Bummer! You have been redirected as the page you requested could not be found.
Heads up! To view this whole video, sign in with your Courses Plus account or enroll in your free 7-day trial. Sign In Enroll
Well done!
You have completed How to Run a Web Design Business!
You have completed How to Run a Web Design Business!
Preview
Fostering Repeat Business
4:50 with Paul BoagPaul offers a list of best practices for increasing communication with existing clients.
This video doesn't have any notes.
Related Discussions
Have questions about this video? Start a discussion with the community and Treehouse staff.
Sign upRelated Discussions
Have questions about this video? Start a discussion with the community and Treehouse staff.
Sign up
So hopefully I've convinced you the value of repeat business.
0:00
Now, the next question obviously is, "How do you win it?
0:03
How do you keep clients coming back for more?"
0:06
But the obvious thing is to focus on quality which seems so obvious.
0:08
But when you're working with a client on an ongoing basis,
0:14
it's easy to let quality slip over time.
0:17
You begin to take that client for granted. You really can't do that.
0:21
That's when you'll lose them so make sure you focus on quality all the time.
0:24
Another thing I find really useful for keeping clients coming back
0:30
is to do a post project debrief.
0:33
So when a project ends,
0:37
make sure you sit down with the client and talk about the project,
0:39
talk about what went well and what didn't go so well.
0:42
But also, talk about the future and what's coming next.
0:45
Get the client all the time looking forward.
0:49
And often, this will happen naturally anyway.
0:52
We'll talk about scope tree in a future video
0:55
but one way of dealing with scope tree is to write down those ideas
0:59
and say let's do in the next phase.
1:04
Well, here is a great example of that.
1:06
This is where you cash in on that
1:08
because you can then come back in your post project debrief and say--
1:10
"Look, these are the ideas we had. Let's do them now!"
1:14
Do regular reviews as well with customers.
1:17
Sit down with them, you know, once a year. Or once every 6 months.
1:21
Or once every 3 months. Whenever it is right and review where there site is at.
1:25
And make sure that you have suggestions about where it should go in the future.
1:28
Essentially what you're doing is trying to maintain a conversation.
1:33
You're keeping talking to them.
1:36
Keep them informed about latest innovations.
1:39
Now you might want to do that with a newsletter
1:42
that goes out to all of your clients.
1:44
But if you do that, make sure you also talk to some clients personally as well.
1:46
Newsletters are great but they are a bit impersonal
1:51
and it's really important to make suggestions for people-specific sites.
1:54
Finally, show them what you've done with other clients.
1:59
If you've done something cool within a particular sector
2:04
say if you're focusing on charities for example.
2:07
You do one great thing for one charity site.
2:10
Show another charity client that
2:13
and suggest that they might want to do the same.
2:15
One of the most important things when it comes to repeat business
2:20
is to be going above and beyond in what you're delivering.
2:25
If the client feels that you are giving them real value for service,
2:29
then they will keep back coming to you.
2:34
So you have to go above and beyond.
2:36
So one of the things that we do is we are conservative in our estimates.
2:38
So what we will do is estimate
2:42
that a project is going to take longer than may be we think it really will.
2:45
And then we come in on to that and that impresses clients.
2:51
That gives them the feeling we're going above and beyond.
2:54
Being proactive too is another great way of going above and beyond.
2:57
So saying to clients, "Hey, why don't we do this? This should be a great feature.
3:01
This should be a great idea."
3:05
Now, most of your clients doesn't always have the budget
3:08
to pay for these additional ideas.
3:10
But you know what? Occasionally, I do that extra work for free.
3:12
Not all the time because we don't want the client
3:16
to get used to you doing work for them for free.
3:18
But every now and again it's worth it. It's worth it to make the website better.
3:21
But it's also worth it in order to show the client
3:25
that you're going that extra mile for them.
3:28
But if you are going to do extra work for them for free
3:30
make sure you tell them you're doing that
3:33
because the client needs to know that you're going that extra mile.
3:35
Now, the problem with repeat business is that you can find you become very reliant
3:40
on a single client and this can be dangerous to your business.
3:46
You got to be careful that if you're just working with one client all the time
3:51
and they make up such a big part of your business
3:56
then if they go away you're stuffed.
3:59
So be very careful when working with just one or two really big clients.
4:03
And to be honest, you're going to need to sit down with them and discuss it openly.
4:08
Talk about the fact that it's a problem for your business
4:12
but it is also potentially a problem for them that they're so reliant on one supplier.
4:16
You might want to consider actually in such situations outsourcing some of that work
4:20
that you manage and you still have the relationship but using other people
4:27
so that you can develop other clients alongside that main client.
4:33
But that said, repeat business is the way to go.
4:37
It will make such a difference and you really need to be working on it right now
4:41
to ensure that your clients keep coming back for more.
4:46
You need to sign up for Treehouse in order to download course files.
Sign upYou need to sign up for Treehouse in order to set up Workspace
Sign up