Hey, creative. Let’s talk about the role of convincing and explaining in sales and project management. I’ve heard it a million times. You’ve probably experienced this. You have a client who has shown interest in your work and your creative work, and you’ve given them a price and they balk, oh, I didn’t know it’s gonna be that much. Or, oh, I, you know, and your impulse usually, cuz it’s a human impulse, is to defend your price by convincing them. But to say, oh, well, you know, it takes this long for me to do it. And, and you’re trying to persuade them to spend the money on the price that you gave them and tell them why it’s a great idea and tell them why they’re gonna be happy at the end of this. And tell them why it’s worth the money. Convince, convince, convince, persuade, persuade, persuade.
Convincing doesn’t work. Doesn’t work. Even if you are able to get someone to agree to your price and pay it. You’ve started the business relationship off on a bad foot that is very hard to recover from. Usually clients have made up their mind, they that you were not, your work is not worth the money that you quoted them. And even if you persuade them or convince them somehow to do it, they’re, they’re gonna struggle to give you the benefit of the doubt, um, because they felt a little bit pushed. And anytime someone feels pushed in the sales process, you have broken the sales process. You are doing sales the wrong way. So even if you win air quotes, win that one. Chances are the client’s going to be overly critical or prone to be unhappy with the work at the end. Ask for multiple, multiple, multiple revisions to get their money’s worth.
Don’t try and convince doesn’t work. If someone comes to you and asks you a price and they, they balk and they’re like, I just don’t, I don’t, I don’t know, then you just walk away. It’s their right to walk away. You should walk away. Convincing doesn’t work. If you have to convince one of only two things is true. Either they just don’t have the money. That’s an option. By the way, they don’t have enough money to, to pay you. Or let’s be honest, your work is not good enough for the price you’re charging for it. That has, that’s a real possibility, <laugh>. It’s just, just because we’re out there putting stuff into the world doesn’t mean people have to pay for it or it’s worth what we think it is. Now that’s a, a personal inventory for you to do, but, um, convincing doesn’t work.
Walk away if the client just boxed at your price. Okay? That’s convincing. Explaining is different and explaining is very helpful and can be very reassuring to clients. Here’s when you use explaining, okay, you do not use explaining in the sales process. Your work should be, should be obviously valuable for the price you are charging for. And if the prospective client, the prospect doesn’t see that, immediately explaining it to that person will not work. That’s, now you’re back to convincing. However, explaining is very good when it comes to project management because if, for instance, we do video and, and video and, and video takes a long time, at least the way we do it, our projects are kind of one off and pretty custom. So it takes us a while. And I do explain, and also we have a, you know, a full queue of work most of the time.
And it, you just have to get in line. And so I explain to, to clients how long it will take. So when we get done with the shoot, I said, let, lemme tell you a realistic timeline from when you can expect a first draft. And sometimes that that’s a longer timeline than they were expecting. Okay? And that’s okay. Uh, they’re, I’m, I’m explaining to them because remember, we’ve already crossed the price hurdle. They’re already convinced, they already persuaded that our work is worth this. So now I’m just explaining to them how the work will get done. I’m not explaining. So they will buy, I’m explaining after they have bought or if we get into the middle of a project and they want extra products and I can price those, I explain to them the labor on that. Okay? That’s kind of explaining is, is very good.
Or of course if you’re like a painter or something and they wanna know what kind of paint you’re using or brushes, of course explain it to them. That’s all really good stuff. That’s good client relationship stuff. But, um, if you’re ever trying to get somebody over the hump to pay your price, you’re already fighting a losing battle. And I recommend you walk away. Those are my thoughts on convincing and explaining and their roles in sales and project management. I hope this helps. You can do it. I know it’s scary to walk away from a perspective sale, but I’m gonna let you on a little secret If you’re having to comp, if you’re having to convince them it wasn’t really a sale in the first place, all right, you can do it. I love you.