Ask Rezzz

Onboarding is a term that's thrown around quite often and it has a few different meanings. In the context of this show I'm referring to when a client becomes a client, how are you bringing them into your world. What sort of process to you have that helps that client understand what this engagement is going to look like. When you open up any box, there's a quick start guide right? That's what you have to have for your clients.

The Ask Rezzz show is dedicated to being the most accessible and most valuable podcast for freelancers out there. You can come on and get one-on-one coaching from me along with the support of the audience. Also get resources, strategies, and expert answers to your questions.

A celebration is in order! One full year, each and every day, I've answered a question you asked. Today for this special milestone episode, I invited Chris onto the show to throw his questions at me on your behalf. I'll be honest, I really had no idea what Chris was going to ask me. He could've asked me anything at all. The only constraint was to stay within a certain time, the rest was up to him. I think you'll agree though, that he did an awesome job.

"I finished a large project with a client and sent a small gift to them based on something you said in the conversation we had a couple week ago. The response I got was insane! I received a message from them thanking me for the gift card. They then followed it up with 'no one ever does that for me, so I really really appreciated it.'"

If you are wondering how all this relates to your business, it doesn't. I just though that I would have some fun today in answering an oddball question so that you can maybe get a glimpse into other parts of my head. If you absolutely need it to relate to business, the one thing I can say is to put yourself in a position where the odds swing in your favor.

You have to remember that it's a social network, the key word here is "social". That lends itself to the awareness stage, or visibility as this person puts it. That doesn't mean you can't use it for sales, but from my experience, sales need to be at a deeper level on the platform, say in DMs, Lives, IGTV and that sort of thing. I say "it depends" also because I think the product/service you are selling has to make sense to where the person is on Instagram.

You wouldn't walk up to 10 doctors sitting around a table ordering a steak and pitch them even though that's where they all are at the moment, right? Getting into the head of your client and understanding the context and the intent of them in a specific setting can increase the likelihood of success of your strategy.

Pay close attention to your existing clients is

I'm continuing here today with the eleventh and final lesson in the "Finding clients" series. This is the no-nonsense series of lessons that work in today's market to find clients you want to be working with on a consistent basis. Group coaching for leads. WHAT?!?

I'm continuing here today with the tenth lesson in the "Finding clients" series. This is the no-nonsense series of lessons that work in today's market to find clients you want to be working with on a consistent basis. Who are you surrounding yourself with? Who do you hang with? And I'm not talking about your family and friends either. That you are on your own (although support matters so choose wisely). What I mean is the group of business colleagues and friends you can trust. That you can bounce ideas off around with. That you can be frank and give them the real you.

This is the 9th lesson the no-nonsense series of lessons that work in today's market to find clients you want to be working with on a consistent basis. Today's lesson will introduce the phrase "You get what you're paid for."

This is the 8th lesson in the no-nonsense series of lessons that work in today's market to find clients you want to be working with on a consistent basis. Today's lesson will help leads relate to your existing clients. It will also give your clients a boost. Can I share with you 2 ways to do this so easily and so effectively that doesn't require you to build out a new page on your site or take hours to put together?

This is the no-nonsense series of lessons that work in today's market to find clients you want to be working with on a consistent basis. Today's lesson will help you work with clients you had in the past with things that you now know because it's the future.

I'm continuing here today with the sixth lesson in the "How to Find Clients" series. This is the no nonsense series of lessons that work in today's market to find clients you want to be working with on a consistent basis. Today's lesson is something that will have you stand out above all others to your market by going onto a podcast that has the ears of your potential clients.

I'm continuing here today with the fifth lesson in the "How to Find Clients" series. This is the no-nonsense series of lessons that work in today's market to find clients you want to be working with on a consistent basis. Today's lesson will help you stay front of mind 2 different ways.

I'm continuing here today with the fourth lesson in the "How to Find Clients" series. This is the no-nonsense series of lessons that work in today's market to find clients you want to be working with on a consistent basis. Today's lesson will help you position yourself and share insight into what problems you are solving.

I'm continuing here today with the third lesson in the "How to Find Clients" series. This is the no-nonsense series of lessons that work in today's market to find clients you want to be working with on a consistent basis. Today's lesson will help you build a pipeline of high quality leads into the business of people and businesses that you want to work with.

I'm continuing here today with the second lesson in the "How to Find Clients" series. This is the no-nonsense series of lessons that work in today's market to find clients you want to be working with on a consistent basis. Today's lesson is solely targeted toward getting repeat clients by you adding in a built-in opportunity in your existing projects.

If you are like most service business owners I know, then referrals is where you get most of your work from. Yet you can't figure out how to make those more predictable. Today I'm going to share with you a process that I've developed and used based on business practices that have been in the wild for decades, if not longer.

You are selling a service or product and want to have a system that continuously attracts clients and customers in a predictable way, right? Can I share with you 11 of my top lessons to do so? These aren't tips and strategies that are overplayed. These are pretty unique and work amazingly well.

Specialize so that you can understand the problem fully. Once you can anticipate obstacles and know how to get around them, you can outline the process. So that you can close more strategy sessions.

Are you providing a solution that allows a potential client to work with you at a lower risk? Custom work is often times a big ask. It's a big investment for someone to not just pay, but also to spend time on. Here's why I like having a smaller, more productized option. Reduces the risk for the lead Reduces the risk for you Allows both you and the client to get quick results This especially works nicely if you are just starting out.

This year, I created themes for myself and the business. The reasoning behind this is simple. If I have a project, decision, or question where I'm suddenly faced with the option to go one way or another, the theme will highlight the right choice. I've created each theme based on who I want to be and the purpose and value of the business. I've created 3 themes for the year and they are "intentional community", "commitment to my marriage," and "ship new products".

I can easily geek out about many things that I like about ConvertKit and some of the ideas that I have, which I dive head first in this show. Most certainly I'll be diving into more discoveries and how I'm solving interesting problems as I continue to flex the ConvertKit muscle and boundaries. If you have any specific questions about my move, ConvertKit, or your business and how ConvertKit may or may not work for you, I'd be happy to chat.

Over the years, I've been known to specialize in a few different platforms, Ruby on Rails, PHP, WordPress, WooCommerce (and a few other plugins), and Drip. Anytime I switch from one to the next, I get asked a lot of questions. "Why did you switch?" "What happened with X that made the decision for you?" "Did you switch because of Y?" For myself and my clients, I try and look at platforms as a tool.

I was talking with my new neighbor over the summer about cutting the grass since he saw me out there cutting the grass with my brand new battery powered mower. He shared this with me. > "If you are looking for a landscaper, I'd be happy to give you my guys' number. He's a bit expensive, but I haven't paid him in 14 months and he's still showing up every week." Before it gets to 14 months, let's see if we can nip this in the bud as quickly as possible, shall we?

Bottom line is that you don't. You can't convince anyone of anything if they don't have an open mind about it. To be honest, it's actually better for you to refer the project off than to spend the energy working at someone who has already decided not to work with you. If you are looking for someone to do something that they don't really want to do (and that's to spend money), you need to find a legit reason that is big enough for them to do so.

All too often a client will ask you for something that you are skeptical about. They are convinced that it will work for whatever you are trying to accomplish, but you have some doubts. Your doubts come from 2 places. The first is your experience and the second is from your ego. Today you will learn 3 things to say that will help you position your experience as the source for the right course of action.

In episode 233 you learned about how to make a productized service. It makes sense that the next question is how do you sell it. To be perfectly honest, knowing how to sell the productized service really should come before you make it, and here's why. When you have a productized service, it's super focused and solves a big enough pain that someone has.

How are those goals, those habits for your business working out for 2019? Are you still focused on them or has the reality of 2019 and life, in general, pushed them aside and you are no longer as focused as you were 4 weeks ago, now that it's Feb 1? Can I share with you 2 strategies to make them work?

I don't know about you, but I'm constantly bombarded with ideas on making this, and creating that. Thinking that the product will help diversify my revenue and make my business more stable. I'm not wrong. And I don't say that because I'm arrogant. I say that be it is a fact.

Ever feel like you finished a project and felt like the weight of the world lifted up off your shoulders. Suddenly you have this sense of relief that is so strong you wonder how you got sucked into that mess in the first place? Can you figure out why this happened? YUP!

As a business owner, as a salesperson, which if you are freelancing I hate to break the news here, but you are in sales, you need to close the open loops in the decision making for your leads and clients. We don’t have control over the decision-making process anyone has, but we can lead them to that decision. We can create a path to that decision that makes it easy for them to make a choice.

Can I give you a bit of a kick in the butt today? You aren’t annoying if you are sending a lead value. If they think it’s annoying, do you want to work with them anyway?

Let’s assume for the sake of brevity that you are segmenting your list at least to the point of people who have bought and haven’t bought from you. If you are like me, you are tag happy, they want to track everything someone on their list does and so they tag everything. This is great, but if you don’t do anything with the information, it’s just clutter in your CRM or email marketing platform. There really are 2 things to focus in on when you are segmenting your email list.

Are you sitting there thinking that you suck at sales? Maybe you say to yourself “I’m not confident in my selling skills.” If you aren't reviewing your sales process, then FULL STOP and listen to this show today.

Since Feb 26 in 2008, I’ve built my business without selling on Twitter. Um....what? I have no qualms about saying that Twitter is my home away from home. Without Twitter, I’m not sure where I’d be right now, to be honest.

Today I’m going to share with you 2 ways to respond to pushback on your pricing. One will take some practice, the other is so simple you’ll wonder why you aren’t doing it already.

How do you do the work and push past the fear of getting it out there. Things like podcasting and “going live” and just the general action of putting something into the world is scary. I won’t ignore that. But I want to share with you 2 things that have allowed me to become a shy kid into someone who isn't holding back.

I’ll be honest, I’m not sure why I’ve been asked this. I’m honored, but I’m not in any sort of position to give a great answer. Simply because I’m one who studies business trends and not in that analytical type of position. With that being said though, I’d like to share an aspect of the business that I’ve seen grow and produce amazing results, not just in my business, but other businesses as well.

Jonathan Stark invited me onto his podcast where I unpacked being a platform specialist and how I built a productized service. I actually shared some of the fears I had along the way.

In the last episode, you learned some things to delight and create the perception of value in your business. Today you will learn exactly what to deliver that validates that perception.

It’s not about how many clients you have, it’s the quality of the client. You want to attract clients who have bigger budgets so that you can raise your rates and get out from that hamster wheel. In this episode I share with you 4 things you need to be doing to make yourself and your business more attractive.

I’m going to give you the recipe I use to follow up with a lead that will allow you to stand head and shoulders above 80% of your competitors. If your lead is shopping around and has a short list of 5 vendors to go with and you are the only one who’s providing valuable information on a consistent basis without them even paying you yet, guess who they are going to want to talk with and go with?

Today I’m going to give you 3 very small, yet powerful tactics to improve your sales process as a freelancer. Quick, small, yet powerful tweaks you can make to your sales process that you can put into practice today.

Whether you are a developer, designer, or a drone photographer, you are going to learn the 4 absolute must ask questions to have during your sales process.

Today I’m going to share with you 3 scenarios you may be in and what to do so that you can get clients faster. It's going to be some real talk today. You may have even heard this from me before.

How many times over the holidays or at a party do you hear this question? Today I want to share with you how I used to diminish myself and how I answer this very question today with confidence and joy.

Wondering what to write about to attract clients and even if you know, how do you find the time to actually do it with all the client work? Ask Rezzz is being taken over by Kim Doyal today.

Price, timeline, and can you do the work are the 3 things every lead needs to know from you to sign on that dotted line. Answer these quickly and you’ll be closing more deals.

There are 3 sides to every story, how do you feel when you get burned, and give them confidence. Today I’ll expand these so that you can re-focus the conversation back to you.