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UPWORD Consulting - Week 1
UPWORD Consulting - Week 1
I want to help as many freelancers and agency owners generate high-value WordPress projects consistently and predictably and will keep the training and weekly support 100% free for as long as I can.
The resources in this course are crazy valuable ($15,000 worth of resources - but you won't pay anywhere near that), from all of my proposal templates, to legal agreements, to a fully built out WordPress agency site, these premium resources can help accelerate your growth.
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Hey everyone welcome to week one and module four, and in this module, it's going to be super short but I just want to cover some of the mistakes that I've made over the years that you really should just avoid and learn from me. So really the first thing is don't take your clients for granted, it can be tough at times especially put difficult, challenging clients, But don't take them for granted, and really, you want to treat clients the way you would want to be treated. And whatever your expectations would be if you were investing $10,000 in something. So, like what would you expect what would you want for someone if you were writing a check to someone for $10,000 to build you out a website, what would you expect, right so when it comes to communication, how quickly you get back to someone I know a lot of people say stay out of your email, but me being an email and quick responses has done wonders for me and my agents, you just want to have the right mentality when it comes to your clients, especially when you get in the thick of things and it's stressful, but keeping this mentality will translate to more sales, client loyalty, and a better relationship overall with your client. It's not the golden rule for nothing. Clients will recognize the value of you putting yourself in their shoes, and this will generate trust and promise. Just make sure you don't forget that it can be tough. I've done it so many times, especially with difficult clients, but make sure you put yourself in their shoes, and you provide the service that you would want. If you were making that type of. So the next mistake I see all the time, something that from the beginning I never did is don't assume a budget and don't ask what their budget is really clients don't necessarily know what it's going to cost to build out their new WordPress site and the reality is you don't want them thinking about costs, you want them thinking about investing, investing in you and in the next week in week two, which is probably one of the most important weeks of this entire course. We're going to show you how to do just that, how to flip it on its head so that you are providing value creating trust, right out of the gate, so that when they go through your proposal, they're not thinking about costs or thinking about what their return on investment could be if they go with you and your agents. You also don't want to negotiate against yourself. Meaning, if a client says they want some sort of discount. I actually had this with a client where they just wanted to discount for the sake of having a discount. So the first step, I do is I tried to remove different services that can kind of, that would meet that discount. I don't just discount the discount, but never, never negotiate against yourself in terms of if they throw out. Hey, they want a discount or it seems expensive or it's high, do not discount. Don't throw out a number, ask them, What are they looking for get more information, but the first step is not to just give a discount. The first step is to remove something from the project to make it fit their budget. Now you're gonna have people that are going to want to discount or it really will be outside of their budget and that's okay
it is what it is. That'll be up to you of how you want to handle that how you want to discount it there's
lots of times where I just discount it because I don't want to argue over $500 or $1,000 depending on what the project is, but there's enough profit and I've built it out properly, then I will do it because if it will be worth it. Depending on the prospect client but it can be worth it to get that prospect for referrals because you just never know that sometimes, if you get got a weird feeling, or it's just not feeling right, then it's okay to walk away from a project, and I walked away from a $10,000 project, because of this exact issue, don't be afraid to walk away, but also, don't assume a budget, they don't know what it's going to cost they don't really know what they budget for it. And when you talk, take them through what you're going to learn in week two. This will help that immensely. Next thing is, don't be difficult to reach, quick responses, As I mentioned earlier, you're gonna see a lot of people online talking about stay out of your emails, I actually live in my emails, and I respond quickly. So much so that in 2020 I generated an additional $10,000 in revenue from just fast responses so I look back through my emails of people that had referred me because of how quick I respond to things, that's got me more and more clients now, there's obviously boundaries with that. And depending on what it is but quick responses, again, it's really thinking about, hey, If I was investing $10,000 I want to get quick responses or something, if there's a bug or there's an issue. Make sure you're just responding quickly. And while you do need to focus and setting aside time to deal with all the projects and everything on your plate, if they know that they can get a proper response for you. They're gonna sleep better at night, they're gonna be much happier with their investment, and you're more likely to get referrals. And next is, don't be disorganized for so long I'm guilty of just flying by the seat of my pants, trying to do everything via email. And it was a nightmare, until I started bringing in different tools, whether it's Basecamp Trello, whatever you might use for project management might actually teach you further on down in this course, the exact tools I use and how we stay organized and keep it simple and also very easy for the client to use and you don't have to turn them on anything, Basecamp is great for this also slack Google Drive, all this stuff, you know, just stay organized, especially if you're a one man shop, like I was for a long time, just do your due diligence,
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do the make the extra effort on each item that you need to make sure that everything
is moving forward, and that you're organized the clients will sense, disorganization, and that is not a feeling that you want so be on top of your stuff, communicate quickly, and just stay organized. And last but not least, don't forget to set boundaries a mistake I've made early on is giving on my cell phone. I had to take that away. Literally within the first few months because people are humans get human to human course,
they take the path of least resistance so they'll text you, they will call you, it won't stop.
So you need to set boundaries, I highly recommend. Don't give out your cell phone, you don't put your cell phone in your signature. Nothing, I recommend using a Google Voice, or even a call answering service I use that for myself I pay a service 50 bucks a month I think they answer my phone 24 Seven if I can't answer the screen it makes me messages. It also gives a sense of professionalism, but this is the one thing that you really wouldn't want to set boundaries because clients will take the path of least resistance, it's easier for them to text you than it is to send you an email or Basecamp message, and what I found when I was trying to do text and all that stuff, fell through the cracks. I was disorganized, things got missed I highly recommend you staying away from that. Just make sure you're always kind of pushing your clients through the proper channels so if you're using Basecamp, or Trello, whatever it is for project management, you're going to want to push your mind so they're just set up some boundaries. Because at the end of the day, you still have to get your work done, and if you're juggling multiple clients you need a system that you're not going to lose things, and there are some healthy boundaries that your clients will respect. And so just make sure you set up some decent boundaries. Also for the next thing. When it comes to phone calls, 100% of the time, I do not take unscheduled phone calls, there's just too much going on, and this is the thing that I let clients know right out of the gate. If we need to get on a call short of a drastic emergency which maybe it's happened once or twice in the 10 years I've been doing this. It just needs to be scheduled. There's no way around it, there's too much going on. And so, really, I highly recommend setting up phone calls that need to be scheduled at the time the calendar, use people meet, whatever it might be. This just helps everything helps you stay on track stay organized and helps with clients, understanding boundaries and making sure that you can focus when you need to focus, and that you can prioritize them, if it's not an emergency, you'll get it scheduled with them, and then you can prepare for it and be ready. So, those are pretty much the mistakes I've made, there's probably a lot more I'll be sharing them blog posts in our private channel but these are some of the major ones that I want to walk you through that I think a really important. Coming up, week two, this is the most important week. We're going to teach you how to change your entire method for creating trust your proposals, how you provide value, right out of the gate, This has been a game changer for my agency, and it will help you as well. And just remember when things get challenging this course, refer back to the poster, remember, do today what others won't, so that tomorrow you can do and others can't. And really, just start to be comfortable with being uncomfortable when you feel fear when you feel like an imposter, keep leaning into it, because, know that success is on the other side of that, so make sure you complete the action items for week one, and I will see you in week two.