SXSW Notes pt. 4 – Managing “Expert” Clients

Making your clients feel good

• they call this the honeymoon phase
• meeting the team
• making a good 1st impression
• spend time outside the office
• finding out how they like to work
• bonding with the client

Refining you approach

• how do you like to work
• how do the like to work?
• staying flexible

Setting the ground rules

• establish a baseline relationship
• make sure you’re clear about what’s happening with the work
• listing business & team objectives – with team member names

Kicking off the project right

• motivating your team with clear roles and responsibilities (client and team)
• Educating clients
  • inform without talking down (don’t talk to them like children)
  • myth busters and industry standards
  • project life cycles
• setting expectations
  • communicate escalation paths
  • set up regular check points
• have your analytics in place to defend decisions
• urging using comments on a blog if they have a quality product

Managing the project scope

• clear up any questions
• assign duties to key stakeholders
• review project schedule
• clarify the impact of missing deadlines
• explain the purpose of each deliverable
• maintain ad consistent review of a project

Defining the process

• Key documentation
  • project plan
  • weekly status notes
  • functional design spec documentation
  • test plans
• using pictures in documentation
• the more documentation you can hand off to the client, the better

Gaining trust

• proving by performing
• putting yourself in your clients shoes
  • not all your decisions should benefit you
  • be honest
• differentiating between personal & professional knowledge

What if we disagree?

• handling scope creep
  • a new creative brief, letting them know consequences to when work gets off track
• change of direction halfway through
  • budget increase, make the client understand that actions have reactions
• team conflict
• be creative and flexible
• sometimes you have to say “enough is enough”

Compromise after a tough change on the project

• keeping your team motivated
• ending a project properly
  • tie up loose ended
  • fixing bugs
  • stabilization period
• smoothing things over so you can work together again
  • lessons learned
  • check analytics after a while to see if the project was successful
  • celebrate the launch with your team
  • assess good and bad things in the project

Referrals will spur new business

• they’ll remember the team they worked with, not the company.
• establish a good relationship