Getting clients: Client proposal research — The Freelancer's Journey (Part 3 of 43)

Summary

The video script emphasizes the importance of understanding a potential client's customers to create effective client proposals. It suggests focusing on the client's client's intentions and obstacles, rather than just the relationship between the freelancer and the client. The script outlines a proposal format involving research, understanding client discovery and interaction, and offering tailored recommendations. It illustrates this approach with examples from various industries, highlighting the universality of the method and its potential to build trust and authority.

Takeaways

• 🔍 The primary goal of a website is to help visitors overcome obstacles in achieving their intended goal.
• 💼 A successful client proposal focuses on the client's clients, understanding their needs and challenges, rather than just showcasing the service provider's capabilities.
• 🚀 Inbound and outbound marketing strategies are crucial for a freelancing business, with the video emphasizing the importance of outbound marketing through client proposals.
• 📝 The video script outlines a detailed approach to creating client proposals, emphasizing the importance of research and understanding the client's target audience.
• 👨‍💼 The script suggests a three-part proposal format: understanding how potential clients find the business, analyzing their website experience, and offering tailored recommendations for improvement.
• 🤔 It highlights the importance of 'Care Plus' technique, which involves asking questions to understand customer needs, and applying this to freelancing by understanding the needs of potential clients' customers.
• 💬 The video emphasizes the need for personalized and relevant communication with potential clients, as opposed to generic, cold outreach.
• 💡 The script provides practical examples of how to apply this approach to different types of clients, such as doctors, producers, startups, educators, and law firms.
• 🌐 It underscores the significance of mobile responsiveness and search engine optimization (SEO) in enhancing a website's performance and user experience.
• 🔑 The video concludes by stressing the importance of making informed, personalized recommendations to potential clients based on thorough research and understanding of their business needs.

Q & A

What is the primary focus of a good client proposal according to the script?

A good client proposal should focus on understanding the potential client's client and identifying the obstacles they face, rather than just selling oneself to the potential client.

How does the script relate the concept of inbound and outbound marketing to client proposals?

The script suggests using a real-world proposal as a form of outbound marketing to get clients, emphasizing the importance of understanding the client's client to create effective proposals.

What is the significance of the 'Care Plus' sales technique mentioned in the script?

The 'Care Plus' technique is significant because it illustrates the importance of asking questions to understand customer needs, which is applicable to freelancing and creating personalized client proposals.

Why is it crucial to understand the potential client's client in the context of creating a client proposal?

Understanding the potential client's client is crucial because it allows for the identification of their intentions and obstacles, which in turn enables the creation of a proposal that addresses their specific needs and provides value.

What are the three parts of the format that the script suggests for creating a client proposal?

The three parts of the format are: how people are finding the potential client, what they do when they arrive on the site, and how the freelancer can help by providing recommendations based on these observations.

How does the script recommend finding information about a potential client without directly contacting them?

The script recommends using search engines, social media, and other online resources to research how potential clients are found and what their online presence looks like, without the need for direct contact.

What is the role of personalization in the client proposal process as described in the script?

Personalization plays a key role in the client proposal process by allowing the freelancer to tailor their recommendations to the specific needs and obstacles of the potential client's client, leading to a more effective and relevant proposal.

Why is it important to make recommendations based on the potential client's client's perspective?

Making recommendations from the perspective of the potential client's client ensures that the proposal addresses real needs and challenges, increasing the likelihood of a positive response and building trust and authority.

How does the script suggest improving the effectiveness of a client's website?

The script suggests improving website effectiveness by creating detailed content that matches the potential client's specialties, ensuring the site is responsive on all devices, and providing clear information and pathways for engagement.

What is the purpose of the five exercises mentioned in the script?

The purpose of the five exercises is to demonstrate how to apply the proposed format to different types of potential clients, showing how to analyze their online presence and needs, and create tailored client proposals.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Client Proposals and Understanding Client's Clients

The paragraph discusses the importance of understanding the intentions and obstacles of a website visitor to create effective client proposals. It emphasizes that a good proposal should focus on the client's clients rather than the relationship between the service provider and the client. The speaker introduces the concept of inbound and outbound marketing and provides an example of creating a proposal as a form of outbound marketing. The paragraph outlines a format for proposals that includes understanding the potential client's client's intention and obstacle, and how this understanding can lead to better recommendations for web design or development services. The speaker also mentions an exercise to analyze five different potential clients, including a doctor's office, a film and television producer, a startup, a private educator, and a law firm.

05:05

🔍 The Power of Personalization in Client Outreach

This paragraph delves into the concept of personalization in client outreach, contrasting it with generic, impersonal approaches. It explains how understanding and addressing the needs of a client's customers can lead to more effective recommendations and proposals. The speaker uses the 'Care Plus' sales technique as an analogy to highlight the importance of asking questions to understand customer needs. The paragraph also discusses the difference between cold and warm calls, emphasizing the value of personalized communication. It outlines a three-part format for proposals: understanding how clients find the potential client, evaluating the potential client's website, and suggesting how the freelancer can help improve the client's online presence and customer experience.

10:05

💡 Crafting Relevant Recommendations for Potential Clients

The paragraph focuses on the strategy of making relevant recommendations to potential clients by understanding their clients' intentions and obstacles. It discusses the ineffectiveness of cold calls and emails due to the lack of personalized understanding. The speaker suggests that by putting oneself in the shoes of the potential client's customers, one can make more informed and valuable suggestions. The paragraph provides a detailed example of how to analyze a doctor's online presence, including search engine performance, mobile responsiveness, and content relevance. It also touches on the importance of trust and authority in web design and how to communicate these concepts to potential clients.

15:06

🌐 Applying the Client Understanding Format to Various Examples

This paragraph applies the previously discussed format for understanding potential clients to various examples, including a film and television producer, a startup selling vegan beef jerky, an educator, and a law firm. It emphasizes the importance of discovering how potential clients are found online, what information they provide, and how their websites perform on mobile devices. The speaker provides specific insights for each example, such as the need for detailed content on the producer's site, the importance of an e-commerce site for the startup, and the necessity of a responsive design for the educator's site. The paragraph also discusses the process of communicating these observations to the potential clients and how to frame recommendations for improving their online presence.

20:07

📚 Educating Clients on Their Online Presence and How to Help

The final paragraph discusses the approach to educating potential clients about their online presence and how a freelancer can assist them. It focuses on the law firm example, explaining how to analyze their website's effectiveness, such as confirming the services offered, assessing the site's professionalism, and evaluating the ease of engagement. The speaker emphasizes the importance of not criticizing the existing site but rather educating the client and providing informed suggestions for improvement. The paragraph concludes by highlighting the key aspects of a proposal: understanding the client's online presence, educating them on potential improvements, and outlining how the freelancer's services can positively impact their business.

Keywords

💡Intention

Intention refers to the purpose or goal that someone has in mind when they visit a website. In the context of the video, it's about understanding what visitors to a client's website want to achieve. The script emphasizes that a good client proposal should focus on the client's client's intention, as it is crucial for creating a successful website that meets their needs. For example, a patient looking for a doctor's website intends to find information about the doctor's specialties and services.

💡Obstacle

An obstacle is anything that hinders the progress or achievement of a goal. In relation to the video's theme, obstacles are the barriers that prevent visitors from accomplishing their intentions on a website. The script mentions that understanding and overcoming these obstacles is key to creating an effective client proposal. For instance, a website that is not mobile-responsive can be an obstacle for users trying to access information on their smartphones.

💡Client Proposal

A client proposal is a document or presentation that outlines a proposed plan of action for a client's project. The video script discusses that a good client proposal should focus on the client's client's needs rather than just selling oneself to the client. It should identify the obstacles that the client's clients face and propose solutions to overcome them, as illustrated by the various examples of potential clients and how their clients might interact with their websites.

💡Inbound and Outbound Marketing

Inbound marketing refers to strategies that attract customers to your business, while outbound marketing involves actively reaching out to potential customers. The script mentions these concepts in the context of a freelancing business, using the video as an example of outbound marketing by creating a proposal to attract clients. The video aims to dive deeper into creating real-world proposals that can be applied to various client scenarios.

💡Freelancing

Freelancing is the act of working for oneself as a self-employed person rather than for a company or organization. The video script discusses freelancing in the context of web design and development, emphasizing the importance of understanding the client's client's needs and obstacles to provide effective services. Freelancers are encouraged to use a personalized approach to build trust and authority with potential clients.

💡Personalization

Personalization is the process of tailoring services or communications to individual needs or preferences. The script highlights the importance of personalization in both retail sales and freelance web design, stating that humans respond positively to personalized experiences. In the context of the video, personalization is key to creating client proposals that resonate with the specific needs and obstacles of the client's clients.

💡Trust and Authority

Trust and authority are crucial elements in establishing credibility and reliability. In the video, trust and authority are mentioned as essential aspects that a freelancer's portfolio should communicate to potential clients. The script suggests that by understanding the client's client's needs and providing personalized recommendations, freelancers can build trust and authority, which in turn can lead to more successful client engagements.

💡Responsive

A responsive website is one that adapts its layout and design to fit different screen sizes, ensuring a good user experience across devices. The script uses the term 'responsive' to describe a website that is mobile-friendly, which is an important aspect of modern web design. The video emphasizes the importance of responsive design for improving user experience and search engine optimization (SEO).

💡Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO refers to the process of improving a website's visibility in search engine results. The video script discusses SEO in the context of making websites more discoverable by potential clients. It mentions that understanding how people search for services and ensuring that websites rank well for relevant keywords is crucial for both the success of the client's business and the freelancer's ability to attract new clients.

💡Portfolio

A portfolio is a collection of work samples that showcases one's skills and experience. In the video, a portfolio is mentioned as a tool for freelancers to demonstrate their expertise to potential clients. The script suggests that even without an extensive portfolio, a freelancer can still create effective client proposals by focusing on understanding and addressing the needs and obstacles of the client's clients.

Highlights

Websites should be designed to help visitors overcome obstacles and achieve their goals.

Client proposals should focus on the potential client's clients, not just the relationship between the freelancer and the client.

Understanding the obstacles faced by a potential client's clients is crucial for creating effective proposals.

Inbound and outbound marketing strategies are essential for a freelancing business.

A good client proposal should identify obstacles and be based on understanding the client's clients.

A template for client proposals should focus on intention and obstacle, which are key to understanding the client's clients.

Five exercises will be analyzed to demonstrate the proposal template: a doctor's office, a film producer, a vegan beef jerky startup, a private educator, and a law firm.

The proposal format should be adaptable to various types of clients and situations.

The 'Care Plus' sales technique from Best Buy can be applied to freelancing to build trust and authority.

Asking questions is key to understanding a client's needs and making personalized recommendations.

Personalization is the difference between effective communication and spam.

Cold calls and generic information are less effective than personalized approaches in reaching potential clients.

Researching a potential client's online presence can provide insights into their clients' intentions and obstacles.

A detailed proposal should include how clients find a business, their experience on the website, and how the freelancer can help.

For the doctor's office example, the proposal should address search visibility, mobile responsiveness, and content depth.

The film producer's proposal should focus on showcasing work, building trust, and improving website content.

The vegan beef jerky startup needs a website that matches branding and provides a clear checkout process.

The private educator's proposal should include creating detailed content about their specialties to improve search performance.

For the law firm, the proposal should address the clarity of services, trustworthiness, and ease of engagement on the website.

Educating the client about their online presence and how it affects their business is important for any proposal.

Proposals should be based on research and observations to provide personalized and relevant recommendations.

Transcripts

Most people who visit a site have an intention, and want to accomplish a goal.

The entire idea behind most websites is to overcome any obstacles that person has while

trying to accomplish that goal.

How does this relate to a client proposal?

Because a lot of people think a good client proposal has to sell you to your potential

client.

They think it’s about the relationship between you and your client.

A good client proposal has at best, not very much, in fact, almost nothing at all, to do

with identifying your obstacles.

There’s a third party that’s far more important and far more interesting than you

or your potential client.

That’s because the most important variable in all of this, is your potential client’s

client, and identifying those obstacles, that’s where things start to get interesting.

Now, previously we talked about inbound and outbound marketing for your freelancing business.

This video is specifically an example that involves taking a deeper dive into creating

a real world proposal as a form of outbound marketing to get clients for is an awful sentence

we’ll have to rewrite and say differently because that's two gerunds, an awkward adverb,

on the script here there’s what looks like an em dash when it should be a hyphen, it’s

in Papyrus when it should be Courier New, but here’s the point: we’re going to move

forward as if this proposal research is all we have.

We’ll make sure this works for us, even if we don’t have an extensive portfolio

or any portfolio at all.

Now, in this video we’re going to look at a format, a template, a guideline, there’s

probably a better word.

And this format can be applied to anything, so we’re going to apply it to almost everything.

And we’ll do not one, but five exercises.

We’ll analyze five different potential clients: one for a doctors office, another for a Los

Angeles-based film and television producer, we’ll do a curiously well-funded startup

that specializes in vegan beef jerky, and another analysis for a private educator who

works with children who have special learning needs.

Then we’ll wrap up by covering the same thing for a law firm which is [pause] twelve

minutes from our current location.

Let’s start with a format.

Because they’re all going to follow the same general structure, and it goes back to

where we started in this video: intention and obstacle.

It’s not about you, it’s barely about your potential client, it's about your potential

client’s client.

It’s about understanding their intention and figuring out what’s in the way of getting

it done.

This is what most people miss in freelancing.

Let’s pull up a table: doctor, producer, startup, educator, law firm.

Let’s start to fill this out.

Who are they to you?

They’re your potential clients.

Who are you to them?

Nobody at the moment.

But who are their clients?

In other words, who are your potential client’s clients?

For freelance web design, it’s figuring out who's searching the web for the doctor,

who's looking at the producer’s website.

For all of these, it’s about the perspective of those clients or customers who are visiting

these people, visiting your potential clients on the web.

How do people find these businesses?

What happens when they get them?

What happens when they land on the site?

Then, only after we understand that can we make any type of proposal or recommendations

about what we can do as freelance web designers or developers.

If we don’t understand this process, there’s no way to understand our potential clients.

And here’s why.

In the mid-2000’s Best Buy used to teach a sales technique called “Care Plus.”

And believe it or not, the same basic principles of this technique apply to freelancing today.

When someone would come in and start browsing products, employees would go up to the customer

and contact them.

That’s the “C” in Care Plus, contact, they’d start by contacting the customer.

But the next part was the most important.

The “A” was for Ask Questions, and this is the key.

Because the customer who came in would say something like, “I’m here to get a computer.”

And, you can’t just point to the most expensive computer or the fastest computer.

You can but it’s useless, because each system has different hardware.

Each system might have different software.

And, whether it’s retail sales or freelance web design, making a recommendation without

understanding the customer is a really fast way to lose both trust and authority.

That’s why asking questions is so important.

For Best Buy, it’s who’s going to use the computer?

And what are they using it for?

Will this be used in an example almost two decades later to somehow tie it all back to

freelancing?

The questions here are so important, not because of the actual way these questions are asked,

but because of the answers you get from asking those questions.

If you understand their intentions, and you can identify what obstacles are in their way,

based on the answers to the questions you ask, you can make a real, genuine, recommendation.

That’s the “R.” Take someone over to a specific computer and say, “hey, you know

how you said your daughter would be gaming a lot, check this out.”

And you’re making a recommendation on a specific computer because it matches the customer’s

need.

And that’s the key, whether it’s retail sales or freelance web design, the recommendations

are based on the interaction, based on the answers you get from talking to and better

understanding the needs of the customer.

Once we’re done with that, we can encourage the sale.

That’s what the “E” stands for by the way.

And the customer can better justify saying yes, whether it’s a computer, a website,

or whatever because what they’re saying yes to fits their needs.

It’s something that’s been recommended to them based on the answers to the questions

they were asked.

How about the Plus?

Well that’s you, that’s what you put into the interaction to make it your own.

But what about the “E?”

What does that stand for?

Well we just covered that fifteen seconds ago.

This whole thing of asking questions to better understand and making recommendations based

on that understanding, it doesn’t just apply to retail sales.

It works for almost everything.

And that’s because humans respond to personalization.

It’s the defining difference between getting spam and getting whatever kind of mail you

receive that isn’t spam.

And it directly relates to the format we’re about to dive into.

It’s also the difference between a cold call and what a lot of people call a warm

call.

A cold call is approaching someone with generic, not at all personalized information, trying

to push something to an unsuspecting victim with what can at best can be classified as

junk mail, because you don’t yet know what’s right for them.

Before we make a recommendation or even think about what we’re going to offer a potential

client, we have to find answers to our questions.

Now, in our hypothetical five analysis scenario, we haven’t yet reached out to any of these

potential clients, and that’s a good thing, because there’s a lot we can determine without

contacting them first.

So, for our potential doctor client we wanted to learn as much as possible.

We want to know how our doctor is getting patients.

How are people finding his site?

How does it look on mobile devices?

So we asked Amina to set up an untraceable Gmail account via a six-point chain VPN, from

which we posted an ad on Craig’s List.

Someone to make contact with a private investigator.

We got the cash from an ATM, then made a series of small purchases at a CVS to get change,

so none of the original bills could be traced back to our production crew.

Stacy then wrote the instructions for the private investigator who’d be following

our potential doctor client using Stacy’s left hand, making it more difficult for a

forensics team to determine if anyone associated with this course had anything to do with the

job.

After that we had Grimur do the first handoff, then our Craig’s List contact met with the

investigator at Whiz Burger at the intersection of South Van Ness and 18th.

The investigator was tasked with getting the following: we wanted to know how our potential

doctor client was getting patients.

How are people finding his website?

What did people find when they got to his site?

How did it look on mobile devices?

Then we realized we could actually get this information online by looking for our doctor

on a search engine.

Behold, the doctor’s website: the structure, the layout, even a performance check on an

iPhone.

And since freelance web design is based upon the small idea that getting clients is the

way to start out and stay in business, we found that using a search engine was far more

cost effective and it didn’t take four weeks and two run-ins with local law enforcement.

But, that’s the point.

We can get in the mind of our client’s clients, the people searching for and finding our potential

doctor client without leaving the computer.

We can do this by asking the questions they might have.

So, let’s more clearly define our format.

We know we want to make a series of recommendations, these are the services we’ll provide.

We know we want to ask questions.

We also know there are ways to get answers to those questions, many of which don’t

involve what certain attorneys would call a string of misdemeanors that might lead to

a felony stalking conviction.

Again, their words, not ours.

But we can break this format down into three categories; these are going to serve as the

basis for any proposal we make.

Not just for the doctor and not just for a law firm, but for each of our potential clients.

This is it, three parts: how people are finding them, what they do when they arrive on the

site, and how we the freelancer can help.

Okay, the first part is how their clients or customers find them.

For the doctor, it’s how people are learning about his services on the web.

For the producer, it’s how people are finding her.

What would they search for?

What comes up?

For the startup, how do people learn about it?

Same thing for the educator, or the law firm.

People are searching and we want to get a good idea of how people are finding them.

We’ll go deeper into this in a few moments.

The second thing, the second part of our format is arriving on the website.

If our potential client has a site, what does it look like?

Do they even have a website?

How does it perform?

Is it responsive?

Can we quickly find answers to questions?

Does it appear trustworthy?

Does it look like it was made on GeoCities?

The third part is, and this is where you come in, is moving forward.

These are next steps, what you as a freelancer can do to help.

If the first two parts are talking through what you’re able to determine about your

potential client, the business, their website, you’re getting a ton of information about

them.

You’re getting answers, answers to the questions their clients and customers have.

And that means you’re able to make recommendations based on the answers you’re getting.

Because a lot of the answers might not be great.

If the question is, “Can I as someone visiting this site easily browse the content on a mobile

device,” and the answer is no, it’s just the desktop version of the site that’s been

scrunched down on mobile, that’s not a deal breaker.

It’s the perfect opportunity.

It’s the perfect opportunity to go in and say hey, we noticed this, here’s what’s

going on, here’s how it’s affecting you and your business, and here’s how we can

help.

That’s the difference.

Cold calls, or cold emails, don’t work because you’re offering services without taking

the time to understand.

If you understand how your potential client’s clients think, the people who are searching

for and finding the doctor, the producer, the startup, the educator, the law firm, you

can warm things up.

You can make it relevant.

Now, a lot of people might not like this.

You can get ignored or shot down.

And people can say, “don’t bother me,” or worse.

But, you’re putting yourself out there, you’re only reaching out if you notice something

somewhere in which you can provide value, an opportunity to help someone or someone’s

business in a positive way.

This is one format.

You might have something that works better, and that’s great.

There’s so many ways to get new clients, and this is one way.

But that’s the format we’re going to use here.

Communicate how people are finding them, what they’re doing and how they might be interacting

with their site, and how they can work with you to move forward.

How you can help.

And if that’s the format we’ll use, let’s apply it to our five examples.

So, our doctor.

How do people find them?

What is their intention?

Let’s put ourselves in their shoes.

Not the doctor, but the doctor’s potential customer, the patient.

Chances are people who come across Dr. Wesley’s site usually do so for one of two reasons:

one, they heard about him somewhere else and either go to his site directly or they type

his name into a search, or two, they find him by searching without hearing about him

first.

That’s it.

Now, we can determine by looking at Dr. Wesley’s site that he’s an otorhinolaryngologist,

an unfathomably long word which admittedly takes nine syllables to say what could be

said with far less effort in only six: ear, nose, and throat doctor.

But, why is that important?

Because we can see what his specialities are.

Sometimes people search for otorhinolaryngologist, probably not.

But they might search for ear, nose, and throat doctor in Jacksonville.

And Dr. Wesley appears right here as a search result.

But what happens when we search for one of his specialties?

Sometimes people search by specialties or even the problem they’re having.

Sleep apnea doctor, or sinus specialist, they’re actively looking for this, that’s their

intention.

And when we search for these, he’s not coming up.

That’s a huge obstacle.

Now, this is hardly scientific and we never want to present it to a potential client as

if it was.

Search results can vary based on location, your search history, and about a billion other

factors.

But it gives us a pretty good idea, plus search engines too care about trust and authority

when it comes to providing users with relevant results.

And, from that we can make some guesses about why.

Sometimes it takes some digging.

On Dr. Wesley’s site, he literally brands himself as an expert in sleep apnea and sinus

conditions, but this one page site really doesn’t talk about that.

It’s not listed in plain text, and the only place we see it, is it in the logo itself.

That’s just a rasterized image, and that means it’s likely that the content inside

isn’t getting indexed, it’s not getting picked up by search engines.

What about mobile?

How does the site look on a phone?

Well, it looks like the same site.

But it’s basically the desktop version of the site scrunched down to fit a smaller display.

In other words, it’s not responding to the size of the device.

That’s a pretty poor experience for someone landing on Dr. Wesley’s website if they’re

doing so from a mobile device.

But that’s already a huge discovery.

Sometimes it’s not that straightforward and we have to do some more digging, but just

by visiting his site, and doing a couple searches, we already have some really good answers.

Those questions that Dr. Wesley’s potential patients might have, they can be as simple

as that Google search.

That’s number one.

Get to the site, or if they get to his site, there’s not much there to read about.

Think about that.

You’re looking for a sinus specialist, and there’s not really any information there.

Imagine how much more confident you’d feel, and imagine how much better Dr. Wesley could

rank in search results if he had dedicated pages on this site for each of his specialties,

for people dealing with sleep apnea, allergies and sinuses, thyroid, whatever he’s trying

to do, whatever those specialities are.

Earlier in the course we covered trust and authority, two things any freelancers portfolio

needs to communicate.

Most certainly people want that from doctors too.

They want to trust the doctor and know that they’re an authority in that speciality.

That’s number two.

And how can we help?

As a freelance web designer, what can we do?

Well, now that we understand the problem, or at least we have an idea, we can make recommendations,

based on our understanding.

We did our unscientific but understandably revealing search for sleep apnea doctor and

nothing about him came up on page one, page two, page three, or page eleven.

We’ve a pretty strong hunch that creating more detailed content about sleep apnea on

a website that currently doesn’t, outside of the logo itself, come close to mentioning

anything related to sleep apnea, we have a pretty strong hunch that adding that content

could dramatically improve search performance.

And it could dramatically improve the experience of someone coming to and wanting to learn

from his website.

That’s something to communicate.

We can help there.

We also know the site isn’t responsive.

When someone visits on a mobile device, it’s like printing the Magna Carta on a postage

stamp and asking Grimur to read it from across the room.

That’s another place we can add value.

We can build a fully responsive site that works on all devices, not just desktop and

laptop computers.

Not only can that improve search performance, but it’s a much better user experience.

So, if that’s a quick overview of what we can find out about our doctor, what about

our producer?

We’ll take the same basic approach here.

Start not with the producer herself, but with the people who are going to be looking her

up.

Put yourself in their shoes.

We can do the same thing we did before with Google searches, but that might not be the

most common way that Fran plans to get contacted.

In fact, we know this because in this hypothetical and not at all real scenario Fran gave us

her business card.

We can infer from that interaction that she gives out her business card a lot.

So, how do people find Fran?

Based on the business card, they can just search for her name plus the word producer,

or they can type the URL directly into the browser.

Same thing here on her site.

What do we see on the page?

Just as importantly, what would people visiting her site, want to see on her page?

There’s no real info on this site, which could be okay, but it’s also a big opportunity,

if we’re thinking like others who also received business cards, there’s probably a bit of

confusion.

Why would a website we found on a business card and typed into our browser contain the

exact information that’s on the business card?

For a film and television producer, we can take a leap and imagine people might want

to see examples of the work she’s done, or at least a summary of the work she’s

done.

If we’re trying to communicate trust and authority, listing out this work is a step

in the right direction.

Linking out to her IMDB page, adding testimonials from directors, other producers, actors she’s

worked with, the list goes on and on.

Same format.

When we communicate with Fran, we’ll want to talk through how clients are finding her,

what they see or don’t see when they get to her site, and what we might recommend.

Yeah, there’s a chance we could reach out, list off some of the stuff we recommend, and

she can just go into the WordPress template and implement the changes herself.

That’s okay.

But the very fact that we’re reaching out to her in the first place, making careful

observations, and professionally recommending a direct course of action, we often find the

trust and authority that comes from that, the communication itself, makes not only a

great first impression but a really big difference when it comes time for a client to make a

decision.

That’s the producer.

What about the startup?

A friend of a friend needs a new site, an e-commerce site, an online store to sell vegan

beef jerky.

They don’t have one now.

So, a dramatically different approach?

Not at all, same pattern.

Sometimes not having an existing site is great.

How do clients find them online?

Well we can still search, maybe they have a Facebook page or even an article about them

in a blog.

For all we know, someone’s already building their site.

So we don’t want to get too invested early on in the process.

That’s true for any client proposal.

But we can read and learn as much as we can.

So the questions are almost exactly the same.

Future tense: how will customers find them?

What will happen when they get there?

Will they order vegan beef jerky online?

What’s the checkout process going to be like?

Will it match the rest of the branding?

Even without a site we can make recommendations based on putting ourselves in the shoes of

those who are finding and wanting to learn about and buying, for one reason or another,

vegan beef jerky.

What about our educator?

Very similar to our doctor.

When someone’s offering a service, discoverability is usually pretty important.

How is the educator being found?

What are people searching for?

If they already have a site, what is it like?

What subjects or focus areas does the educator specialize in?

In other words, what do they teach?

We see here that the educator specializes in working with students who struggle with

reading comprehension, she also works with kids who are in remedial math classes, she

has a bunch of amazing areas in which she specializes.

But, they’re only listed in bullets.

So, what happens when we search just like a potential student or the parent of a student

might perform a search?

Not so good.

We can infer that the reason that’s happening is because there are just bullets on a page.

Now, there could be any number of factors affecting this but if we turn these bullets

into actual links and made pages that talk about each of her specialities, that’s real

content.

That helps students and parents better understand the services she offers, gives them confidence.

It communicates that trust and authority.

And that’s great for search engines too.

We load it up on mobile, it says this website is best viewed on a laptop or desktop.

Not so good.

The pattern here is the same.

We’re figuring out how people are finding them, we’re talking about what happens when

those people get on the site, and we can make recommendations based on those observations.

Now for this one, our law firm, let’s follow the same format.

How do clients, these are potential clients of the law firm, how do people find Conrad,

Woolf & Dostoyevsky?

What are people searching for?

Think about the combinations of searches that could be performed, any combination of practice

areas, locations.

These are the real world searches that people are performing every day.

And, for real people, who are searching for these services, we want to better understand

their thought process.

For a law firm, it goes something like this.

We do a search for a thing, we find a site that comes up as a search result, after reading

a particularly helpful description that seems to match our needs, we click the link.

Enter the website.

First things first.

We’ll want to confirm that the service we’re looking for is handled by the law firm.

Is there a practice area listed or described here that matches our needs?

Is there an FAQ or a resources page, or something that let’s me learn more before engaging

with this law firm?

Once we’ve confirmed that the law firm has what we’re looking for, we’re thinking

higher level.

Are they trustworthy?

For someone seeking legal advice that’s a big deal.

Does the website look professional?

Does the attorney biography section make us feel like the firm is qualified?

Do we get a good sense that we’ll be represented well?

Once we get past this, we have an interesting point, and it may seem really, really obvious

but people need a clear way to actually engage the law firm.

How do they make an appointment?

Can they quickly find the phone number?

Is there a contact form so people can reach out?

Is there a clear address and a map to their office?

These are just some of the many things that go through the heads of people searching for

stuff on the internet.

And in most cases, not having clear access to all this information is a huge obstacle.

They’re on the site because they have an intention, so the job of the site is to help

anyone overcome these obstacles to accomplish their goal.

Our job is to communicate this to the law firm.

And, we’ll do it like this.

We’ll break down how their clients are finding them.

We can include some common search terms that are relevant to what we found on their existing

site.

We know their practice areas, we know they offer these services, let’s make sure to

communicate the types of searches that could be happening around each subject.

We don’t point out flaws.

We don’t trash their existing site.

There’s a high chance they or their nephew created it.

Instead, let’s educate them.

Let’s make observations that inform their thinking.

And in this kind of proposal we’ll want to get inside the law firm’s way of thinking.

How is this affecting their business?

Once someone arrives on their site, we can simply ask the same questions we thought of

earlier.

We can include screenshots or descriptions of what happens when someone lands on their

site, what are the practice areas look like?

Do they link out to pages where we can learn more about them?

How does the site look on mobile?

Here we can see it’s scrunched down.

It’s a website designed for a desktop or a laptop computer and is virtually microscopic.

These observations are then turned into the next section: moving forward, how we can help.

After we’ve educated and made observations, we can talk about what we do, tell them a

little bit about our process, and how that process relates to what we’ve talked about,

how we can positively affect their business.

Because we’re making recommendations for them based on the research we’ve done, they’re

infinitely more likely to respond when compared to spamming them with generic unpersonalized

nonsense.

That’s the key with all of this.

The doctor, the producer, the startup, the educator, the lawyers, we communicate to them,

we educate.

We aim to get them thinking about what their clients or customers are going through when

they search, when they arrive at their website, and we tell them what we can do to help.

And that’s the type of research we want when we’re putting together a proposal.