✍️ Clarity is all a client needs · The Bunker #17

Let’s get started!

When I started my career as a freelance designer, one of the things I found most difficult to do (and in part, I still find it difficult today), is to prioritise the tasks that are more relevant over those that are not so relevant, in order to make the most of my time.

Evidently, with time I managed to perfect the clarity of my objectives, and now I know more or less what I should dedicate my effort and time to at any given moment.

When I started, if there was one thing I was guilty of, it was constantly wasting my time. In reality, it is never wasted, because it has given me many benefits that I am taking advantage of today, but it is true that I wasted time on silly things.

A week ago, I finished one of the most important things in my company:

🗺I designed a map drawn with several strategies. That is to say:

💼I have prepared a document, which contains several documents prepared as templates, which I deliver according to the client's needs. Thus, when a client comes to me I don't have to write and draft everything from scratch, depending on their needs I deliver one thing or another, from what I have already prepared.

If I have learned anything over time, it is that one of the things that have made the difference between closing the project or not, has been the clarity that I have brought to the client in each project. Over time, observing various patterns, I realised that the only aspect that is really important and that makes a client decide to invest their money in your response or not, is clarity.

When a client is clear, he will invest his money.

⁉When a client is unclear, uncertainty and doubt is what makes him keep his money. Nobody wants to put their money in unclear things.

So what I did was: I took the time to prepare several templates, with several proposals as detailed and clear as possible. For example:

If a client needs a quote for a Web Development project in Webflow, instead of giving them a generic price, what I would do would be to give them a Notion document with all aspects broken down and various prices for each aspect. The client would only have to indicate what they need and one price or another would be generated.

🎉In this way, the client not only knows exactly how much his project will cost, but also what his money will be used for, exactly where it will go.

And for this there are several examples:

• Web development project at Webflow.
• Web design project in Figma.
• Migration from Wordpress to Webflow.
• Complete website redesign.
• UX audits.
• Etc.

Obviously, this will take time, it cannot be done in two days. First make a basic model and time and experience will modify and adapt it. And this is what I meant at the beginning of the post, these are things that take time, but in the long run they will save you a lot of time, give clarity to clients and even to yourself. By having a map broken down, you will know where to increase/decrease the price and value of your services. You will know exactly where you need to improve.

Remember that clients will only end up choosing you if they see clarity and professionalism in you. Normally they go hand in hand, when things are organised and well organised, it conveys seriousness and professionalism. When a designer says a figure and does not even know where he has got it from and doubts in his justifications when he is on a call with the client, the client will not invest his money.

Clarity and transparency above everything else.

Cheers, Jordi Espinosa.