{"id":1103,"date":"2010-07-05T22:00:14","date_gmt":"2010-07-05T12:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/?p=1103"},"modified":"2010-06-24T22:07:30","modified_gmt":"2010-06-24T12:07:30","slug":"consulting-new-clients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/2010\/07\/consulting-new-clients\/","title":{"rendered":"Consulting new clients"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"attitudes to mistakes for clients\" href=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/2010\/06\/attitude-to-mistakes\/\" target=\"_blank\">Last week I referred<\/a>to a post by Danielle Keister about admitting she is human and may make mistakes before she actually makes any. The other detail I got from her post was her insistence on having a consultation or meeting at the beginning of each client relationship.<\/p>\n<p>I think a consultation is a valuble step in an ongoing business relationship\u00a0but \u00a0it doesn&#8217;t matter as much when you are dong a small one-off task for the client. Given you are trying to make relationships with clients, here are some reasons to value consultations:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>despite our increasing comfort in dealing with people electronically, there is something human and appealing in meeting a real person. Conversations with clients are often easier when you can picture each other and have an idea of who the other really is &#8211; think about how surprising it sometimes is to see a picture of someone you have heard or emailed with<\/li>\n<li>you can set some ground rules and expectations<\/li>\n<li>you can establish a better understanding of each other which can lead to easier communications as you work together. For instance, I have a client who knows me well enough that a brief outline of her requirments is usually enough for me to write what she wants, and that saves us both time<\/li>\n<li>it can be a tool in <a title=\"screening\" href=\"http:\/\/www.grittyva.com\/2007\/02\/04\/screening-the-tire-kickers\/\" target=\"_blank\">screening out tyre kickers<\/a> who would otherwise waste your time<\/li>\n<li>sometimes you can determine that an effective working relationship is unlikely and <a title=\"moving on from clients\" href=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/2008\/05\/saying-no\/\" target=\"_blank\">move on<\/a> before you both waste time and energy on it. This is hard for a new business, but having suitable clients and client relationships makes business much more fun and leaves you the resources to be a better job overall<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>However, it isn&#8217;t always practical to meet face to face with clients. Personally, I have had a small proportion of my clients in Melbourne with the rest being interstate or overseas. I have travelled interstate and to New Zealand to meet ith clients but it generally isn&#8217;t feasible.<\/p>\n<p>So here are some other ways to build client relationships in the early stages:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a title=\"phone or email communications\" href=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/2009\/04\/phone-or-email\/\" target=\"_blank\">use a phone<\/a>\u00a0and include some chatting as well as business talk &#8211; voip makes this an affordable option<\/li>\n<li>invite the client to add you to\u00a0our favourite chatting software (msn, yahoo, etc) so you can chat about projects<\/li>\n<li>have an information sheet or webpage that outlines some expectations and procedures &#8211;\u00a0use a friendly tone but make it clear<\/li>\n<li>add friendly comments and questions to emails (e.g. how did your team go over the weekend? has the weather warmed up yet? how was your day\/weekend?)<\/li>\n<li>have a client questionnaire for all new clients to complete so you can learn about them quickly<\/li>\n<li>take extra care to paraphrase their instructions and information to ensure you are understanding them and their communication style<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>How do you establish good relationships with clients from the begining? Do you insist on some sort of start up meeting?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week I referredto a post by Danielle Keister about admitting she is human and may make mistakes before she actually makes any. The other detail I got from her post was her insistence on having a consultation or meeting at the beginning of each client relationship. I think a consultation is a valuble step [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[424,1078,1080],"class_list":["post-1103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-info-tools","tag-client","tag-consultations","tag-relationship"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1103"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1113,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103\/revisions\/1113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}