How to Win & Work with Big Clients

Tom and Joe share experience and tips on how to win and work with big [good] clients, mostly learned through making every mistake in the book whilst going from being freelancers working on small sites to running an agency working on big sites for big clients.

Transcript

1. How to Win & Work With Big Clients Monday, 24 September 12
2. Human Made Limited @humanmadeltd • Founded in 2010 • WordPress only Agency • Based in Matlock, Derbyshire • 8 Employees (5 full-time) • WordPress VIP partner agency Monday, 24 September 12
3. Joe Hoyle @joe_hoyle Freelancer since 2007 - self taught Technical lead for Human Made (whatever that is) Not very good at charging people money happytables WP Remote WP Realm Technical Editor Human Made Co-founder Monday, 24 September 12
4. Tom Willmot humanmade • happytables • rufflr tomwillmot.com rufflr.com happytables.com @tomwillmot @rufflr @happytables Has a mortgage! Monday, 24 September 12
5. Those aren’t big clients! Monday, 24 September 12
6. Why a Company? • Multiple strengths, but not multiple weaknesses • More capacity for larger jobs • Can take on multiple jobs at once • It’s a little bit like... Monday, 24 September 12
7. Joe Matt Owain Tom Theo Human Made Team Photo 2012 Monday, 24 September 12
8. Humanmadezord Monday, 24 September 12
9. Why a Company? • Multiple strengths, but not multiple weaknesses • More capacity for larger jobs • Can take on multiple jobs at once • We get to dress up as Power Rangers! Monday, 24 September 12
10. Why Work with Bigger Clients • Charge more • Projects last longer • Projects are more organised • People will remember you for ever Monday, 24 September 12
11. How to Win Big Clients Monday, 24 September 12
12. 1. Be Focused Monday, 24 September 12
13. We provide web design & development, video production, letter heads, SEO, WordPress, Joomla, graphic design, business card design, e-commerce, MySpace profiles & Twitter backgrounds to small businesses, global enterprises and everybody in-between. Monday, 24 September 12
14. We provide web design & development, video production, letter heads, SEO, WordPress, Joomla, graphic design, business card design, e-commerce, MySpace profile design & Twitter backgrounds among other things to small business’s, global enterprises and everybody in-between. But we’re a bit crap. Monday, 24 September 12
15. Do one thing well Monday, 24 September 12
16. Only do that for certain people Monday, 24 September 12
17. If offering that other service would lower the overall quality of the work you are delivering, don’t offer it. Monday, 24 September 12
18. 2. Be Credible Monday, 24 September 12
19. Be Excellent Have a strong portfolio Use past clients as references Get testimonials for every project Monday, 24 September 12
20. To start off Get involved in Open Source (rather than fake projects) Freelance for an agency who does what you do Partner with someone who offers complimentary services Monday, 24 September 12
21. 3. Learn to Charge Monday, 24 September 12
22. Hello, my name is Tom Willmot and I charge £666.66 per day. Monday, 24 September 12
23. Don’t assume your clients are cheap. Monday, 24 September 12
24. Probably don’t do fixed price work. Monday, 24 September 12
25. “This sounds like a 20 - 50K project.” Monday, 24 September 12
26. Charge based on your customers location Monday, 24 September 12
27. 4. Be Excellent Monday, 24 September 12
28. It’s not just about ability, but have that nailed. Monday, 24 September 12
29. We are WordPress developers, but I can talk about iOS integration, Front-end development, Sphinx Search, AWS, Munin-Node, CDNs, Experience with numerous 3rd Party APIs, Varnish, Nginx configuration, to name some Monday, 24 September 12
30. Be the Guy You want to be the party they think of when needing your service. Monday, 24 September 12
31. Aim to be at the top You don’t have to be, but aim for it Monday, 24 September 12
32. Keep Improving You have to keep up with the Jones’. Some stuff I have on the back-burner NodeJS, Cappuccino, KnockoutJS PHP Changelog, WordPress Changelog Numerous GitHub Projects HackerNews Monday, 24 September 12
33. Make the decision to hire you an easy one. Monday, 24 September 12
34. Keeping Clients Monday, 24 September 12
35. Find an internal champion. Monday, 24 September 12
36. Create yourself work to do. Monday, 24 September 12
37. Stay professional over the long term. Monday, 24 September 12
38. Become indispensable. Monday, 24 September 12
39. Done! Monday, 24 September 12
40. Thanks For Listening Monday, 24 September 12
41. Ask Questions Now Or later on twitter @joe_hoyle / @tomwillmot Monday, 24 September 12