Note: This transcript was auto generated then some poor soul sat and listened to it, and followed through correcting any mistakes they spotted. Please however expect human error and shout if you spot an issue. Email: lee [fancy curly symbol] trailblazer.fm.
Verbatim text
Lee:
Welcome to the WP Innovator Podcast, the podcast for web designers and design agencies, exploring the world of WordPress and online business. And now your host, Lee Jackson.
Lee:
Hi, and welcome to episode number 94 of the WP Innovator Podcast. This is your host, Lee. And on today’s show, I’m going to be talking with Laura Elizabeth from Client Portal. You can check out her product in the show notes of this podcast. We are going to be shooting the breeze about project management, about client onboarding and essentially being organized and allowing people to see what is going on throughout the project. Something that I know I have struggled with over the years. And as agencies, it’s certainly something that we can all find very, very difficult.
Lee:
So she shares a whole ton of insight into that world. Don’t forget, if you are not part of the Facebook group, head on over to WP Innovator dot com forward slash group, where there are a whole load of WordPress enthusiasts, design agencies, geeks and cat lovers alike sharing GIFs and cat pictures, but also more seriously sharing information on agency life and helping each other out. It’s a great place to be. So go ahead and check that out now. Sit back, relax, enjoy the ride. And please keep your arms and legs inside of the vehicle at all times and enjoy the show.
Lee:
Before we kick off this episode, just to let you know, if you are at any point interested in Laura Elizabeth’s product, which is Client Portal, then you can get 20% off. Yes, that’s 20% off. 20% off, you say? That’s right. Just use the coupon WP Innovator 20. Check out the show notes. You can copy and paste it from there if you want to get it exactly right. But it’s WP Innovator 20 for 20% off. Enjoy the show.
Lee:
Hello and welcome to a conversation with me, Lee Jackson. And today, Laura Elizabeth. How are you today?
Laura:
I’m very well. Thank you. How are you?
Lee:
I’m doing wonderful. And we’ve just been having a conversation about how nice it is to have two British accents talking back and forth, understanding each other’s humor. It’s wonderful.
Laura:
It has been wonderful. I wasn’t expecting to hear a British accent on the other end of this. So that was a nice surprise.
Laura:
And now I understand what other people think when they hear my accent on the other side of it.
Lee:
Did you for a minute think, is that English or is it Australian? I can’t tell.
Laura:
I actually didn’t. So I have no trouble. I get that from Americans all the time. You know, they say, hey, is this accent English or Australian? I’m like, Australian, obviously. How do you not know?
Lee:
Are you from Australia?
Laura:
Yeah, it’s like I struggle with American and Canadian. So I get told off a lot with that, actually.
Laura:
I mean, I’m actually from Canada originally. You can’t tell. Obviously, I’ve lived in Britain pretty much all my life.
Lee:
But I can just tell. If you hear the little A and the little aboot when they talk. Sorry to just stereotype Canada. I’m sorry, Canada. But you are the best.
Lee:
But yeah.
Laura:
I love Canada.
Lee:
Yeah, I love Canada too. Oh my gosh. Maybe this should be about Canada and how much we love Canada.
Laura:
You should. I’ve never met a not nice Canadian person.
Lee:
Well, I mean, they’re wonderful, aren’t they? And even if they were not nice, they would probably apologize as well for not being nice.
Laura:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It’s kind of like us in a way.
Lee:
Yeah, they are. They are quite British, actually.
Lee:
We should stop talking about Canada. There’s probably some Canadians right now writing into the show. How dare you? Blah, blah, blah. Stereotyping us. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, we love you. Shout out to Canada. There you go. From Laura and Lee from the UK.
Laura:
Whoop, whoop. Pick up the Canada massive.
Lee:
So anyway, so that was a random intro and I love it.
Lee:
So Laura, you are an independent designer with a hankering for a cross stitch and rockets. That’s random and cool.
Laura:
Yes. As we’ve, you know, already established, it’s rockets as in kind of NASA, SpaceX rockets rather than fireworks.
Lee:
True. I thought you might be like, you know, have a thing for setting off fireworks behind your neighbor’s house to wake them up in the middle of the night.
Laura:
No, no.
Laura:
Yeah. I never thought I’d have to clarify that, but yeah.
Lee:
Yeah. Just in the, so guys, we had like a pre-chat before we started recording and I was like, I wasn’t 100% sure whether it was firework rockets or whether it was like rocket science sort of thing.
Laura:
Yeah.
Lee:
And tell us about the cross stitch because we love learning about our guests. What’s with the cross stitch?
Laura:
Just something I really love doing. It’s really easy and therapeutic and it’s kind of nice to do something away from the computer. So I, I’ve always been a little bit crafty. So I have these cross stitch projects that I do.
Laura:
Yeah.
Laura:
At the minute I’m working on like a Pokemon Wonderland thing, which is, it’s honestly taken over two years so far.
Lee:
You’re slow.
Laura:
Because I only do a pancake. I am very slow, but it’s also teeny tiny stitches and I get, I don’t get to do it very much. I do it for like, you know, half an hour while I’m watching TV or something.
Lee:
I thought you were going to say like a stitch a day.
Laura:
Well, sometimes it honestly feels like that. So it’s very slow, but yeah, that’s my, that’s my cross stitch stuff.
Lee: Well, I’m going to confess something.
Laura:
Yeah.
Lee:
I also like cross stitch. And as a kid there, you know, when kids like you see that kid like crying because they wanted the ice cream or they wanted that toy from, from whatever shop. I have memories of crying in these craft shops because I wanted the cross stitch kit. And I remember once mum bought me, finally like caved in and bought it in me. And then I was sat in the back holding it, feeling guilty because mum was lecturing me about how ungrateful I was and nagging for this cross stitch that I so wanted. So then I remember like making sure I did the whole thing that night to try and make her happy and to show I appreciate if I was.
Laura:
Oh, that’s so nice. What was the cross stitch off?
Lee:
Oh, I can’t remember. I think it was like probably a duck or something random. But no, actually, I think, I think it was like a cottage scene because I think I just thought it looked amazing on the picture.
Laura:
That is such a nice story.
Lee:
I don’t think I’ve told anyone that.
Laura:
Yeah, I wish I did too. I wish I had all this stuff. I used to find, like we had no TV as a kid. So it was like, what else do I do?
Laura:
So learn how to cross stitch or learn how to do calligraphy, you name it, we did it.
Laura:
So there’s the good old days.
Lee:
Well, maybe you’ll start it up again.
Lee:
You never know.
Lee:
You can join my cross stitch club.
Laura:
Have you got one?
Lee:
Party of one.
Laura:
Oh, well, no, it’s now two.
Lee:
Yay!
Laura:
So if you’re interested in joining the cross stitch club.
Lee:
Go to cross stitch dot I O. I don’t know what that is.
Lee:
I shouldn’t say.
Laura:
Actually, yeah.
Laura:
Hopefully.
Lee:
Oh, I’ve got stories about that. But this is about you. So let’s not.
Lee:
Right. So and the rockets, is that you’re into rocket science or are you into space and NASA?
Laura:
Oh, God. Kind of both, I guess. So when I was younger, I always wanted to work for NASA. I was really, I went, I saw a space shuttle launch when I was maybe 15 or so.
Laura:
Yeah.
Laura:
And I was so lucky to be in Florida at the time because I was just on holiday and it had been scrubbed a few times. And it just so happened to go when we were there. And it was STS-114. I remember the commander was Aline Collins. And actually, a few months ago, I actually met one of the astronauts who was on that very shuttle launch.
Lee:
No way. The only rocket launch I’ve seen. And I actually met her and I was like, when I was 15, I saw you go up in space shuttle. And she was telling me about the day, how nice weather it was and all that stuff. And I just, I never wanted to be an astronaut because I knew that I just, it’s just not me. I’m very much, I guess, kind of an indoor person. I like blankets and cups of teas and cross stitch. I just wouldn’t be cut out from an astronaut. But I really liked the, I just loved the whole like, wow, humans can get people into space. That’s insane. And I always wanted to work in like, you know, Houston or mission control or something like that.
Lee:
Right. Houston, we have a problem.
Laura:
Yeah. Well, you know, that would be what the astronauts said. I’d be on the receiving end solving the problem.
Laura:
Yes. But I just always thought in like Apollo 13, it just looked a really nice place to work. They all had cups of teas, which back then I thought it was cups of teas. Now I realized it was coffee, which is a bit disappointing. But, you know, still.
Lee:
There is hope for you in coffee, by the way. Do you like coffee?
Laura:
I really, I like Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.
Lee:
Oh, okay. That’s fine.
Laura:
It is. It’s weird. I actually tweeted, I put that on Facebook just the other day. I was like.
Lee:
You did?
Laura:
Yeah. I put a raving review saying it’s not terrible because I’ve had lots of terrible coffee here in the States.
Laura:
Yeah. Yeah. I was amazed. I really hate Starbucks coffee with a passion. I love Starbucks for working. You know, if you go to a new country and you need to get some work done, you can kind of rely on Starbucks. I hate the coffee. It’s too bitter. Dunkin’ Donuts coffee is the best coffee I’ve ever had in my entire life, which I realize this isn’t a particularly good brand, but I am mostly a tea drinker, I guess.
Lee:
Yeah. Well, I forced myself to like coffee because of the long nights years ago when I first launched the agency. And, you know, in kind of the early years, you’re doing hours, aren’t you? And like 18 hour days and tea was not cutting it. So I had to like force myself to drink coffee. And I finally like it now. You know, after like four years, I kind of got used to it.
Laura:
Yeah.
Lee:
I like the smell. I do like the taste as well, but I have to be in the mood for it.
Laura:
Yeah. I was worried it’s going to keep me awake, even though I’ve never noticed this that actually wakes me up.
Laura:
Guys, this is such a typical English conversation, by the way. Aren’t we? I’m thinking we should put it in.
Lee:
We’ve just not covered the weather yet.
Laura:
I know. Yeah. Well, we’re doing very well. So, you know.
Lee:
Well, it’s because we’re all in different places, so we can’t really like mutually complain about the weather, but I’m sure it sucks in England right now.
Laura:
Yeah. Ha, England. We’re over here in America with lovely weather.
Lee:
Well, you say that, but I love English crappy, horrible weather.
Laura:
Uh-huh.
Lee:
Because it’s predictable.
Laura:
Yeah.
Lee:
And it’s just cozy and I can, you know, have a nice warm blanket on. It’s all misty and horrible outside and dreary. I love it. I absolutely miss it.
Laura:
I kind of feel like we were twins separated at birth because my favorite season is autumn and winter and having the fire on and blankets and snuggling in the front room. It’s just, that is heaven. It’s freaking heaven.
Lee:
It is. Or I’m working in that as well, like with my laptop and feeling all efficient and loving the fire. It’s just like so good.
Laura:
Yeah. I think cold countries are way easier to be productive in and get work done in.
Lee:
There you go.
Lee:
So, top tip number one.
Laura:
Cross-stitching in.
Lee:
Move to Antarctica.
Laura:
Yeah. Or England.
Lee:
Or England.
Laura:
Yeah. Close second.
Lee:
Well, that was lovely. That was the coolest intro I’ve ever done, I think.
Laura:
Yeah. I love that. That’s fantastic.
Lee:
It was pretty fun.
Lee:
So, guys, you are part of this conversation. Don’t forget that you can head on over to wpinnovator.com forward slash group, which will send you over to our Facebook group. So, if you want to share your experiences of coffee or snuggling up in the front room or your favorite working environments, why don’t we have a conversation about that? Because that feels like a really valid conversation. Where are you the most productive?
Lee:
So, I guess I should start that with you. Where have you found you the most productive? You’ve talked about the front room, living room. You’ve talked about Starbucks. What kind of environment is your kind of happy place to be working in?
Laura:
Yeah. I mean, I definitely like having a proper office setup with a decent chair. That’s like the main thing for me is the chair. So, if I ever, I’ve tried a few co-working spaces and I’ve only had, I’ve only found one, which was in San Francisco, where they actually had kind of slightly ergonomic chairs. Normally, like you’re sitting on these like stools, things that look kind of cool and hipster, but I just can’t, I just can’t get, I have to be comfortable to be really productive. So, like I say, I normally have like a heated blanket on. I’ve got like an ergonomic chair. Everything’s set up kind of perfectly and I can work, do design work really well.
Laura:
If I’m doing writing, I have to do a lot of writing these days. And I’m still really struggling with it because I don’t feel like it’s something I’m particularly good at. I think I can be good at it with a lot of editing, but it’s something that kind of, it puts me out of my comfort zone basically. So, if I know I have some writing I need to do, I most productive if I can go to like a coffee shop and just be like, this is just for writing. Or if I’m on a train or something, something like that. So, I’m not sure why, but that’s just seems to be how it works.
Lee:
I think, I think, I think what I’m getting from this is that for certain types of activities and certain moods you’re in, different environments work best. That’s the cool about the, that’s what I like about the laptop lifestyle as it were. Like we can, we can rely now on our laptops and, and move around, that moves around with us wherever we need to be. So, I, I, I love the hustle and bustle of a coffee shop.
Lee:
Yeah.
Lee:
And listening to conversations as I type.
Laura:
Yeah. I’m fascinating.
Lee:
Yeah. I’m so nosy.
Laura:
Well, I’m, I’m really bad. I normally put headphones on, so it kind of defeats the purpose of being in a coffee shop. I’m not really sure why I do that.
Lee:
You disappoint me.
Laura:
I know. We were the same on everything apart from that.
Lee:
Oh man.
Laura:
Yeah. Well, I suppose we should start business now, shouldn’t we?
Lee:
Yeah. So guys, there is a cool product that Laura has developed with her team and it is client portal. You can go ahead and check that out on client-portal dot I O. I am currently taking part as well in your free email course, which is freaking awesome because you’re talking about that whole client experience. So it’s kind of like for, for an agency or for a freelancer who’s really struggling to onboard a client and kind of make that whole client experience a positive experience for both you and for the client. That’s fantastic. So I’m on day four of the email course. So guys, if you want to check that out, just go to client-portal dot I O forward slash email hyphen course. And what I’ll do because that was wordy is put a link in the show notes so you can go ahead and check that course out. And it’s nice because it’s just small pieces of content every single day that are easy to consume with a little bit of homework, at least on day one. There was a tiny bit of homework, which only takes five minutes. It’s not, it’s not a biggie. And I’ve yet to find out what’s going to happen today. This is day four. So I’m excited about that, but that’s brilliant. And thank you very much for offering that fantastic piece of free information. Can you just kind of tell us a little bit about what client portal is and also what prompted you to build client portal?
Laura:
Yeah. So client portal is, it’s kind of, you give your clients an area on your website to keep all their project deliverables and see the project status and everything like that. But really where it came from, it was something I initially made from myself. So I had this issue that I know a lot of other freelancers and agencies have where you use a lot of software like Google Docs or HelloSign for contracts or something, or maybe Newsy or BidSketch for proposals. And you use all this software because it’s really useful. You know, you can do things like do online signing. They can do follow-ups for you. It makes your life easier. But the difficulty was that A, it was all completely mismatched branding. And B, it was just so many different links kind of flying around everywhere. And there was no central place to just keep all these together.
Laura:
So I made client portal for myself and what it is, it’s basically just a dashboard on my website where I give clients a login. So when the project starts, they log into their dashboard and they just see all their deliverables, both all the ones that they’ve had already, like things like the contract, the proposal, any homework that you give them, which I can probably talk a little bit about later.
Laura:
And then it also shows the future deliverables that are coming. So the client can see step-by-step every single step in the process. So they can follow along. They know where they are. They know how much they’ve got left. Just kind of helps stop micromanagement. It helps not have to be constantly sending emails with links to files you sent forever ago and stuff like that.
Lee:
Yeah, that’s so frustrating because I lose them as well.
Laura:
I know. Yeah, exactly. That’s the problem. And you almost can’t lose them because you’re meant to be the professional. And then it’s just awkward. You spend like half a day looking for this thing that, you know, for a project that’s maybe finished like six months ago. And I’ve literally had that experience multiple times. So it was just a way to solve that because I found that I tried different. It’s not really a project management solution. And I tried different project management solutions. I won’t name any of them, but they’re sort of big ones. And I…
Laura:
What? That was you. You said that, didn’t you?
Laura:
Sure. Well, so I tried it. And it’s a really good product. But it was too big and complex for my needs. Like, I’m not a huge team. I’m not like… And I’m not working on… Well, sometimes I do work with clients who have a lot of, you know, a big company and stuff like that. And a lot of people to sign things off. But mostly my projects are pretty… On a kind of smaller scale. And they’re very fixed deliverables. And it was just… The project management stuff was just too much. And the worst part was… Is the clients weren’t using it. I was like, can you put this in Basecamp? And they just wouldn’t do it.
Laura:
Yeah.
Laura:
And it was just so frustrating. Because then I’d either have to, like, take what they’d done and then put it into Basecamp. So I had this nice project in Basecamp. Or we’d just kind of forget it. And then I was paying, like, $100 a month or whatever for something that nobody was really getting use out of.
Laura:
So it was kind of a way for you to use all the software that you already use day to day. You know, your process doesn’t really change at all. Apart from having to figure out what your process is. And you can just plug it into Client Portal. And it gives you a really nice, branded, professional-looking extension of your website. So, you know, it looks like it’s just a part of your website. It looks like you created it. It doesn’t look like I created anything for you. It just looks like you’re amazing. It’s a nice professional one-stop shop for all the information on your project.
Lee:
What I like about the visuals as well, you’re a designer. So you’ve created a product that looks nicely designed. But in such a way as that it will fit within any kind of WordPress site. So I do like that. I’ve watched your video like eight times now to work out how it works and looked at all the pictures. And it looks phenomenal. You never know. Your course might even convert me into a purchase. But we shall find out. Actually, by the time this goes live, I’ll probably have said in the intro whether or not it finally converted me. But so watch this space. That’s going to be really awkward if it doesn’t now. I said that because it’s probably about to convert me. And I also like the fact that you’ve got like these little traffic light system as well that’s going on. So as people can, you and the client can kind of see at a glance where you’re at. Now on Basecamp, you’re really right. I mean, sorry. You didn’t say Basecamp.
Lee:
Obviously, I said that. You just mean on generic project management system.
Laura:
Yeah, it becomes like an exercise in filling things in for other people, doesn’t it? And that’s one thing I’ve found is a huge frustration. We’ve actually, we use the latest version of Basecamp now, Basecamp 3, because it’s got this really nice task structure. And I’m one of these keyboard junkies that if I can’t do keyboard shortcuts and I’ve got to use my mouse, I get really frustrated. And they’ve like put loads of work into making it super easy to use. So I can just like use my keyboard and never actually use the mouse to build up my project schedule. And they’ve got these nice task templates and it’s just beautiful. So we just use it internally for our small team. We don’t even have clients in it anymore. And we don’t even use the functionality to show the client the, they’ve got like this front facing system, which just shows the client kind of where you’re at. But it’s super expensive to have that added on. And I don’t really know the value there because it’s, again, it’s not really very well designed somehow for Basecamp of all people. In my opinion, obviously.
Laura:
And disclaimer, please don’t sue me. Basecamp, we love you. And all that sort of stuff.
Lee:
Well, that’s the thing. Basecamp’s really good for, I think it’s really good for internal teams.
Laura:
Yeah.
Lee:
And you can kind of, because it does have a learning curve, definitely. I mean, I know that there’s been a lot of working, making it easy to use and stuff, but there’s still a learning curve there. And to have every new client sort of user is a bit frustrating. And they might work on multiple projects and have to go through multiple different project management systems. And I can see the frustration from a client’s point of view. But for an internal team where it’s just what you’re using, you know, all the time and you get used to it, you can get some of the kind of power features or whatever. But I think it’s actually, it’s a fantastic product. It just wasn’t working for me and my clients.
Laura:
Well saved.
Lee:
Thank you.
Lee:
I’m messing with you.
Lee:
No, I agree on every single point you just made then. Absolutely agree.
Lee:
I’m not good at slating products. I always feel like, ah.
Laura:
I’m not. Because I’m not slating it. It’s actually good. Laura: I’m like, I have to put my disclaimers out, you know.
Lee:
You’re right. But it is about using. It’s how you use the products, et cetera, isn’t it?
Lee:
So let’s rewind. I mean, we’ve kind of found out now this was born out of a problem that you had. And some of the best products that are created are based on a problem that you’ve had that you’ve solved. And then you realized, oh, I can productize this. So that’s phenomenal. And I probably want to go back to that a bit more again later. But what I’m interested in is finding out a bit more about your journey as a designer.
Lee:
So you are predominantly, are you still freelance? So you’re still predominantly freelance designer? Do you have a team now?
Laura:
No. So predominantly is actually client portal.
Lee:
Okay. Oh, so it kind of does.
Laura:
I spend most of my time, most of my income comes from client portal now. I do maybe two to three client projects a year.
Lee:
Okay.
Laura:
And this has only been for the past, I say per year, you know, so I’m on the first year of doing this.
Laura:
Yeah.
Laura:
But if you’re listening in two years time, it’s per year.
Lee:
Yeah, exactly.
Laura:
But I, so I still do freelance projects, but it’s more now it’s really nice because I’ve got this. It’s not really, it’s not so much a passive income because I still have to do work, you know, getting it out there, you know, and doing stuff like interviews and things like that, which I really love doing. But it’s nice to have this kind of income, which allows me to pick and choose the projects that I work on freelance wise. So it means I can choose to do the really fun ones and the stuff that I’m excited about and everything else I can maybe refer away to someone else or something like that. So it’s a really nice, it also gives me a lot more freedom in terms of lifestyle. You know, I don’t feel like sometimes when I was a freelancer, I felt like I had to be at my desk nine to five Monday to Friday because I felt like my clients expected that of me. Now I can, you know, I like working weekends because it’s really quiet and I can take some time off during the week and I feel a lot less restricted schedule wise. So at the minute, it’s kind of the perfect balance between freelance work and products and all sorts.
Lee:
I like it. Well, let’s rewind then to the freelancing days because I assume that your first few projects were not necessarily clean cut and you were the best freelancer and knew how to onboard people, etc. What I would love to do is just to try and connect with maybe you were, but I remember when I first started and some of my early projects, I’ve made some kind of some bad mistakes, as it were, or just there were some really bad situations where it was, you know, I was on version 100 of a design or something ridiculous like that, or I was struggling with a client relationship. So do you have any kind of stories of, and I don’t want to go too negative, but kind of in the early days, like, can you think of what one of your biggest problems or a story that you had that was a bit of a nightmare when you were kind of in the early days of starting up as a designer and servicing clients?
Laura:
Yeah, I mean, I was thinking about this the other day and I don’t have like huge horror stories. I remember being quite stressed and feeling like there was these big horror stories and then kind of looking back, I’m like, well, it wasn’t that bad. I just made some rookie mistakes. And when I first started, I was massively undercharging. Like, it was ridiculous. It was like I was scared to take people’s money. And the problem that I had mostly was that I was undercharging and I was trying to work out what my rough hourly rate was for each project. And it was, you know, really bad. It was not great. And to top it off, I always felt like clients wanted more of me. You know, they wanted extras. They wanted there was scope creep happening in almost every single project that I did. And I was I had that whole customer is always right mentality. And I really struggled with that for such a long time because I think they had that mentality, too, because we’re all kind of used to the customer always being right. You know, if you’re the one paying the money, you kind of have the control. And that was really hard because I ended up getting really resentful a lot of the time. I know I don’t think I ever really showed it to my clients, but it was kind of miserable, you know, thinking, you know, I did you what I think is actually a really good deal. And now you’re asking for more constantly. And, you know, I I kind of never felt like I was good enough and all this kind of stuff. So there’s not like one project that really stands out, but I just had a lot of those, you know, depressingly low paid, you know, scope creep project.
Lee:
That’s the best answer, though, because you’re kind of highlighting stuff that a lot of us either still struggle with or have struggled with.
Lee:
And I’ve put lots of things in place to kind of avoid those. I mean, if it helps, I charged ridiculously low as well, so much so that if I actually added up how much I was selling a WordPress theme for, I would have to clone myself multiple times to actually be able to pay the bills. I was still putting myself out there at like something as low as six pounds an hour or something like that, because like you said, I was scared to charge too much because I thought I had to compete with all of the low price kind of upwork websites and freelancer dot net or whatever it is. You know, all those guys who are charging ridiculously low prices. I was kind of trying to do that. It’s I was a tough time. And then I kind of realized, actually, no, I need to charge more and I am valuable. And what I do is good. So, yeah, but that’s that’s definitely a journey. I think I kind of feel like that’s something you can’t teach people. I don’t know what you think about that.
Laura:
Yeah, I mean, it’s it’s almost like a rite of passage in a way. The thing I kind of think about is that I’m I always try to think, you know, why can I charge more now and why can I feel so comfortable with it? And why does it you know, why do people accept it now? And they probably wouldn’t have back then. And I think the difference is, is that I have a lot of experience under my belt now. So I’m I’m more valuable because I’ve worked with so many different kinds of businesses. What’s really good is that now I’ve got my own product. I think that’s made me, you know, twice as valuable because now I really understand what it’s like to have a product and need, you know, demos and trials. And I’ve got more of a I’ve got more of an insight into what these people need. And I think if I try to charge what I try to do now back then, it wouldn’t have worked. And I also wouldn’t have been worth it. So it is a difficult thing, because if you want to if you want to sort of charge what you’re worth, you’ve got to kind of be worth what you charge at the same time. So whereas I’m not kind of saying if you’re just starting out, you absolutely must make less money than you need to survive. You should absolutely, as a minimum, be making what you need to kind of survive. But just sort of use all your experiences and try to figure out how you can make yourself more valuable to your clients. Maybe it’s, you know, if you’re a designer like me, maybe you can do some of the testing. So, you know, you don’t just give them a design. You then test their design and maybe you do some customer interviews and you iterate on the design afterwards. And, you know, you just kind of have a focus on why is this project needing to happen? What’s the what’s the problem? Are they not getting enough opt-ins? Are they not getting enough? Is it e-commerce? Are they not getting enough sales? You know, what’s kind of the problem? And even if you I know a lot of designers, especially and maybe, you know, copywriters or developers or anything, you can’t get too close to the money all the time. But even if you’re just kind of framing what you do, what your craft is in a more business focused way, that’s just more valuable. You know, if I’m designing with conversions in mind, I can’t guarantee that’s going to work. But I’m I would never guarantee anything I do is going to work. But I can say, you know, I’m going to try this based on my experience. I think it’s going to work. I’m also going to test it and iterate on it until it works, you know, or just something like that. So I think, yeah, you can’t just kind of pull yourself out and double your prices. Maybe you can if, you know, you’re worth it. But you also have to just try and like constantly think about how you can make yourself more valuable to different businesses.
Lee:
That’s such good advice, especially around the value, you know, doing things like the testing and that because we don’t get it right first time. The client’s vision is not necessarily right first time. They at times they don’t necessarily communicate with you or, you know, or even create the right image because a lot of clients don’t necessarily even know their own target audience sometimes. So the first iteration sometimes is not right. So if you’re adding all of this extra value and saying, hey, we’re also going to test this with humans and we’re also going to include in your price X revisions or revision down in the two months time or whatever. All of these things do help to add that value and also kind of boost your credibility, don’t they, as well? Because you’re saying, you know, I’ve got all this. I’ve got this experience. I know that everything’s not right first time and I’m here and I’m looking after you and this is what I’m going to do for you.
Lee:
That is such great advice because, I mean, I go ahead and tell people, yeah, go ahead and double your prices. But I probably never I probably forget. And also, you know, it be sure of the value you’ve got to offer and communicate that value to people really well.
Laura:
Yeah. And it’s also about confidence in a way. So, you know, if you feel that you are really business focused and focused on making their company successful, you have more confidence in telling them what your price is. You know, if you don’t feel like, you know, you feel like, oh, everyone else is charging this. I should charge it. And you’re kind of like I was a bit timid of saying what you charge. You know, it’s the whole trust thing. That’s not going to gain their trust. But if you have confidence that you’re actually going to do the best you can to make them successful, it’s a lot easier to say these kinds of numbers that you might be thinking that you want to be charging. And it just that confidence really shines through to the client and helps them trust you more.
Lee:
I think one of the ways that someone like I had a conversation, we’re launching the Walt Business Show and I was chatting with a guy. We went to Epcot and we sat down and had a chat about Disney. And one of the things I was saying was, what is it about Disney that makes me want to spend more money with them than, say, the park down the road, Universal? And we were kind of talking about the process and we started unpacking the process of driving into the Disney property. And along every point of the way, Disney make it super easy to understand and to follow the directions to get you into the park. There are humans at every point. They’re telling you what to go. They’re pointing you in the right direction. They get you parked. They point you to where the tram is. The tram takes you to a boat. People direct you to the boat, etc. There are people all along the way. They’ve thought about the process and we were then kind of comparing that then with the onboarding process. And I guess we kind of came to the conclusion that there is magic in the process, especially around things like client onboarding. And it’s still something I think we struggle with.
Lee:
So me as an agency, I still sometimes make these assumptions that our clients know the whole web build process, etc. Do you have any top tips? If somebody struggles to onboard a client, and I think many of us still do, do you have any tips? Other than obviously you’ve got this email course that people should go ahead and check out, client-portal dot I O. Do you have anything, any couple of exercises or any top tips for people who want to start evaluating how they onboard a client to make that whole process smooth? Because I think a nice, happy client throughout the onboarding process will make the overall project a much more satisfying project for everyone involved.
Laura:
Yeah, I mean, I think firstly, I love the whole, the UX of Disney thing. That’s really cool. I’m so interested to hear like the podcast and how that goes. That sounds awesome.
Laura:
And secondly, I think if you’re struggling with onboarding, the first thing you really need to look at is your actual process. And I find that a lot of people, myself included, who have historically struggled with onboarding, struggle with it because they don’t really know their process. So if you don’t know your process, how is your client going to know your process? So the first thing I’d really do is just really try to, I know every project is a little bit different, but really try to kind of see if there are any common threads throughout each project that you can systemize or you can maybe automate and stuff like that. And just have kind of a list of every step that you go through throughout your project.
Laura:
And what I used to do, I don’t do this as much anymore because like I say, I only have two to three clients a year and they pretty much never overlap. But when I used to have multiple clients at the same time, I used to get really, I used to really struggle knowing where I was at with each project. So what I did was I put together what I call an experience checklist, which sounds really kind of lame, but it’s really useful, where I write down all the parts that are common to every single project. And I just write them down in a column. And then along the top, I have just blank spaces and I write in each client’s name. And I just make sure as I’m going down, I kind of tick them off as I do them.
Laura:
And the good thing about that is that it means that I’m not forgetting the little details that make a client process really valuable. Like, you know, I do things like maybe if they need to write content, I’ll send them a gift card for a coffee shop near them. You know, so I’ll be like, you know, I know writing content sucks, but you really got to do it before the project starts. Here’s a little present to kind of get you going. Go to a coffee shop, write some content and just, yeah, try to enjoy it.
Laura:
And sometimes I forget to do that. And it’s a really nice little thing that it’s small, but they’re not expecting it. And it makes them feel really, you know, happy and special and all this kind of stuff and gets the content written, which is the most important part. But having all this stuff written down, like, have you sent them a gift? You know, have you got your content? Have you done this? And then you kind of tick them off as you go. It means you’re never really missing anything. So I think in terms of, you know, onboarding, just having that process written down is really helpful. So, you know, every single step in the onboarding process, which is probably a lot more than most people would think. It’s a lot more than I’d think. All the emails you’ve got to do, there’s just so much more to it than initially seems.
Lee:
Such good advice. Guys, again, I can’t reiterate enough. Even if you’re not interested in the Client Portal product itself, that is totally cool because she is offering, sorry, your name.
Lee:
Yeah. Laura is offering, I shouldn’t have said she, you’re right next to me. Virtually.
Lee:
Laura is offering a fantastic email course and you actually cover some of that. I recognized a few of the things you said from the first email, especially around kind of manual automation about having email templates and stuff like that. But also, you know, just that whole process, giving them those special things, giving them the homework and you give us some homework, which we did on day one, where we actually worked out. It only took five minutes because most projects for us are at least very similar. But just creating that little process and we just did a whole load of bullet points on a Google spreadsheet and we’re going to revisit it again as a team to just try and keep building that out further. Because we’ve got our like task list that we have that we do for every project, but that’s actually different to the process. And the process is more at what points do we need, what information and what conversations do we need to have as well. So we realized that it’s so much more than just a task list of what we normally need to do in a project. The process is a much bigger picture.
Lee:
So guys, that’s client-portal dot I O forward slash email hyphen course. And again, the link will be in the show notes. That is a fantastic course to take a look at.
Lee:
So you are a legend. I don’t want to go over time. I understand your time is valuable. I realize we’ve been rocking on for 40 odd minutes. So thank you so much for your time. Are you on the social medias of any sort that people can connect with you on?
Laura:
I am pretty much just Twitter. So it’s Twitter dot com forward slash Lurium. L-A-U-R-I-U-M or just at Lurium. I’m also on Dribbble.
Laura:
So I’m going to say it before you do, which is the same Dribbble dot com forward slash Lurium.
Laura:
Yeah.
Laura:
Lee’s given me the task to update my massively outdated Dribbble. So he threatened to tell you all my Dribbble URL so you will go to it. So I thought I’d do that before you got in there.
Laura:
Hashtag accountability.
Lee:
Yes, exactly.
Laura:
So now as soon as I get off this call, I’m going to update it.
Lee:
Brilliant. So that by the time you’ll be seeing awesome designs. I mean, I was actually complimenting you as well, Laura, wasn’t I? On the designs that were there. But being a typical designer, you feel that some of it doesn’t look great. And I wonder if this is, I think, I wonder if most designers feel like this, no matter what they produce, I wonder if there’s ever that kind of place where you’re like really happy with it or whether you kind of are always self-critical. Do you, I mean, I know you do less clients now, but do you still struggle with that? I will wrap the show up in a minute, but I am fascinated by this question. Do you still struggle by that self-criticalness no matter what you do? Or have you managed to find a way of being satisfied?
Laura:
Well, kind of. What really worries me is that usually when I do a design, I go through the whole phase of I can’t do this, it’s going to look terrible. And then it does look terrible. And then I get it to somewhere where I’m happy with it. And I usually do a design and I’m kind of like, yeah, this is great. This is awesome. I’m so pleased with this. I’m going to put this on Dribbble. It’s fantastic. And then I know a few months down the line, I’m going to look back at it and think that looks terrible. It looks amateur. It looks rubbish. So now whenever I do any design work, I just don’t trust myself when I think it looks great. Because I’m like, I know that I’m not going to think this soon. And what’s wrong with it? What am I missing right now? But I think that’s a really good thing. It definitely makes me a better designer because there’s stuff that I notice with each new project that I do that I improve upon. I just dread that point where I’m embarrassed of a project again because it always happens. I don’t know why.
Lee:
Yeah. There you go. Well, that I think is a conversation, guys. We should carry on in the Facebook group. Head on over to wpinnovator.com forward slash group. We’re in nearly at a thousand designers, developers, WordPress enthusiasts all in the Facebook group. It’s phenomenal. And I’d be interested in everyone else’s views as well. You know, how do you feel about your own work? And how do you find that place of satisfaction without being too self-critical? Because we are all our own worst critics. So that’s the homework for today’s show. I like it. It’s a new thing I just started that I’ve never done. So enjoy.
Laura:
I love homework.
Lee:
Do you? Oh, man.
Lee:
You were that kid at school, were you? I’m seeing the differences already. Maybe we weren’t separated at birth.
Laura:
I don’t.
Laura:
My homework was to think about what excuse I was going to give for not doing the homework.
Lee:
Oh, that was terrible.
Laura:
Yeah.
Lee:
I think that’s why I’m creative because I made so many excuses up. I never even used the dog one. I didn’t have to use that one. Mine were far more elaborate.
Lee:
Don’t listen to him, kids. Stay at school and don’t do drugs.
Laura:
Laura, thanks so much for your time.
Lee:
Thank you.
Lee:
Take care.
Laura:
You too.
Lee:
So before I wrap up this episode, let me just remind you, if you are interested in Client Portal, then head on over to client-portal dot I O, link in the show notes, and use the coupon WP Innovator 20 for 20% off.
Laura:
Oh, yeah.
Lee:
All right. I’m going to hand over to Otherly again. And that wraps up number 94. In next week’s episode, we are talking with Frank Candy. He is a gold medalist, an Olympian, and he’s a really, really close friend of mine. We connected in Florida, and you know how you become friends with someone and it feels like you’ve been friends forever? He’s one of those guys. We’ve hung out with the family. It was just a fantastic time. And we’ve had tons of telephone calls. Even now, back in the UK, we’re pretty much chatting on a daily basis. And Frank has a long history in the advertising industry and also on the speaker circuit. It’s mixed with many, many online professionals and offline professionals back in the 90s and the 80s and the 70s, if you can even think that far back. And I know some of you listeners are that old, so don’t even deny it. So we’re in for something different next week. That’s episode 95, where we’re going to be talking about the tuned-in service provider. And for a change, I hardly get to talk. But that’s because Frank has got some good shizzle to share. So we will see you next week. In the meantime, don’t forget, hit us up over in the Facebook group, WPInnovator.com/group. Have a great day.
