clients

How To Increase Demand

The Freelancers Dilemma

I have a giant list of my clients contact info stored in a Google spreadsheet. This list is gold.

Audio engineering jobs — Every interaction with clients and potential clients gets logged into my spreadsheet. Notice I add little detailed notes of what they need. This helps me remember how to sell to them. #needsbasedselling

But gold isn’t worth shit unless someone is willing to buy it.

Also, my golden client list does jack squat and makes me zero dollars unless I ‘remind’ those clients that I exist and that they have a problem I’ve fixed before and can fix again.

But don’t me get wrong, you’ll always have those clients that call you automatically and will send you referrals while you sleep. Those are your dream clients right?

Those are your advocates.

They should be treated like VIPS on Air Force One.

When they call, you better fuckin’ answer. Like how grammy winning engineer Andrew Dawson got a call from Kanye West at 4am to work on Life of Pablo.

When Kanye calls, you answer.

“Answer those 4am calls, everybody.” -Andrew Dawson.

But for those other clients that never call you, a simple nudge, or chilled out reminder that you exist is all it takes for them to hire you again to fix the problems they have. This is how you increase your business.

The Systematic Approach.

Build a system into your normal work routine
It makes calling clients and booking new studio time easy

I like doing my funnel (sales) calls on Monday. I have a Google calendar setup to alert me every Monday to generate leads.

Whether it’s calling my existing client base or calling people that can help me find some new leads, it consistently gets done. I’m never guessing what I should be doing on Mondays.

How to increase demand

There are 3 ways you can increase your business.

1. Remind People of Their Needs

Go to the market place and remind them that they have a problem you can fix.
They need to buy your audio engineering service because it helps them in a unique way.
Think about what you actually sell and how it will help them get or do what they want.

2. Satisfy Existing Needs

You go to Upwork (formerly Elance) and the only other people on that site are people with problems and are willing to pay you to fix them.
Other marketplaces with existing needs include Thumbtack (I landed some dream clients from here), SoundBetter, and Craigslist, just to name a few.
Customers are looking for you to help them fix a need. Where are they asking for help at? Where do they hang out? …GO THERE.

3. Initiate a need

You go and try to remind someone that they have a pain or a need that they weren’t aware about before.
Telling someone that they have a need when they don’t think so themselves is the hardest way to increase your business.
People will ignore you
Think about when Apple launched the first iPhone. Even though it’s popular now, in the beginning people said they DIDN’T need an iPhone, wtf is an app, but Apple spent billions in clever marketing and advertising to convince people why they actually needed an iPhone. Eventually they believed they did. Now, spoiled little 7 year olds have them.
This is why photographers pitching a new bride or a mother with a one month old and convincing them that they have a photography problem is easier than say, a mother with a 9 year old.
Trying to initiate a need is the hardest way, although it is not impossible.

Most freelance audio engineers aren’t aware of this hierarchy. Most freelancers in any industry aren’t aware either.

Most freelancers are just waiting around for the phone to ring.

Or they’re SOOO eager for business, that they’re running around telling everybody to “pick me, pick me, pick me”, even though the person they’re pitching to doesn’t think they have a problem.

The is the dilemma most freelance audio engineers face. It’s this bad behavior of waiting around doing nothing.

Or worst, doing the wrong thing. Waiting for the phone to ring. That hotline bling. Waiting for superman. Wondering how they’re gonna pay off those plugins they charged on their Amex card. F’ You Waves! F’ You UAudio! …j/k I love them plugins.

But not you! You can do what the top performers do.

You’re a SMART producer. A producer of amazing work. You have the potential to do 10x better than what you are now.

You signed up for my email list to educate yourself and I hope my rambling makes sense to you and will nudge you to do something amazing.

So go try these 3 ways. Go increase your demand! Go earn more!

How I Get Clients In My Door Without Being Too Salesy– The hassle free approach to booking your studio.

Thank you for reading. I hope you learned and enjoyed!

P.S. If you like what you’re reading it would help me a ton if you would click one of the share buttons below or forward this to a good friend.

P.P.S. I love reading and hearing what you have to say. Has this helped you in a specific way? What are you struggling with? Please leave a quick comment below.

Clients Love It When You Do These 5 Things: How To Get Paid More

2:49 pm by Tony Leave a Comment

As an audio engineer, it’s in your control to help your clients look good. If you want more audio engineer jobs then your #1 priority is getting new clients and keeping them happy.

You’d be surprised how many times I hear my new clients complain about how unreliable other engineers and studios they’ve worked with before are.

Luckily, I’ve learned some things over the years to keep clients happy, help them every way I can, and provide so much value that they never hesitate to rely on me when they need work done.

I made myself indispensable to them and became the go-to-guy to hire when they need audio engineering services.

Today we’ll uncover 5 tactics you can use today to make your clients happy, keep them booked in your studio, and keep that stream of income overflowing in your pockets.

If you ever wondered why some of your clients have hired you for one project and then disappeared on the next one to go work with someone else then you probably didn’t do these 5 things.

Lets dig a little deeper into the clients head.

Clients have bosses. Whether it’s their fans, record labels, production managers, or whoever, they are working for somebody. They have to impress them. They have to look good in front of their bosses.

They have to deliver their album to their fans that they promised would come out on New Years Day.

They have to sound just as good on stage as they did on their studio album.

And they hired you to help them look good in front of their bosses.

You want your clients to look good in front of their bosses.

How do you do it? Simple:

1). Do What They Say.

This is pretty straightforward. Did they ask you to turn the delay on the vocals down? Did you do it? Even if you think it sounds better turned up. You better friggin do it.

I learned this the hard way early on when I just did what I wanted in the mix ALL the time. Clients would get pissed at me because it’s not what they wanted and it would create tension in the sessions and they would just stop hiring me.

It’s not about you, it’s about them.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s okay to suggest your input and make recommendations, but ultimately the client is YOUR BOSS. So do what they say.

Some clients will trust you enough to allow you do anything you want. That will take some time and after you build enough rapport and make them happy in prior jobs, then you can take that reign.

But for now….

Do what they say.

2) Do it on time.

Did you show up late?

Get the fa-heck out of here…

This industry is sooo competitive and there are thousands of other engineers that can replace you.

People depend on you to deliver on time.
We all know what happened to that guy that showed up late all the time……..NOTHING!

So have the discussion with the client…ask them, “When is this project due?”

Get the date. And do it on time.

Clients will look good if they promise a single to their fans to be released and it shows up on schedule.

Clients will love you when you are on time.

In the music industry, alot of my clients show up late to sessions. That’s okay though. They are paying you. They are the boss. They do what they want.

But you…….SHOULD……..ALWAYS……..

DO IT ON TIME.

3) Do a little extra to surprise them.

Do you have a twitter or facebook account? Share their music or project on your profiles.
You don’t owe them this. But you should do it anyways.

Will they pay you extra? Can you bill them?

Of course not.

They don’t expect you to do this.

But when you do, they will be surprised, and they will get excited, and they will know you are invested in their success and will definitely hire you when the next project comes around.

Another thing I do for my clients is I take photos of them in the studio while they’re working.

I then edit them with some crafty instagram type filter and make it look good and send it to them or post it up on my social media accounts.

Tag em and do a quick post on what they worked on.

Clients love the extra publicity! It makes them feel important.

This both helps the client look good to their bosses and also promotes you as an engineer. Having photos of clients you’ve worked with helps create social proof and improves your credibility when a prospect stumbles upon it or researches you online.

Even if you’re not the best skilled engineer out there, the social proof factor goes way further in getting you hired than technical skills can.

What else can you do a little extra to surprise them? Do it….

4) Give them ideas for how their jobs can even be better.

Never forget sales rule #1: Your best future clients are your current clients.

I always suggest ways my clients can improve.

For instance, I worked with a young singer-songwriter whose dream was to become a writer and work in Nashville.

She booked me for an 8 hour session to make a 2 song demo.

She had some decent experience and her songs were really good. They sounded like Taylor Swift pop hits.

But she couldn’t sing and didn’t have the right energy to justify the perfectly written songs she created. And on top of that, she didn’t know how to reach her target audience.

So I suggested 2 things to make her job better:

Take a few vocal lessons to learn how to project the right mojo
Create social media accounts to reach out to the fans she wanted

These were very obvious things that you would think to do as an up and coming songwriter, but she just didn’t know about it.

The results of her doing my little suggestions:
She booked me again for an even bigger session and I made an extra $1,500 and she had 1,000 fans on on her social media profile and made an amazing demo.

She got one step closer to her dreams.

All because I gave her an idea to make her better.

Figure out ideas for you clients to look better in front of her boss.

What can you do? Ask them what their goals are. Ask them what challenges they face. Then figure out a solution.

5) Make their lives better.

Listen to them. Go to their shows and events. Introduce them to new jobs.

I connect my music clients to local show promoters and get them booked to perform. This is something highly valuable you can do to make your clients lives better.

If you can make your client money, they’ll stick around with you for a long time.

You have a birds eye view of the entire job landscape in their industry.

I connect my clients with my other clients to do collaborations.

Your client might need a singer for a part in a rap song.

Hire your client that sings! These are not just your clients of the month: these are your clients for life.

You are getting paid to serve them and make their lives better. And of all the lives you save, they’ll stick with you to the end.

Now let’s get to work.

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clients

How To Increase Demand