Your proposal price and scope can’t last forever. It’s a business offer—and conditions change. Yet too many creatives send a quote, then leave it open forever. A year later, the client comes back expecting the same price, even though your workload, costs, and experience have evolved and likely become more…
Is An Email a Legally Binding Agreement? – Avoid the Deadly “No Contract” Mistake Some clients have ants in their pants. You have your first meeting with a prospective client…you know the one where you think you are qualifying the client BUT they think they are kicking off the project….
What is a “pitch meeting?” For the sake of this article, let’s agree that a “pitch meeting” is a formal opportunity for you to sit in front of a potential client, to have a meaningful conversation about their business challenges and then position yourself as a solution to the problems…
I know I’ve mentioned this in a variety of content, but when I started freelancing my contracts didn’t just SUCK, they were NON-EXISTENT! I would literally just give my client a single page PDF with a list of “things” I would do for them next to a price. It was…
I’ve seen some advice that a creative entrepreneur should ALWAYS require first payment to be made PRIOR to starting a project. While I understand the positive intention behind this advice, I don’t agree that it should be a required policy for your business. Here are few things to consider when…
It is easy to get frustrated when a potential client asks for a meeting to discuss a project and in that meeting they start fishing for your solid gold ideas to solve their problem. You, being helpful like you are, offer up strategies for their challenges, free of charge in…
If there is one thing I could teach you to dramatically improve the success of your creative business, it would be ALWAYS present your proposals. I have been a broken record on this topic in tons of different pieces of content. I’m sure you’ve heard it from me before. I’m…
Proposals take freelancers and creative agency owners time to create, no doubt about it. Sure, you can speed up the process by repurposing past proposals and using templates, but most often a proposal requires time to explore and craft custom ideas. Since time is required to craft a custom proposal,…
You worked hard to get your proposal “just right” for this amazing opportunity. The presentation to the client could not have gone better and they gave you the formal, “We’ll get back to you soon.” Now what? What is my follow-up strategy? How much follow-up makes me look professional? And…
