Today, we are going to examine the top 3 keys to successfully work with clients, SMEs, and more. We will specifically discuss how to apply these tips to designer based jobs such as web design, instructional design, multimedia design, but they can also be applied to any field where you must work with others.

If you follow these tips, it will boost your success at work and/ or improve the success of your business and distinguish you from 95% of people in your industry because most people don’t utilize these three essentials. Let’s get started!

#3 Patience

Patience is INCREDIBLY essential to successfully working with clients, SMEs, and more, but what do I mean by this?!

Let’s say a client wants you to design a website for them, and you’re excited to work with them. You meet with your client and gather all the information you need to begin the design. They provided you with a few websites that they like and would want their website to be similar to. After all the research/ discovery and planning stages are complete, the client and you are ready to begin designing! You spend HOURS creating a website design for your client that you think is absolutely AMAZING.

The next week comes around, and you’re ready to present this new design. You are ready to get your client’s approval, so you can begin development that same day. However, about 5 to 10 minutes into the presentation, the five people you are presenting to begin to express how much they DISLIKE your design, and they aren’t polite about it!

Your natural reaction is to get upset and try to convince the client why this design is good and that they should use it. This is exactly what you do not want to do. Again, this is EXACTLY what not to do. This will likely lead to negative conflict, and if the client does not like what you present, there’s a 99.5% chance you can’t change their mind.

Instead, the first thing you must do is remember that the client not liking your design is not a personal attack. With everything you create, you must remove your personal affinity to it and remember that not everyone likes what you like.

The next step is to encourage the client to express why they don’t like it. Personally, I like to tell clients or SMEs that I work with that I won’t be upset if they don’t like something. I tell them that I want to know if they dislike something because it helps us make the best website, course, video, etc. possible!

With the client present in the meeting, go back to the drawing board. Create – or use one you have already – a notes page where you can document everything they say they don’t like about the site. It’s important to make sure your client can see this notes page because it shows them that you are listening to them.

Next, encourage the client to express how they think it should look. Provide them with whatever they need to express themselves. You could have them draw it on paper, provide you with more examples, etc. If you have time in the meeting, take their requests, and begin a new design.

Keep in mind that you may need to make five designs before the client is happy. The important thing is to make sure the client is always happy. Obviously, if they want green text on a yellow background, you need to tell them why you can’t do that, so remember to use proper judgement. But most of the time the client will want something reasonable, but it just takes them a variety of visuals to get there.

Finally, there are many ways to use your patience. Overall, use it to keep the client happy and remember to remove your affinity to whatever you are helping the client do because the most important thing is to make what the client wants; it’s NOT about you!

#2 Relationships

It’s extremely easy to forget to build personal relationships with whoever you work with on a project or assignment. It’s important to not get into what I call ‘robot mode’ and forget to personalize with your client and/ or SME. EVERYBODY loves to talk about themselves and their interests, so encourage them to share what they did over the weekend, how they started in their field or business, how their kid’s basketball team is doing, etc. Keep the 80-20 rule in mind; you speak 20% of the time, and the client speaks 80% of the time.

However, you want to take in on a case by case basis; some clients may not want to personalize, and it’s important not to spend too much time talking about topics that don’t have to do with the project at hand. Analyze each situation, and determine what’s best.

Finally, you want to build relationships for a number of reasons.

• Building relationships increases the likelihood of success of the project.
• Building relationships builds rapport, and the client will trust you more.
• Building relationships makes the project more enjoyable.
• Building relationships builds enthusiasm for the project.

#1 Communication

Without exceptional communication, the project will either be a failure, or it will not be as good as it should be. Ensure that everything is communicating with the client. I can already hear the haters saying, “So you’re saying that I need to speak to my client about every little thing? That’s impossible!” No, what I’m saying is that everything needs to be readily available to a client.

For example, if you are making a course as an instructional designer, make sure that talking points from meetings are documented along with items that need to be completed. Then, send out official emails with a brief description of what is being working on, and you can now include the notes page with further details on what is being worked on at any given time. Correctly show your client or SME where they can view the notes and how to communicate with you directly.

Now, instead of relying on word of mouth conversations, everything is extremely transparent. This prevents important things from being forgotten, provides peace of mind to everyone involved, and it shows your resolve to successfully complete a project.

Conclusion

Use patience, relationships, and communication to successfully work with clients, SMEs, and etc. when working on projects for your job and/ or business. It will increase morale, quality of work, build rapport and trust, and make for a much more enjoyable experience.

Simply using these three tips will distinguish you from 95% of people in your respective industry because most people don’t utilize these tools. If you have any questions, leave a comment, and I will respond to you!

I’m a professional web developer, instructional, UX/ UI, and multimedia designer. I’m the founder and CEO of “Kalman Web Design” where I practice professional web development and more. If you need my services, please reach out here: https://thomaskalman.com/contact.html.

Now, I want to help you as much as possible, so that means I’m not going to sugarcoat the message today. I’m going to tell you exactly what you need to know in the most direct way possible, so YOU can take this knowledge and use it to succeed.

Let’s Get Started

There’s two parts to this method, so we’ll get started on part 1. First, what everybody needs to understand is that you have 10 seconds to make an impression on people. People are finicky; they have an abundance of content to choose from and a limited amount of time to give to YOUR content, so make your video meaningful and genuine!

Part #1

With that being said, Nobody wants to, has the time to, or is willing to spend more than 10 minutes watching and/ or interacting with your content! Oh no, I can already hear the complaints, “But Tom! There are plenty of YouTubers that make videos that are over 10 minutes long. I’ve watched YouTube videos that are 50 minutes long before!”

Yes, you are right. HOWEVER, if you’re here reading this blog, it likely means that you have a tiny audience, are just getting started, or both. So yes, Mr. Beast and PewDiePie can make videos that are hours long because they have established audiences that have been watching them for years, but YOU don’t.

Now, lucky for you, there is a way to combat this. When you are starting out, don’t make videos longer than 10 minutes. If you are sharing a service that your business might offer, condense it down to under 10 minutes. This will drive engagement because a 6 minute video is much less daunting and time consuming than a 50 minute long video. Let’s move onto the second part of this method.

Part #2

Before you even start recording anything, you must realize the way social media is trending. Videos on social media are trending towards the “TikTok” format of videos. The “TikTok” format of videos is a short length, vertical video, that is 1 minute or less in duration. This means that videos on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and more are really encouraging people to view these short length videos. This phenomenon has even started affecting big name YouTubers because less people are watching their full length videos because these short length videos are becoming more popular and prominent.

So what you want to do is you want to make a full length video that is under 10 minutes long. Then, you want to take that 10 minute video and break it into smaller segments. Effectively, you’ll end up with 1 full length video and as many smaller videos as you can make. The reason this is so powerful is because now you can deliver more of your content in more formats: with less work!

Final

1. Start by making videos that are under 10 minutes long.
2. Make a full length video that you can then break into segments, so you can make more ways for people to consume and engage with it.
3. Lastly, I try to make these articles as brief as possible with the most amount of information as possible because I know time is important, so reach out if you have any questions!

About the Author

I’m a professional web developer, instructional, UX/ UI, and multimedia designer. I’m the founder and CEO of “Kalman Web Design” where I practice professional web development and more. If you need my services, please reach out here: https://thomaskalman.com/contact.html.