If you’re losing jobs, look at your sales process first.

I just want to automate my sales process cause I hate selling.

I’ve heard this many times over the years from designers, brand strategists, web peeps alike, and I totally get it.

Sales ain’t easy and sometimes it just ain’t pleasant.

But if we can master selling, IME we can learn to love it.

Trouble is, we have people telling us how to shortcut it.

How to avoid it all together.

Send them a price list.

Send them a one page proposal.

Sell them your branding package without even having to talk about the price just send it to them.

Don’t even bother with proposals, you can actually win without pitching, don’t waste your time.

There are many ways to do this thing we call bizzo but in my experience, if we try and skip ahead to step 10 before we’ve even mastered steps 1-9 we lose.

Surprisingly enough, your clients actually like feeling taken care of.

They want to be cuddled a bit, a bit of a snuggle here and there.

A pat on the shoulder.

A warm handshake.

In other words they need some nurturing.

Each creative job is different.

Until you’ve got a bountiful garden of beautiful roses.

Or a green paradise filled with tomatoes, lettuces and kale.

Take time to nurture each job, hold it close, give it a little smile.

Warm it up with a pat on the head.

You know what I’m saying right?

Don’t shortcut things, don’t skip steps.

Until you’re at the point when you’re fending off tomato plants left right an centre and you’ve gotta do something otherwise you’ll be eating tomato stew for the rest of your life.

Do what is right for your stage of business.

Not someone else's.

PS I’m running a workshop for our clients in a couple of weeks time on how the three essential processes you need to build a $30k a month solopreneur design business. I’m opening it up to 3 guests for only $100 to check us out, see if we’re both fit for each other. DM me for info if you like 🙂