Hey, creative. Welcome back to the Business of Creative Business Podcast. I think this is episode four, I think, and today we’re going to talk about something that I know many, many, many creative struggle with, and that if you can get better with it, your business will grow. I promise this one thing, and it’s called client communication. Client communication. I know it’s all the emails and the texts and the phone calls and all the back and forth that is required of you, um, to go back and forth with your client during a creative project. I know creative struggle with this. I I know you do, and I know you hate answering emails, and I know you hate keeping up with all the dms and the social platforms and, and, and having phone calls with people. You just want to create. And I, I completely understand that.
Um, but one of my goals with this podcast is to help you elevate your brand, make more money, and the people with real money are more in the business slash corporate world. Um, and we know a little bit about that sort of thing here at We all films. Uh, we’ve done work for McDonald’s. We’ve done work for Tindell Federal Credit Union. We’ve done work for, um, several tourist development councils. We do, we’ve done lots of work for a, a big, uh, uh, national hospital. We do work for these big organizational people, and they have outstanding budgets, okay? They pay really well. Good for them, by the way, for paying. Well, but here’s the thing. If you want to go into that world, so I’ve spent a lot of time in corporate world. I’ve spent a lot of time with these people who have a lot of money, but a lot, a lot of times they are not that created themselves, and they don’t understand that you are a flighty artist and a free spirit, and they don’t understand the creative brain and the creative heart like I do.
And I get that. And so I want to be a translator. I wanna be a, an ambassador to you from the corporate world that you are not communicating well enough with them if you, if you want to gain more of that work, that’s by the way, if you want to, if you don’t, then fine. But if you do want to gain some of that higher dollar, bigger budget work, you have to speak their language. And part of that is communicating regularly with them. Okay? You, you must, must, must keep a constant flow of communication going with your client, or they will get nervous. They will either pull the plug on the project, and even if you finish the project, they won’t hire you and they again, and they won’t tell anybody about you. It’s that big a deal, okay? So let, let me give you a few quick client communication tips that work for me that are going to work for you.
First one is never respond, never take longer than 24 hours to respond. Respond within 24 hours to everything, everything shorter. If you can respond in the moment, if you can texting, emails, dms on whatever social platforms, I don’t care how that communication comes in. If they call you, leave a voicemail, answer your voicemail, for goodness sake, if they communicate with you, you better get back to them as soon as possible, hopefully within 24 hours or shorter. The reason that’s important is because it’s a credibility thing. Um, most corporate people are running on very quick schedules for stuff, and they’re busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. And what they, and they need this, they need information when they need it to make decisions so they can move forward on things. If you break their rhythm and you mess up their schedule, and they’re like, oh, wait a minute, I haven’t heard.
And th Oh, shoot, what was it? And it, it annoys the heck out of them. Cuz now they have to go back and think, please don’t do that for them. Keep that. So within 24 hours, second tip is regular random updates. Okay? Updates is send them a text just randomly or an email. I like Friday afternoons because they’re, they’re finishing their week, they’re tired, they’re thinking about relaxing for the weekend, and they’re thinking about all the things they have to deal with. And did I get everything done this weekend? If you can hit them with a quick little email on a Friday afternoon that says, Hey, I just wanna do, give a quick update, here’s where we are. You don’t have to, you don’t have to say you’re, you’re done. You don’t have to. You just have to say, we’re, here’s what I did this week.
Here’s where we are. That is, that is like gold to these corporate type people and do that. Even if you’re behind do that, especially if you’re behind. Say, Hey, I’m low behind, just quick update, but here’s my plan to get back on track this next week. I promise they will be so grateful to you that you did that. I hear it all the time from clients that they love this sort of professional grownup communication because they need, they know they need creatives, but they don’t like working with the, the textbook flighty kind of scattered, um, free spirit creative. I know I’ve been in rooms with ’em. They don’t like it. It makes ’em nervous, okay? So if you can, you can professionalize your communication, you will do a heck of a lot better. Let me give you a book, okay? One of my favorite business books ever.
It’s called Good in a Room. Uh, move My Finger Good in A Room by Stephanie Palmer. I love this book for like 10,000 different reasons. You should have this book and read it immediately. But one of the things I love this book for is it’s written directly for creatives for you and me. Um, and one thing she does is she breaks it down in very practical steps. So she will, Stephanie Palmer will teach you how to write an email, like how to write an effective email to a corporate type, to somebody with money, to somebody who doesn’t understand the creative mind and the creative heart and the creative world. Okay? Read that book. You’ll be a better communicator. You can do this. I know it’s not in all of our nature, but I’m telling you, if you can appro, I i, if you can improve just a little bit at this regular communication, they’re gonna love you. They’re gonna leave reviews, they’re gonna tell their friends because they found a creative they can rely on, and that speaks their language a little bit. Okay? You can do this. If you have questions, let me know. I spent a lot of time in corporate world. I know I know a little bit about this and I’d love to help. I love you.