts.co. And again, if you are a long-wit Listener, like you guys are, because you're so smart and savvy, then you get to use a special code. Anything that you get from the— it's anything from the shop, open-ended, guys. Go treat yourself, okay? You can use code LAWANDWIT, all together, L-A-W-A-N-D-W-I-T, LAWANDWIT, for 10% off, okay? Any of my digital templates, do-it-yourself legal templates in my shop, okay? Okay, well, I hope that was helpful, that discussion of how to better your client relations, you know, how to surprise and delight and also clarify and communicate and inform and steer clear of the crazies, okay? Watch out for those crazies out there because they're there. And maybe, you know what, maybe you even be a crazy and maybe you even recognize that you'd be a tough person to work for. And it doesn't always mean like, I mean, I say crazies and joking, but That's the thing, it doesn't always mean that someone, you know, some of those red flags are that someone's a bad person or that they're awful for everyone to work with, but maybe it means they're just not the right fit for you, okay? And I'm a big believer that like there's a butt for every chair, okay? And there is the kind of graphic designer that works really well with someone who's visionary and really wants creative, out-of-the-box, and, you know, really crazy different unique, you know, avant-garde stuff. And there's maybe a great designer that wants someone who just wants, you know, a good basic steady understanding and just wants a clear communication and, you know, nothing too crazy and this is the feel that I want and there's someone for them. Just like there's a great, you know, wedding planner for someone who is a bridezilla. I mean, that's probably not anyone's first choice. And there's a great wedding planner for someone, a bride who's like, oh, I don't know, it's all beautiful. And someone who just is going to like take the vision and run with it and make it happen, okay? And then the brides is going to love it, okay? So, you know, a lot of this process will even help just knowing yourself. And the better that you can hone exactly what it is that you do and why do you do it well and why do people want you to do it for them, you know, really digging into that, you know, that Simon Sinek, that why stuff, that's Allison's Brand School of why, what's your why and why do you do it and what do you value and what are people coming from to you and what problem are you solving it and how are you solving it? In a way that's meaningful to them will really just give you a lot of clarity on some of these issues of being able to find your ideal clients and serve them and serve them well. And they will love you and they will recommend you and they will brag about you on Facebook and with their friends and on Instagram, and it'll come back to you tenfold. So thanks for being here today, guys, and joining with me on this episode and working on your business, taking time to do that. If you haven't subscribed to the podcast, please do that. Like I said, please leave a review if you haven't done that as well. And if you're interested in some of my other free resources, follow me on Instagram, connect with me there. I'm @BrittanyRatelle, B-R-I-T-T-A-N-Y R-A-T-E-L-L-E. And I also do free legal lives, question and answers. They're typically on Tuesday night, usually about 8:30 Pacific. So jump on those if you haven't. I just spin them up usually on Instagram. I try to get Facebook to work, but Facebook sometimes has a, has a bee in its bonnet about being live on my computer. But I'm I can usually make them work on Instagram, and, and I open it up so you can submit questions beforehand. I usually do a post earlier that day or a question box on my Instagram story feed. So if you have something that you've been wondering about in your business, I'd love to help you answer it and to get some clarity about that. And then I also take questions live, so show up for that and get some help for your business. And then the other resource I wanted to make sure that you know about is I have a free legal checklist that kind of goes through the most common— like when I get a phone call with a new client and we talk about their business, this is kind of— this is my checklist that I go through in my head. And I am giving it to you guys because I want you to be able to have those first steps to be able to think about what is your business doing or what are some legal things that you need to think about as you're protecting it, as you're growing it, as you're scaling it, as you're adding more and more pieces or income streams and want to make sure that that's being done right in a legit way so that you can grow and it can really achieve all the dreams that you have for your business. So you can get that by going to BrittanyRattell.com/newsletter, and you'll get that freebie, that download, and you'll also be signed up for my email newsletter, which is full of tips and tricks just like the stuff you've heard today here on the episode. And as well, I send out the links to my legal lives so you can review those if you don't— if you don't want to catch them live or can't catch them live. I know, sorry East Coasters, I remember them being so late for you. And also other tips and tricks that just don't make it into Instagram or maybe you didn't see. Like I said, I know that the algorithm changes and because my stuff tends to be pretty text-heavy and I don't have unicorns or puppies on my feed that I know not everyone sees the stuff that they want to that may be relevant for their business. So sign up there, make sure you're not missing out and that you're doing what you need to try to build your business and move forward. Thank you so much for being here and listening. I really appreciate it. I love when you guys send me DMs. I love it when you share with your friends, when you tag the podcast, you know, #LonWhit, or tag me in it. I really appreciate because I know that these are good resources, that I know that, but it's, it's a totally different deal to actually hear from a live human being that this is making a difference, that's helping you do what you want to and help build your dreams. And that's why I do what I do. My, my why, you know, if we're getting really esoteric about it, is I want to help women specifically become better and more confident business owners. That's why I'm here. That's why I show up. That's why I'm doing this work instead of any other things that I could be doing. And it's, it's just awesome to be let in a little bit of you in your life, of your business journey, to know that I'm even a small piece of that, of helping you get over those walls, get over those blocks, and make stuff happen the way you want to make it happen. So thanks so much for letting me be a part of that and for being here and giving me your time. And I hope you have a great week in your life, in your business, and I'll see you next week. I've got some fabulous, fabulous interviews coming up. You guys are not going to believe. I've had so many in my interview bank, it's really hard. But next week is going to be Gabrielle Blair of Design Mom, like the Design Mom, one of the, you know, matriarchs of the creative blogosphere, who I've been reading her blog for years, years, even before I went to law school. In my undergrad, I was reading it. And she's gonna be telling us all about getting the most out of conferences. So you do not want to miss that episode. So thanks so much for tuning in to Law and Wit, and remember that you are a real business owner and you should own your business in every sense of the word. Thanks so much. Bye.