Intro:
Starting a new freelancing gig/business project with a new client can be a challenge.
Building a good relationship with this client—and maintaining that relationship throughout the duration of that project—is important not only to your reputation as a gig worker and freelancer but also to your career as a business person in your own right.
It’s always in our best interest to cultivate positive, high-value relationships with clients.
But how do you do this?
What are some steps that you can take today to help build these good working relationships with your clients?
Well, that’s a good question.
And in this blog post, you’re going to learn the top five tips for how to make this happen.
Let’s dive into it.
1. Over-Deliver On Your Service
If in doubt, always deliver a little bit more than you said you would when you initially talked about the project.
This will give you a fantastic reputation.
It will also make them see you as some kind of ‘superhero’ who always over-delivers on the deliverable.
Nowadays, everyone is expecting to get ripped off.
Everyone’s afraid of paying a lot of money for very little value.
If you can make the opposite true in your day-to-day dealings, you can absolutely supercharge your results.
Note: If you get into a situation where you need a bit more time to finish a project, it’s always best to deal with this up-front. Here are some tips that’ll help you to do this well.
Definitely don’t put this type of thing off. Always communicate promptly and ‘get ahead of potential problems. This will help you to continue delivering high-quality services that your clients will love.
2. Under-Charge
Now, don’t get it twisted.
You shouldn’t actually undercharge to such a degree that you don’t earn enough for the services you’re providing.
But this falls right in line with that ‘over-deliver’ mentality.
Charge competitive rates for the work you do, and then deliver quality that’s either on-par with (or even surpassing) the value being offered by other companies that are charging even more than you.
You can even find ways to boost the value that won’t cost you much more—but that’ll seem really useful to your clients.
When you utilize this philosophy in your business, you’ll not only gain a reputation as someone who delivers incredible value for fair a fair-market cost, but people will also feel more at peace with signing contracts and doing business with you—because you’ll have maintained a well-earned reputation for excellence.
3. Communication Is The Key
Don’t be afraid to ask questions, engage your client in discussions about the project, and be active in trying to understand their point of view.
Every project is a little bit different.
And every client is a little bit different as well.
And the better you can understand your client and their desires, the better equipped you’ll be to deliver amazing results on the project.
4. Be The Expert
Some freelancers fall into the bad habit of allowing the client to just run ramshot right over their operation.
They become almost ‘glorified employees’ while the client takes on the role of making the majority of the creative decisions.
But here’s the truth—this is where you need to maintain your role of being the creative expert.
That is, after all, why they hired you to begin with!
And when you relinquish control of the things that you are an expert in, you’re going to start sacrificing project quality in ways that you never otherwise would have.
So make sure to maintain that expert position for yourself.
Make sure that you’re always standing up for your creative process and being quick to explain to the client why your way may just be the best way.
This will help you to deliver better results.
But it will also help the client to feel more at ease over time, and it will help you to move along with a sustainable project flow for the long-term that’ll create success for everybody.
Conclusion
There you have it.
Those are our 4 favorite tips for learning how to build a good working relationship with a new client.
Keep in mind that this business stuff isn’t rocket science.
However, client relationships are very important.
It’s in your best interest to make sure that they function well.
