Keeping Clients Coming Back - advice from creative services consultant Maria Piscopo

How illustrators can best work with designers and art directors


Once you have a chance at a job with a new client or a big job for a current client, there is a tendency to rush through the standard business practices. Don’t do it, especially with new clients. Illustrators often feel if they are “easy” on the client on the first job, the client will decide to stay and give them more work. Not necessarily true; all it does is set you up for an unhealthy relationship. The way to build healthy and profitable relationships with clients and turn jobs into repeat business is to use good business practices dealing with client projects. Here are some client project issues that will come up with your illustration jobs, and some tips on how to deal with them to develop and maintain a strong relationship thus encouraging clients to keep coming back with more work.

The Deadline
This is a very delicate subject in any job with any client. Many illustrators feel if they meet a miraculous and unreasonable deadline, the client will “love them”. Unfortunately, all that will do is ensure the client will always give you jobs with not enough time to get them done properly in the future! Every client has a deadline horror story to tell that makes them wary of giving accurate information on this point. The best bet is to ask the kind of questions designed to help the client feel more comfortable with your ability to meet their deadlines. Instead of asking, "When do you want this job done?" as this is much too subjective a question, ask for more objective and measurable information such as, "When will the website with these illustrations launch?” Look behind the stated deadline. By breaking the delivery into a series of benchmarks on a timeline, both you and your client will feel more in control of the process (and they will feel safer coming back for more).

The Specific Need
Be sure to find out what specific problem this illustration project is supposed to solve. The more accurate a statement from the client of their goals and objective, the better opportunity you have to meet it. Meeting the client’s goal, whether it is for traffic-building website illustrations or a sales-building package illustration, will always give you a better chance that they will come back again.

The Approvals
This is another touchy subject between any client and illustrator. Sometimes, you both are caught in nightmarish scenarios where everyone responsible loves the ideas and then someone with a higher authority shoots it down. Do the most you can to protect yourself and your client: be a team. Find out how many people need to approve the project. Who are they? How do they relate to this project? Where are they? How many electronic file transfers vs. overnight deliveries are involved? Will there be personal consultations with you or will your client make the presentations for you?
Also, be sure to distinguish between subjective and objective approvals. Subjective is someone's opinion and should be given only to the highest level of authority, i.e., is this the color background they had in mind? You could say that subjective approvals represent the aesthetics and are a “matter of taste”. Note how different this is from an objective approval, which is a measurable determination of accuracy—such as the correct number of subjects or the correct size of the product in the illustration. You want to maximize the objective approvals and minimize the subjective approvals to get the job done and make the client happy.
Cathie Bleck of Cathie Bleck Illustration, www.cathiebleck.com, gives five “core values” as keys to repeat business, “Reliability, intelligent solutions, originality, quality assurance, and treating them with respect.” Also, Cathie likes to get to know her clients, “on a personal level, and strive to keep an open and honest dialog between us. Keeping it friendly so to speak allows them the ability to feel that I am approachable on the project or any future projects, even if I don't get the job. I usually try to ask them in the bidding process who I am bidding against and what factors might determine the decision? We may start a dialog from here or another question regarding what I might be able to offer them that might make my service unique to the project.”

Handling Conflict
Finally, your skill in handling conflicts with clients will determine whether your relationship will prosper or end. It is important to know that conflict is not bad. In fact, it is natural and inevitable and you cannot avoid it. What matters is how you choose to manage the conflicts that will arise, and maintain a relationship characterized by integrity, and open communication to achieve the “win-win” that keeps clients loyal.
Cathie Bleck suggests,“I have very few conflicts with clients, but when I do I try to be direct without being negative. Pointing a finger at the problem and not them will hopefully preserve the relationship for the future. Putting the agreement in writing from the beginning of the project serves to alleviate most communication problems.”
Today's competitive marketplace justifies a closer look at how illustrators look at their relationships with clients. On the client's side, the same market factors dictate a new importance and evaluation of their relationships with their illustrators. The more you learn and study the relationship between the creative and the client, the better chance you have of getting the job, and then turning that job into a client and a long-term relationship!

Maria Piscopo www.mpiscopo.com is a creative services consultant, an art/photo rep and marketing workshop instructor specializing in effective and creative marketing strategies delivered in her business and self-promotion classes, keynotes, seminars and workshops for associations, schools and photo industry conferences. She is currently an instructor at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco and a reviewer for www.eyeist.com

Maria will be speaking in Seattle on May 23^rd for the ASMP and Seattle illustrators group. This is one of the best workshops you could attend - highly informative - about pricing your work. She will repeat her new 2 hour workshop that she premiered at ICON ‘Taking Charge of What You Charge’
If you're in or near Seattle - please don't miss it! You'll thank me later!

from Norm Bendell's portfolio on DirectoryofIllustration.com (represented by David Goldman)

 

from Val Bochkov's portfolio on DirectoryofIllustration.com

What Illustrators Say About Finding and Keeping Clients

Conversations with many illustrators remind me that the market is still competitive - however here's what some illustrators say about finding and keeping clients:

~ Art buyers focus on talented artists who can solve a visual problem. Clients want to COLLABORATE WITH YOU - clients are not always focused on style.

~ Illustrators get work from many places. VISIBILITY everywhere is key! 

~ Active illustrators got rid of old assumptions and zeroed in on strategies that would grab market share and won some of the new business that exists.

~ Illustrators moved from high maintenance/low margin clients that are an impediment on their time to opportunities and clients that have become more profitable - producing a healthier bottom line.

~ Illustrators embraced industries that have money to spend while staying focused on their dream projects.

~ Illustrators improved and upgraded their skills - whether traditional, digital, 2D, 3D and/or motion.

~ Illustrators combine traditional graphic design AND illustration skills to create concept driven illustrative design and lettering work.

~ Illustrators learned how to turn work around and deliver it quicker in 3 formats: print, internet and iPad/Smartphone.

~ Active illustrators expand their network. They grow and FIND NEW MARKETS.

The Hoover Institute, Defining Ideas Barbara Kelley	Physician's Practice Bill Sanderson	Aladdin Books C.F. Payne	Samuel Adams Douglas Smith
Smithsonian Magazine Edward Kinsella III	McDonalds Jon Foster	Wall Street Journal Michal Dziekan	Burt's Bees Kent Barton
The San Francisco Chronicle Goni Montes	Medallion Press Chase Stone	H-E-B Dongyun Lee	New Yorker Thomas Ehretsmann
Deloitte University Press Gary Kelley	Rainmaker Entertainment Jason Seiler	Scientific American Chris Whetzel	Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine Andrew R. Wright

Couple of ideas for illustrators to make extra money -

Are you selling originals AND prints? Entry level art collectors love prints!

What about having your illustrations on flip flops that sell? There's a site that will do this for you.

In the opening keynote presentation at ICON 7 we were introduced to some community building tools to help illustrators embrace their fans by marketing their creative talents and personal projects via the internet. A site like Etsy is a great site where illustrators support each other. One nice tip from Venessa Bertozzi from Etsy was, "cute dogs sell". I said the same thing in a previous post!

With summer here, I particularly love the idea of giving consumers an opportunity for self-expression by choosing artwork for their own sandals. Every time Sandalista sells a pair of sandals with your art work, you get paid. Check out the Sandalista site here for the details...

ICON 7 board member, Thomas James, Escape from Illustration Island, put together a great website referencing places an illustrator can sell their prints and other things.

Computer Arts Magazine recently did a story offering insight and examples on what sells and how to price your prints.

To understand a little more about selling fine prints to collectors you might want to check out auction houses like Skinner Antiques and Fine Art Auctions. They give us a great description: “Print” is a broad term. The artist may or may not be the actual printer, but generally approves of the quality and methodology of printing, and often signs his or her prints by hand.

Establish your place in the industry as well as your public profile - it helps you sell your prints or anything else you create.