Winning the Clients You Want

Using a system to win and keep your dream clients

My career has taught me a lot about clients. I’ve learned how they operate uniquely and how they view creative and user experience in their organization. I’ve learned that one size never fits all and above all, that you can’t win a client if you don’t want to work for it.

I recently listened to an amazing talk by Debbie Millman, Editorial & Creative Director at Print Magizine where she spoke about the right mindset when seeking or pitching creative to potential clients.

She made the analogy that winning a client should be looked at the way an athlete looks at a game. You have to train hard, practice, analyze your competition and be ready to devote yourself fully to winning.

I’m a strong believer in work-life-balance, but Debbie made the excellent point that if you love what you do, your life sometimes is your work. That’s where the hard part of winning clients comes in. You need to devote yourself completely to winning your dream clients. There are simply too many talented designers, developers, experience-professionals and creatives that want the same clients that you do.

How do I get my dream client to pay attention?

1Define. You need to figure out what makes you better than everyone else. Sure, you’re probably good at what you do, but there are a lot of people that do what you do that are also good at it. How are you any different? As Simon Sinek says, “start with why.”

2 Pursue. After you’ve figured out why you’re valuable, don’t assume that everyone else can see it. You need to be persistent in reaching out to clients and reminding them that you’re around and that you’re valuable. When you’re a creative you have to be even more tenacious than the most persistent account rep.

Your dream clients aren’t looking for you — remember, they have agencies and creatives banging down their doors looking to secure them. Some larger brands have account reps that call on them weekly for years before there’s any hope of landing actual, real work. So don’t stop after a few emails. Be incredibly persistent.

One of Vince Lombardi’s (hall of fame coach of the Green Bay Packers) best quotes is “The Green Bay Packers never lost a football game. They just ran out of time.” He knew that if he continued to do what he and his team had trained every day for, they would eventually come out on top of any situation. The same is true for landing amazing creative work — Expect anything worthwhile to take a long time (think years…).

3 Seek out criticism. Nothing incredible was ever made in a vacuum. DaVinci, Pollack, Jobs, and Gates all learned from the world around them and sought out other’s opinions. They had to actively cultivate differing opinions to ensure that their work wasn’t stagnating or that their skillset wasn’t aging. You need to do the same thing.

Sometimes people seek out harmony in their interactions with others or on a project, but this artificial harmony is a mistake. We need to push back and ask questions. We need our clients and our partners to push back on us. And sometimes, we need to swallow our pride and tell a client that we missed the mark. What we gave them may not have been what they wanted — and that’s ok.

4Push the boundaries. The type of client you get depends on all three of the tactics above, but above all of them is the work that you do. Doing mediocre work isn’t going to get a client to pay attention, so as you’re pursuing your clients, make sure you provide them with a reason to work with you. Take on pro-bono work that will give you the opportunity to truly build something incredible. Make sure the apps you build are polished and as perfect as you can make them.

Great creative individuals and organizations are constantly brainstorming new ways to help spread a message or communicate an idea. So don’t neglect this part of the process. It will consistently lead you to new ways to win work and new ways to solve design and UX problems.

How do I pitch a dream client?

OK. Let’s say you’ve pursued your dream client for a year and they finally want to work with you. Now what?

You pitch them. And it better be good. Like… really good.

I mentioned before that mediocre work won’t impress incredible clients who see great work every day. They also see (and sometimes give) amazing presentations, so mediocre presentations and pitches are poison.

Below are some guidelines for getting your dream clients to actually hand you money to do what you love. These draw from my experience and from some of Debbie’s incredible advice:

1Know what you’re talking about. Being a subject-matter expert is a phrase that corporate executives like to throw around, but it signals something important — that there are people that know more than anyone else on a particular topic. Being an expert in your chosen field will prove to people that you actually know what you’re talking about.

If you’re trying to establish yourself, write a blog (like this one), speak publicly about your field, set up a podcast, write a book — anything you can do to show why a client should trust you with their creative, website or strategy. They will have one less reason to say no to you. Once you’ve taken away all their “no’s” they only have one word left.

2Know who you are. Knowing yourself and what you believe in is one of the most important parts of pitching. We all have strengths, but we all have weaknesses as well — and that’s ok. Being good at everything means you’re probably not great at anything. So don’t pretend to be the jack-of-all-trades. Know who you are and who you’re not.

3Articulate your benefit. This is the first step (above) in getting your clients to pay attention to you, but now you need to back it up. If you’re a developer you need to point to the software or application that showcases your abilities. If you’re a designer, you need put work samples in their hands of the most incredible creative you’ve ever done.

Showing your clients why you’re better than your competition is a lot like dating. You need to have solid experience, you need to put the right foot forward, and you have to be passionate about what you say. There even has to be a mutual affection and desire to work together. Make your clients fall in love with you and you won’t need to fight off competition. Your client will do that for you.

4Confidence is overrated. Having confidence about what you do is great, but often over-confidence is a mask for a lack in knowledge. As I said above, it’s ok to not know everything. There’s nothing wrong with saying those three little words, “I don’t know.”

Real visionaries and innovators are also intensive listeners. They collect as much information as possible before forming an opinion or conclusion. They don’t pretend to know everything and they argue in logical, even-tempered ways.

If you only take one thing away from this guide, remember that anything worthwhile will take a lot of work. In the immortal words of Jimmy Dugan from A League of Their Own,

“It’s supposed to be hard. If it was easy everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.”

So get to work.