FULL client process for high ticket web design [STEP-BY-STEP]

Summary

The video details a web designer's process for attracting high-paying clients, from optimizing a sales page to streamline onboarding. It provides templates to automate proposals, contracts and invoices to impress clients. The designer shares strategies to guide clients in providing website copy and giving useful feedback to minimize revisions. The goal is to deliver an elevated client experience that gets rave reviews, referrals, and results that justify premium rates.

Takeaways

• 😊 Create an efficient sales process to attract the right clients and set clear pricing/service expectations
• 💡 Structure your client onboarding to build trust and confidence in your services
• 📝 Use templates and tools to streamline your proposal, contract and invoicing process
• 🤝 Build rapport and have a discovery call to understand the client's goals before making a proposal
• 💰 Take a non-refundable deposit to secure project and use value-based pricing models
• ⏱️ Have a clear project timeline and get client sign-off at key milestones to minimize revisions
• 📋 Provide frameworks and templates to make it easy for clients to provide info/copy/feedback
• 🎥 Present website mockups with videos explaining the design decisions to clients
• 💻 Offer post-launch support resources so clients feel in control of basic website changes
• 👏 Follow up post-project to get a strong testimonial showcasing business results

Q & A

What are the three main steps to onboarding new clients?

The three main steps are: 1) The application process including marketing materials to attract the right clients. 2) The discovery call to understand their goals and business. 3) Sending over the proposal, contract, and invoice quickly to create a positive first impression.

How can you efficiently communicate the value of your services to potential clients?

Use content marketing, marketing materials, and your sales page to clearly convey the value of your services to many people at once, rather than trying to convince individuals one-by-one on sales calls.

What is the purpose of the initial discovery call with a potential client?

The purpose is to understand the client's business, goals, and problems in order to determine if your service is a good fit to help them achieve their goals. You want to be on their side.

Why is it important to get the proposal, contract, and invoice to a new client quickly?

It keeps the momentum going from their initial interest and excitement. A quick turnaround impresses clients and makes them feel confident you will deliver an excellent service.

How can you create a smooth and elevated client onboarding experience?

Use templates to send professional looking documents quickly, give a personalized tour of their client portal, overcommunicate next steps, and make signing contracts and paying invoices seamless.

What is important about the first 48 hours after a client signs on?

The first impressions confirm that the client made a good purchasing decision. So you want to wow them in the first 48 hours even though most of their opinion is already set based on this time.

How can you make it easy for clients to provide the content you need for projects?

Provide structured templates and guides that break down the needed content into sections. Offer to go through it with them rather than just sending it over.

What are three things you can do to minimize client revisions?

1) Spend significant time on strategy first 2) Present high quality mockups and clearly explain decisions 3) Ask specific questions when requesting feedback rather than open-ended.

Why should you follow up with clients even after project completion?

To ensure they have everything they need to use what you created, feel supported in next steps, and eventually give you a rave review that brings referrals.

What makes for an impactful client testimonial?

One that highlights the transformation from their previous struggles to the positive outcomes and results achieved thanks to working with you.

Outlines

00:00

😊 Setting the Stage for a Great Client Experience

The paragraph introduces the key concepts that will be covered in the video - how to provide an elevated client experience when working with high-budget clients through a streamlined client process. It emphasizes the importance of controlling every stage of the project to set clear expectations and guide clients to get results.

05:01

😃 Making the Initial Client Application Simple

The paragraph advises not to overwhelm potential clients initially. Recommends having pricing and detailed service information on website to attract right customers. Allows customer to self-select based on budget. Says can either direct client to calendar for sales call or use contact form to get more info first.

10:01

📝 Using Templates to Quickly Prepare Proposals and Contracts

The paragraph explains that templates for emails, proposals, contracts, and invoices speed up preparing client paperwork. Walks through what to include in proposals. Mentions using DocuSign and Stripe for fast signing and payments. Creating great first 48 hour client experience leaves lasting positive impression.

15:01

🗓️ Setting Clear Project Timelines and Client Expectations

The paragraph discusses importance of project timelines, with clear client deadlines that don't affect other client work if missed. Has template timeline example. Contract supports enforcing timelines. Overcommunication with clients is key.

20:02

✏️ Streamlining Content Collection from Clients

The paragraph shares strategies to easily get needed content from clients for projects. Provides website copy templates breaking down required content by section, with examples. Alternate option is going through template in client meeting then finishing details for them.

25:04

🔁 Reducing Back-and-Forth Revisions with Clients

The paragraph gives 3 recommendations to reduce revisions: 1) Invest significant time upfront aligning with client on strategy and vision 2) Present work clearly, with mockups, explanations to set expectations 3) Ask specific questions when requesting feedback to prompt useful responses.

Keywords

💡Client process

The client process refers to the overall experience and journey a client goes through when working with a service provider. This includes the initial outreach, sales call, proposal, contract, communication during the project, revisions process, and final delivery. The video emphasizes streamlining and elevating the client process to provide a smooth, high-end experience that gives clients confidence and makes projects go more smoothly.

💡Proposal

A proposal is a detailed document sent to potential clients after an initial sales call that outlines the scope, timeline, investment amount, and other key details about the project. The video advises including goal statements, package details, timelines with deadlines, pricing presented as an 'investment', and client results/testimonials.

💡Contract

A contract is a legally binding agreement that lays out terms, statements of work, policies, and other aspects of the client engagement. The video recommends requiring a deposit, defining the revisions process, establishing cancellation policies and consequences, and setting client expectations upfront.

💡Client portal

A client portal is an organized, centralized online space where service providers can provide clients access to project details, files, feedback mechanisms, FAQs, training guides, and other resources to keep clients informed and confident throughout the working relationship.

💡Streamlined process

Streamlining the client process involves simplifying and systematizing as many steps as possible through templates, automated emails, integrated tools, and standardized procedures to save time for both the client and service provider and reduce back-and-forth communication.

💡Automated tools

Automated tools like Gmail templates, Notion, Calendly, Stripe, Loom, and DocuSign allow sending instant, personalized messages to clients while keeping the back-end workflow efficient for the service provider. These tools facilitate scheduling, contracts, invoices and payments.

💡Sales script

A sales script is an outline used during initial sales calls that prompts the service provider with key questions to understand a potential client's goals, challenges, and budget. An effective script focuses more on listening than pitching.

💡Revisions process

The revisions process lays out how many rounds of revisions are allowed and establishes boundaries around vagueness and endless back-and-forth communication. Strategies include thoughtful presentation of work, asking targeted questions to guide useful feedback, and requiring clients to consolidate revisions.

💡Project timeline

A project timeline provides an overview of each phase of work, associated deliverable dates, as well as deadlines for clients to provide feedback, information, approvals, and payments. This sets expectations, allows proper schedule planning, and prevents endless project delays.

💡Results

Providing transformative results for clients in the form of increased sales, higher conversions, or other critical business metrics is emphasized as the most important driver of client satisfaction, referrals and testimonials, and increased profits.

Highlights

A streamlined client process gave confidence to raise rates and deliver high-end experiences clients expected

Share how to conduct sales calls, put together proposals, contracts, invoices to deliver creative services professionally

Higher budget clients expect an elevated experience with no worries as they trust you to do a good job

Set clear expectations at each project stage and guide clients to get the results they want

Ask specific questions on intake forms to get relevant client information instead of generic messages

Don't try to convince people one by one on sales calls, efficient marketing communicates service value to multiple people

Personality and connection with clients is a top asset, be human not a sales robot following a script

Understand client goals deeply first, then show how your service helps them achieve those goals

Proposal summarizes project goals, details everything included, investment amount, timeline, client results

First 48 hours after a client signs on leaves the biggest impression, confirm good decision to buy from you

Overcommunicate on project status and next steps so client always knows what you're working on

Get everything you need from clients in easy stages with deadlines to not impact your timelines

Break website copy templates into sections with examples to make it easy for clients to provide content

Spend 50% of time aligning on strategy first before starting creative work to prevent wasted rework

Present high quality mockups explaining strategy to minimize vague feedback and revisions

Transcripts

3 years ago I launched my web design

business and within weeks went from

charging $500 for a website to booking

clients at $5,000 and a huge part of how

I was able to do this was creating a

streamlined and elevated client process

this is what gave me the confidence to

raise my rates and then actually deliver

that high-end experience that those

clients were expecting and so in this

video I want to give you a behind thes

scenes look at my client process how I

pitch my services to clients and all the

templates that I use and while I using

web design as an example if you're

delivering any type of creative service

then in this video I'm going to share

with you how to conduct sales calls put

together proposals contracts invoices

get everything you need from your

clients on time how to minimize the

amount of revisions and then how to

offboard your clients like a pro so they

Rave about you to all their friends you

see the thing that a lot of people don't

realize is that once you start working

with higher budget clients for the most

part the actual deliverables of a

project stay the same but the thing that

changes is that there's a certain

expectation that these clients have for

an elevated experience these clients

don't want to have to worry about you

they want to feel confident that you

have everything under control and they

can trust you to do a good job and when

your client feels this way it makes the

whole project go so much smoother

they're less likely to question your

decisions and you're able to really

guide them to get them the results that

they want and so to do this you need to

be in control of everything from the

start and set clear expectations at each

stage of the project and this video is

going to show you exactly how to do that

now just to warn you this video is going

to be in depth I'm going to be walking

through every stage of the client

process in a lot of detail so that by

the end of this video you will be able

to to confidently deliver this with your

own clients so you're probably going to

want to save this video to refer back to

and I'll leave the time stance in the

description so you can skip to the part

that you need so before we start I'll

quickly go over the tools that I'm going

to be using so stripe for creating

invoices and taking payments cendy for

booking calls with clients Gmail

obviously loom for screen recording and

presenting to clients and then DocuSign

for creating and signing contracts then

the most important tool is notion this

is where I manage my entire business

it's a great alternative to client

management software like honeybook or

dobado and it also replaces project

management software like Trello or Asana

you can customize it to literally have

everything you need all in one place and

you can set all this up for free I'll be

showing you my entire notion set up in

this video all of the templates that I'm

using are available in the client

dashboard below so if you want then you

can get this and have all the templates

set up and ready to use but otherwise if

you're familiar with notion and you have

the time then this video is going to

give you everything you need to set this

up for yourself I've purposely chosen

option that are accessible to everyone

but as you start booking clients do not

be afraid to invest in tools the quicker

you are to invest in your business the

quicker you will grow especially if it's

something that's going to save you time

because as a service provider this is

the most valuable thing you have so with

that being said let's not waste any more

of your time and jump right in so there

are three steps to onboarding new

clients first up the application the

whole experience of working with you

starts before someone even decides to

get in touch with you before they even

click apply now your marketing and your

sales page page should have already done

50% of the work for you not just

attracting and convincing the right type

of clients but repelling the wrong ones

I've heard a lot of people say not to

put prices on your website because you

want to get people on a call to convince

them of the value of your service but I

don't like this it's icky and it's a

waste of your time and it's a waste of

your client's time too this is what your

content your marketing and your sales

pag is for and this is a much more

efficient way to communicate the value

of your services to multiple people at

once to make sure that you're getting on

a with the right people rather than

trying to convince people one by one so

if you haven't already done so make sure

to watch the previous videos in this

series which will take you through

step-by-step how to create this sales

page and this content marketing plan so

that by the time your client gets onto

this sales page and reach out to you

they have enough information to work out

whether this service is going to be a

good fit for them and they're already

50% sold and this includes prices you

don't have to put exact prices but you

need to at least put a starting price so

you set clear expectations

and repel those customers that don't

have the budget to work with you so then

when they click this button what happens

next and how quick and easy you make

everything from this point will

determine How likely this person is to

turn into an actual paying customer so

if the goal is to get them on a call

then you have two options you can either

leave your calendar directly here and

let them Book on a call with you right

away or you can take them to a contact

form to get some information from them

first and then send over your calendar

booking link it's completely up to you

which you prefer but for me I don't want

to jump straight on a call with everyone

reaching out to me cuz I'm at the stage

in my business where I can pick and

choose who I want to work with and so

not everyone reaching out to me is going

to be a good fit But whichever way you

do it at this point you want to make

sure that you're asking the right

questions so you can get the relevant

information that you need about this

potential customer so either within your

calendar booking link or your inquiry

form instead of leaving space for a

generic message you want to ask specific

questions for example their website and

social media platforms what does your

business do and how did you get here

which service are you interested in

what's what's your budget for this

project and the most important question

what problems are you hoping to solve by

working with us and what does success

look like for this project and so when

you get this inquiry come into your

inbox you want to get back to them as

quickly as possible likelihood is your

client has been scrolling and something

has triggered them to take action now

and so you want to keep that momentum

going so the easiest way to do this is

to have a bunch of templates set up in

your Gmail so that all you need to do is

select the template customize their name

add a couple of personal details and

then you have your calendar booking link

already in here so you can set up a call

with them and So within this client

dashboard below there are a bunch of

email templates written out for each

stage of the project so you can just

copy and paste and get all these

templates set up in your Gmail for your

calendar booking link I recommend using

calendly for this within this you can

set up the times that people can book in

with you each week do not try and make

yourself available 24/7 you're a

business owner now and so you need to

have control over your schedule so I

recommend just blocking out a couple of

mornings or afternoons where you leave

some space for this so someone's reached

out to you you like the application and

now you're getting on a call with them

the next thing I do now is come into my

dashboard where I manage my business and

create a new client and then create a

discovery call which already has this

script lined up here now you want to

have a script so that you don't get on a

call and your mind goes completely blank

but please don't act like a robot I see

a lot of videos of people on sales calls

with zero personality saying the same

lines over and over again your

personality and the connection you build

with clients is one of if not your

biggest asset as a service provider you

want to be easy and enjoy able to work

with so be a human and not a robot so

when you get on this call you want to be

the one in control and leading the

conversation but it's important that you

ask the right questions and then listen

don't feel like you need to do all of

the talking pitching and selling your

service the way that you sell a service

is by showing how your service is going

to help them achieve their goals and so

it's important that you really

understand what these goals are first

the purpose of this call is to help the

client make the best decision for their

business so the mindset you want to be

in is that you're on their side working

with them to put together a solution

that's going to help them Reach their

goals So within this script the first

question here are prompts about your

client's business their goals and what's

stopping them achieving those goals

right now at this point it's also really

good if you can get comfortable talking

to the client about money because this

is going to show your client that your

service is all about making them money

and you want to see them get a good

return on their investment so what I

mean by this is asking questions like

what's your bestselling service or

product how much is that bringing in for

you right now how do you plan to scale

this in the future and do you have any

new services or products in the works

this is going to help you really

understand the scale of their business

and the scope of the project and this is

important because the more money your

services make your client the more you

can charge so it's important that you

know the scale of their business so that

you're not charging $55,000 for a

website that's potentially going to make

their Millions this is something that I

went through in the first video of this

series so watch that if you want to

learn how to implement this value based

pricing so the next question is are to

gather all the technical information

that you might need so website Pages

functionality any extras sometimes

they're not going to have all the

answers to this so you can also give

them suggestions and guide them in what

you think they need by what they told

you already then last up you want to

talk about the timeline and the price

range and so if you have standard

packages with clear prices and what the

client needs fits into this then this

part is easy you can just say based on

everything we've talked about this seems

like a really good fit for you as it

said on my website this service is going

to be this much my next available dates

are here are you ready to it in if your

quote is more custom than this and you

need to go away and write up a proposal

then you can just pitch a price range

you always want to estimate a higher

price range than you think and say it

confidently and matter of fact even if

it feels uncomfortable at this point you

can gauge their reaction and ask the

client is this what you budgeted for

this project depending on how they

respond to this in this sales script

there are some examples of how to phrase

things so if it's clear that this is way

out of their price range do not offer to

reduce your prices in my experience it

is never a good idea to reduce your

rates because you end up with a client

that doesn't value your expertise and

this becomes a problem at every stage of

the project if you want to then you can

take some of the things out of the

proposal to give them a service that

fits their budget but otherwise if it's

clear that this is really not a good fit

then it's completely fine to just finish

the call and send them an email

afterwards saying I don't think this is

going to be a good fit and there's an

email template here to help you do that

but if you pitch your client at 6 to

7,000 and then they come back saying I

was hoping it would be more like 4 to

5,000 then you can then say okay I'll

bear that in mind when I put together

your proposal because you already pitch

them a higher price range you can come

back to them with a quote more around

5,000 and they're going to be so

grateful that you are willing to work

with them and they're more than likely

going to be happy with this quote and so

at the end of the call everything went

okay and you tell your client that

you're going to send them over a written

proposal so once you get off this call

it's important that you keep this

momentum going you want to have a

proposal contract and invoice over to

them as soon as possible when I started

this was the most stressful part for me

it would take me 2 hours to put this

together and then another 2 hours just

to hit send but now I have all these

temp temp plates ready to go it is so

much easier and I can have everything

sent over in under 10 minutes within

this client dashboard I get off the call

and create a new project and then this

automatically generates everything I

need for this project including this

client portal here and I'll walk you

through this in a second but first let's

go through the proposal so your proposal

should start with the goals for the

project and you want to basically repeat

the business goals or the outcomes that

your client told you they wanted in

their sales call and what this does is

show your client that you understood

what they need and that this proposal is

tailored to get them these results then

you want list everything that's included

at each stage of the project here you

would also include the price and a

little tip instead of using the word

price or cost you want to use the word

investment to remind your client that

this is an investment in their business

and breaking it down into installments

to helps this seem more affordable next

up you want to lay out the timeline and

all the different stages of the project

you can put the project dates here and

if you need anything from your client

then you want to make sure you list the

deadlines for these two I'll take you

through exactly how to put together this

timeline later on in this video and last

up if you have them you want want to

include some client results to give that

extra social proof and get them really

excited to work with you so you want to

include some project examples and then

pair these with client testimonials and

at the end of this proposal you always

want to give your client next steps and

ideally we want them to look at this

proposal and then immediately sign their

contract and pay their deposit so that's

where this button takes them and here is

a space for you to link the contract

there are zero exceptions you have to

have a project agreement in place and

this doesn't have to be scary or

complicated you can keep this really

simple I've put my contract template in

here to give you an idea of what this

can look like I am not a lawyer this is

not legal advice and so I recommend

getting someone who is qualified to take

a look over and help you put something

together but these are the things that I

include in my contracts so you have your

project dates and project fee and then

you want your payment schedule I

recommend taking a 50% non-refundable

deposit to secure the project spot in

your calendar because what happens if

they cancel the project even if you

haven't done any work yet you've still

potentially turned down work from other

clients because you blocked out your

calendar for them so then then you can

either take the rest of the 50% at the

end before you hand everything over or

you can split this into two payments

over the course of the project depending

on how big the project is and how long

the timeline is then you want to list

everything that's included and the

number of revisions that you allow on

this I usually allow two rounds of

revisions and then anything on top is

extra your cancellation policy just says

that if they cancel halfway through the

project then they still need to pay for

all the work up until this point even if

they don't have the fine on deliverables

and then for expenses I list all the

things not included so things like stock

photography or fonts you want to add a

confidentiality clause in there cuz

you're likely going to be exchanging

passwords so this protects both you and

the client then you want to make it

clear that you own the copyright to all

the designs until the final project

payment is made and then my favorite

part to add in here is client

expectations and this basically just

gets the client to agree to be on time

for all the due dates and reply within

three working days or the whole project

will be automatically put on hold and an

additional fee will be required to start

it up again now this might sound harsh

but you have to have boundaries like

this especially when when you're

hopefully going to be booking up

projects weeks or months in advance so

it's not profitable for your projects to

drag on way longer than the timeline

because it affects all of your other

work and from my experience once you

start setting boundaries like this you

rarely have to actually use them but you

still want to be very clear and protect

yourself from the beginning just in case

there's that one nightmare client so I

have this contract set up in D dubsado

but a slightly cheaper alternative is

DocuSign and you want to do this because

it allows you to collect electronic

signatures so they can just open this up

really quickly and then sign it and

download the PDF if they want once

they've done that this button takes them

straight to the invoice so I have my

invoices set up in stripe which is free

to set up and then it just takes a

processing fee on the payment which is

fairly standard and what you can also do

as soon as they pay this initial deposit

you can create and schedule all of your

invoices for the rest of the project in

advance so it's sent out to your client

at the right time and you don't have to

think about it your client will then

receive a link to the invoice and then

they can just go on here and pay with

card so especially if you're working

with clients from all over the world

this makes makes it so much easier for

both you and the client again the more

seamless you make every step of this

process the more impressed your client

is going to be and the more likely they

are to trust that you are going to take

care of everything and deliver an

excellent service which leads me into

how you're going to send this over to

your client and really wow them with an

amazing onboarding experience so the

first 48 hours after a client decides to

work with you is the part of the project

that leaves the biggest lasting

impression on the client this is the

peak end rule the parts of the project

that your client will remember and judge

you on is the peak so when they first

decide to work with you and they're most

excited for what to come and the end

these first impressions confirm to your

client that they made a good decision

buying from you what you do is valuable

and worth their money and it doesn't

matter how good your work is after this

moment 80% of their mind is already made

up so we want to make sure we wow them

and really make them feel confident in

our service as I showed you before in

here a client portal is generated for

every new project and this is where

we're going to keep all the information

for the project in one place so it's

easy for you to find and your client has

it all here too so it's really important

that your client always knows what

you're currently working on and when

they're going to hear from you next

especially when you start working with

higher budget clients this is what they

expect always overcommunication

in questionnaires and actions that your

client needs to complete with a clear

deadline and a checklist you can easily

keep track of the progress then you want

to have the project files and a space to

gather feedback from your clients and

then you have your resources so anything

else that your client might find helpful

and the good thing about all of this is

that you only have to put this together

once and then you can reuse this with

all of your clients at the start of

every project this is all here and ready

to go so at this point I've customized

The Proposal linked my contract and

invoice I'll go in here and lock the

proposal so they can't edit this and

then before sending it over to the

client what you want to do is record a

short loom video and this is going to be

a personalized message letting them know

that I'm excited for the project giving

them a quick tour of the portal and then

showing them how to go in and check

their proposal and sign their contract

if you want to you can record this loom

video once and reuse it for all of your

clients but I like to make this

personalized because it doesn't take

that much more effort from me but the

impact on the client is going to be

bigger then to send it over to the

client you just come up here and share

it with their email address and this is

what keeps it secure so all your client

needs to do is enter their email address

to access this there's no long sign up

process to make a notion account it's

really simple and then you can go over

to your Gmail grab the client portal

template and then add in the link to

their client portal and just send this

over so your client has just got off a

call with you and in under an hour they

have this in their inbox and then they

come on to here and are amazed by all

the detail that you've put together and

are now feeling even more confident that

this is going to be a smooth process and

you're going to do a really great job

then if they're happy to move forward

they're able to sign their contract and

pay their invoice in under five minutes

now they might not sign right away if

your client doesn't sign this within 48

Hours of you sending it over to them

it's likely that they're ghosting you

and so if this happens do nothing make

sure to follow up if you haven't heard

from them but until this contract is

signed and the deposit is paid don't get

excited and start digging into the

project do not touch a thing but

hopefully this doesn't happen

everything's good they sign the contract

and we're ready to go so this is what

the next part of your project might look

like and so for all of your projects you

want to have a very clear timeline and

within this timeline there's going to be

deadlines for you but there's also going

to be deadlines for your client they're

always going to be parts of any project

where you need things from your client

in order to move forward so you need to

make time for this so that it doesn't

affect your planning and timeline for

all your other projects and you also

want to set clear expectations with your

client from the start so you want to

check in with them is this timeline

going to work for you and this is why we

put in our contract that all deadlines

need to be met within three working days

and this doesn't mean that if a client

comes to you and explains that something

came up that you can't be flexible and

work with them but if you have a client

that goes missing for 2 weeks then

you're protected you've already been

paid and so all you need to do is stop

working and then if they come back and

want to start out the project again then

you can politely let them know that you

have other clients now and so the

timeline is going to be different and

there's going to be a fee before you can

start up again this is how you run a

profitable design business and stop your

projects dragging on for months at a

time so here's an example timeline for

my web design projects one week before

the project the client questionnaire is

then we have a strategy meeting after

this the designing of the website is

broken into three approval stages the

client has to approve the strategy the

homepage design and then the entire

website then you have your Handover and

your launch and so it's one thing having

this timeline and setting these

deadlines but you still need to do

everything you can to make it as easy as

possible for your client to give you

everything you need so I'm going to show

you exactly how I do this in the next

video I'm going to walk you through

exactly how I carry out the strategy and

the website design so you know what to

do if you don't want to miss that but in

this video we're going to stick to the

client process so first up getting

everything you need from the client this

is what this part of the client portal

is for and it's broken up into easy

stages with a checkbox to easily keep

track of everything that needs to be

done so after the client has signed

their contract and paid their invoice I

have this email that I send over to them

confirming their project and reminding

them that they need to book in our first

call and then fill in their

questionnaire so I embed my Cy booking

link straight into here so that the

client can come in and schedule our

strategy call and then they can fill in

their brand questionnaire here so this

is just to get any addition information

that I didn't manage to go through in

their sales call and so some of these

questions do overlap so what I do is add

my notes in here and then I'll let the

client clarify or add anything if they

need to so I don't want to overwhelm my

clients so these are the only two things

I ask them to do right now and then

everything else I'll go through in our

call every web designer knows that the

worst part of any project is getting all

the content you need for a website it

can take your client weeks to even send

you anything and then when they do they

send a 50-page Google doc full of

irrelevant information that you have to

sift through it's painful for you it's

painful for your client but this is the

best way that I've found to solve this

problem and So within here I have these

website copy templates there's a

services and an e-commerce version and

Within These are guides on how to fill

this in and then each page is broken

down into key sections with copy prompts

and examples so there's two ways that

you can use these with clients first

thing you can do is just give this to

the client and have them fill it in

especially if it's a shorter project or

a lower budget client and so I'm not

offering copywriting included in the

projects then this is a great way to do

it because it enables the client to do

this part themselves and it breaks it up

so it's easy to manage and your client

knows exactly what you need from them

but for those higher budget or busier

clients even this is going to feel like

a bit too much homework for them and so

what I do with my clients is I use this

as a template and then I go through it

with them in the strategy meeting and so

what you want to do is make some notes

in here before so you know what to ask

your client and then in the meeting

you'll just expand on these notes and

then after the meeting I'll finish it

off for them and then just send it over

to have them approve it so it's really

what works best for you and your client

but what I think is so important

especially if you're someone that finds

yourself complaining a lot about your

clients or struggling with things not

going smoothly then it is your

responsibility to find Solutions like

this that make it easier for both you

and your clients which leads us nicely

into the next step another thing that a

lot of designers struggle with is

revisions so I see a lot of people

talking about how they send designs over

to clients and then they start losing

their minds when they get requests like

can you make it pop but I don't see a

lot of people talking about how you

actually solve this problem and it's so

easy to do so if you're struggling with

huge amounts of revisions from clients

or really vague feedback then there's

three things that you need to change and

the first is strategy now this goes for

any creative process whether you're a

filmmaker or a web designer the end

result is only as good as the strategy

and the preparation that you put in

right at the start you have to spend 50%

of your time getting on the same page as

the client before you start anything

otherwise you're going to get ahead of

yourself and put all this work into

something that is completely different

to what the client is imagining and this

is why you want to break your project

into clear stages like this and ask for

feedback at every single stage and in my

experience since putting more work into

this strategy part I now have very few

revisions throughout the rest of this

project so the next thing you need to

change is presentation how you present

your work to your client is going to

have a huge impact on the feedback that

you get you want to do everything you

can to present high quality mockups that

give the client a Clear Vision of the

end result and you also want to make

sure that your client understands why

you've made all the decisions that you

did which is why if you're presenting

brand designs and you want to spend time

putting together real world mockups and

clear explanations of the strategy

behind them and if you're presenting a

web design then you don't just want to

send them a link you want to record a

loom video presenting the design and

explaining all the decisions along the

way then when you send this over to the

client instead of saying let me know

your feedback you want to make sure that

you're asking really specific questions

for example this is where I put all the

files for the clients to review and you

have a little guide on here on how to

give good feedback then if I'm sending

over a homepage mockup at this point I'm

looking for feedback on the overall look

and feel of the design and the content

layout so I might ask questions like

does the design convey the intended

messaging does the color scheme appeal

to your target audience and is all the

important information clear then when

I'm sending over the completed web

design to review I'm looking for more

technical feedback so I would ask

questions like do all the buttons and

links work have you checked the website

on different screen sizes you have to

make it clear what you're looking for so

your client can give you useful and

relevant feedback and having these

questions laid out also makes it so much

easier to set boundaries when it comes

to revisions you're not going back and

forth sending NeverEnding emails with

tiny small tweaks you're asking them to

take their time write down everything at

once and then submit this to you and

then you can Implement all of this and

send it back to them and you can make it

really clear that you will only go

through this process up to two times

when you do this you very rarely get to

a second round of revisions because your

client does their best to give really

detailed feedback the first time so you

finished your work the client is Happy

they've paid their invoice this is

important don't do anything before they'

paid and so you send them everything

over now the last thing you want to do

here is leave the client feeling like

you've handed everything over and just

ghosted them making sure your client has

everything they need and they feel

confident in the next steps is crucial

if you want them to give you those rave

reviews that give you referrals and

clients in the future so what I do is I

leave some resources here at the bottom

of the client portal this is why I

recommend sticking to just one platform

if you're a web designer because you can

pre-record resources and training videos

that you reuse for every single client

showing them how to make basic changes

to their website even if you want to

offer ongoing Website Maintenance your

client is going to want to feel like

they can go in and change some wording

or some images if they need to without

relying on you to do all that for them

and trust me you do not want them

relying on you for that you can also

leave any FAQs here and there's a guide

on how to use different file types if

you're sending over any brand assets

another thing that I offer is 30 days of

support after they launch and so this

doesn't include any additional revisions

or designing but it's just for the

questions that your client might have

and honestly it's really rare that any

clients actually use this but you just

want them to feel supported so there are

some email templates for this too and so

when I finish the project what I do is I

schedule this email to go out 5 days or

so before the support period is over

just checking and reminding them that

I'm here if they have any questions and

then I'll also schedule another email a

couple of weeks after this asking for a

testimonial the reason I recommend

waiting longer to ask for this

testimonial is that a great testimonial

is going to Rave about the results that

you got your client and so you want to

give it time for them to start seeing

these results and again you want to ask

the right questions to prompt your

client with what you want them to say so

a great testimonial go something like

before I was struggling with this

problem and I felt bad emotion now I

have positive outcome and I feel good

emotion so there's some questions that

you can ask to these answers what were

you struggling with in your business

prior to the project has your business

increased since working with us how did

your website help you achieve your

business goals if you were recommending

us to a friend what would you say at the

end of the day the success of your

business is all about these results that

you get your client this is what helps

you attract new clients and raise your

rates and so if you're a web designer

and you want to know how to get results

like this then hit subscribe and join me

in the next video where I'll be walking

you through my entire web design process