Today I wanted to let you guys know about the Dallas Wordcamp that will be going on next weekend (June 27 and June 28). Please register if you haven’t already, there are going to be a ton of great door prizes and some great speakers. Matt Mullenweg will be speaking on Sunday afternoon about the state of WordPress as well as a Q&A session. I look forward to seeing everyone there.
Also I touch on an all too common subject… being honest. More importantly about not being afraid to voice our honest professional opinion. We don’t have to be a jerk to say how we really feel, but if we never speak up no one will know. There’s no such thing as a mind reader.
Managing my client relationships is something I’m learning right now. And I have to say that I haven’t always been the best at it. It’s easy for me to be laid back and wait for them to contact me instead of being more proactive. But the more independent work I get the more I see how important it is to stay in touch with my clients and make sure their needs are being met. Putting just a little bit of extra effort in can go a long ways.
Please forgive the camera shaking. I was holding it by hand and didn’t realize how sensitive it was. I need to use a tripod next time.
Links Mentioned
Caleb White – Thanks for lending me the Flip Mino camera
Dallas WordCamp – Register now before it’s too late
Garth Humbert – Looking forward to meeting this guy
7 Comments
In a lot of cases, you can’t afford to be quite about something you know isn’t fair. Our line of work requires us to consistently connect with different clients and companies that for the most part want our best creative abilities for the least amount of cost. I’m a huge believer that time is money. The more time the client takes away from us, the more money we lose on other projects.
Another great post kyle.
Cheers,
-Casey Hald
Kyle,
great vid, and post man!
The the concept of honesty it great, and can often be hard to stick to when it can be so easy to tell people what they want to hear.
The ability to be transparent and straight forward will not only ad value to what we offer as designers, but we will be more satisfied with ourselves and our relationships with clients and other designers.
Great post man! get yo-self out here to cali so we can hang out
~ Aaron I
Aaron Irizarry´s last blog ..Friday Vidcast 6-19-09
Aaron, I completely agree that honesty is much easier said than done. Like I mentioned on twitter earlier, it takes a person with courage to speak the truth.
I’m working on getting out there. The more I think about it, the more I think the 10-12 would be best even though Joel will be gone.
Kyle,
Great post man. Honesty is huge.
Example:
I got an email from a client yesterday that I am doing a big web project for saying,
“So I need the this site complete and up and running in 4 weeks, you can make that happen right?”
I thought about it for a minute thinking there is no way that this big of a project can be up and running in 4 weeks. The completed mockups will not even be polished in 4 weeks.
So expecting him to be a little pissed, I told him the honest truth and the reasoning behind why a project this size could not be completed in 4 weeks. To my suprise he answered back to me with a “thank you for being honest,” and ” I would rather take the time to do it right than to do it quick and wrong.”
Wow! I was taken back a bit by that thinking he would have been pissed off.
My point here is that I could have easily lied to him saying, “Yes, we can get this thing done in that time frame,” Knowing that I would be hacking together some crap project that would turn out horrible only to meet a rediculous deadline and have us both unhappy in the end.
If you are honest from the beginning with a valid professional opinion things will work out much better for you in the end.
BTW…. Good times on Sat night tinychat!
Josh – That is exactly what I’m talking about. You having the courage to tell your client the truth, even though you feared the worst, actually ended up in him thanking you. Obviously this is one of those “best case” scenarios, because we all know some people don’t want to hear the word “no”, but even in those cases we need to stand our ground and be firm in our decisions. Thanks for sharing. I had a great time Saturday night as well, looking forward to it again.
Kyle, this is so true. The past year at Lighthouse Marketing, the main thing we realize is the being honest with clients in the beginning from the start makes everything a whole lot easier. Like Josh said, the clients just want to know a realistic expectation. If they can’t handle the truth, the job would probably end up causing more strife than gain anyways.
BTW, I loved the sat night tinyparty too. We will do it again.
Joel Beukelman´s last blog ..equality for brand and logos alike
Hey Kyle, Great post! You touched on a great subject. I have found that honesty is the best way to working with my clients. Some times you have to acknowledge that something didn’t go the way you anticipated and make it right. I have found that making something right has landed me more work/referrals and respect from the client. Plus it makes you a better business person if you can deal with the tough situations in an authentic way.