 All right, again, my name is Jason McCullough. I do stuff on the internet. If you like slides, if you're into that sort of thing, you can get them at that URL there. So who the hell am I? I'm sorry? Oh, it's at the bottom. Yep, it's going to be at the bottom of every slide. Don't worry. I got you. I thought ahead. So freelance contractor, over 10 years, front-end WordPress developer, digital strategist, and visual artist. I thought visual artists sounded cool. So I added that. I am a freelancer's union organizer and advocate here in Atlanta, Georgia. I help businesses create an internet presence that inspires, impresses, and builds confidence in your products and your services. This is my quality assurance department. This is about two-year-old daughter Adeline. She's hard at work doing some user testing. So who is this workshop for? So maybe you have zero to two years of professional freelancing experience. And your income is a little bumpy. And maybe you're not finding that unicorn client that everybody talks about. Or you have more than two years of professional freelancing experience. Your income is still bumpy. And you're probably not closing your prospect to close ratio is not where you want it to be. So true, successful freelancers, they convert leads into clients by getting to know their prospects, biggest issues, and proving themselves to be expert problem solvers. But there's a really big secret to really getting the clients that you want. Everybody knows what that secret is? It's called follow up. So 90%, 90%, remember this number, right? 90% of sales are lost because no second contact is made. So today in this room, hopefully we're going to learn how to develop a client relationship management system or some people like to say customer relationship management system, a CRM. That doesn't let you miss an opportunity to connect. It's going to ensure that interested leads are the real deal. We're gonna get rid of those tire kickers, right? Get them right out of there. Tailor your marketing efforts to proven lead sources when new business and customer loyalty. So when you walk out of here, you will be the 10% instead of the 90%. So I know it's hard to see, right? But I really wanted to include this. Since we talked about 90% of leads are lost because no second contact is made, this is my second touch point. If I send a proposal out and I don't get a response within at least two to three days, I send this out, right? So it's deer insert name. So for those in the back who can't read it, I'm gonna read it out. Deer insert name. It's been awhile since I've heard from you and I wanted to follow up to check whether you're still looking for help with your insert project. If you have a minute or two, could you let me know which one of the following best describes the status of your search? One, I'm still looking for help. Please call me, right? And then ask them to provide at least, you know, a couple of dates and times for you to call them to follow up. Two, my need for insert project has changed. Please call me again in a few months' time. So that's another, you're gonna have to write a note on a cocktail napkin and follow up, right? Three, I'm no longer looking for insert service and have no further requirements at this time. Your email will help me understand how I can best help you. This email gets about a 90% response rate, right? So it's a very popular email. I either get the project or I don't, right? But this tells me, so some people reply number three, I'm no longer interested, but that lets me know, no waste more time on that particular lead. So that's my second touch point. You can also download the slide, copy and paste that. What is the CRM? So some people call it client relationship management. Some people call it customer relationship management. Whatever you call it, it's a way to handle leads. And there's some must have CRM abilities. So the ability to add custom fields, right? Preferably text, drop down, check boxes and stuff like that, right? Run reports and filter by more than one field at a time. Export to a clean CSV file because eventually you will grow out of your current solution and you will need to move into another solution and I stress this. You will need the ability to export as a CSV file. I've had that experience where I couldn't and just be able to export as a CSV file. So when I talk about a CRM, I don't mean some fancy piece of software, right? You can have a bunch of cocktail napkins in a shoebox, right? If that's your thing, or you can have the best CRM on earth, which is Microsoft Excel, right? So it's the cheapest and the best CRM on earth and most of you already have it. Or Google spreadsheets, right? So Google spreadsheets is the same thing. So here's the essentials of CRM, right? Or the essentials of your process. You wanna have a first name and a last name, right? Contact info, email in the phone, critical. No matter what else you get, get an email and a phone number, right? The lead source, you need to know how they found out about you. Was it through a Google search? Was it through their friend at the gas station? Was it through a business card that you left on a pen board somewhere, right? So you need to know how they found you so that you can replicate your success in the future. What is the service that they requested? Whether you can provide it or not, you need to know what that is. And of course, you didn't talk about cost, but what is the estimated value of the project that they're requesting? You need to know that. So your incoming leads, right? So now we're gonna talk about a process, a checklist and a system and a process that I've used over the years that's helped me close some successful clients. So for incoming leads, you need to have one source or a couple of sources to handle all of your incoming leads or all of your inquiries, right? And of course, hands down, your website is the best one, right? You can put your phone number on there, you can put an email form, you can put your plain text email address, right? So now that's your hub for all your incoming leads. Your Facebook Messenger as well, right? Because you can add your Facebook Messenger box to your website and people can chat with you through your website via Facebook Messenger. So Facebook Messenger is another incoming lead source. So you need to have some questions to qualify that incoming lead to know whether or not they're a good fit for you or a good fit for one of your colleagues or just not a good fit for anyone and get them tire kickers right out of there, right? So because not all leads are right for you and not all leads are built the same. So in whatever your service is or whatever it is that you offer to make a living, you are gonna have to define those three questions, right? But three questions make it easy, right? It's not a long litany of questions, the 20 question thing. Three questions is a sweet spot for me. So once you've assessed each lead, right, based on their inquiry form, so you need to decide if this lead is a good fit for you, if it's not a right fit for you, can one of your colleagues handle this job? If so, be a good dude or a good human and refer someone out, right? Because that's where you build up this network of people and you're helping each other. And now if it turns out that you wouldn't actually do work for this person and if it turns out that they're a bad client, don't refer them to your friends, right? Don't do them like that, right? And so you're here at WordCamp, there's a lot of people in this room that probably overlap with services with you, right? So get out there, meet people, shake hands, and build up that referral network. So after you have qualified them, after you've asked them the three questions, they've passed your test and you would actually work with this person. So you need to send, you need to request a meeting, right? And this is the most, you're like a detective, right? So now you need to request this interrogation called the discovery meeting, right? And then send them to your availability so that now you can ask all the questions you need to ask to extract this information about their project so that you can properly assess how you can properly help them, right? So when you send your availability, send at least three dates and three times that you're available. Or if you're fancy like me, you can send a Calendly, anybody use Calendly.com, you can send that and then that really ups your stop, right? If you send them a professional looking booking system, right? So after you have had this interrogation called the discovery meeting, right? And you found out how you can actually help them, the next step is to submit a proposal. Nathan Ingram yesterday mentioned to get buy-in from your prospect or your lead before you actually work on the proposal, before you type the first word in that word document, get buy-in. So that's critical because it's gonna take you what 30, 45 minutes to create this proposal, right? If you're in the zero to two years of professional experience, it's probably gonna take you an hour to create this proposal. So before you go into that process, you wanna make sure that you get buy-in, right? And that estimated value, right? You know in terms of hours or flat project fee, what this might cost, right? So you throw out at rough number, right? And if I sent you a proposal for X amount of dollars, would you be ready to start in one week or two weeks or three days? And if they say yes, or they say maybe, you know, then go ahead and work on that proposal, send that on over and get them dollars, right? So now don't just send them the proposal over email, right? And expect them to read it, digest it and understand it because just like you ignore the Facebook terms of service, they're gonna ignore your proposal, right? So you wanna schedule a meeting, right? It's crucial that you schedule a meeting, don't send them the proposal to get, schedule a meeting, then once you're on the phone with them say, hey, I got this proposal coming to you in your email inbox, look out for it. Now they open your proposal, now you have complete control over how they digest your proposal, right? And then now you are available right there on the phone if they have any questions about your pricing or your services or if they're confused about anything, they're right there, right? As opposed to you send them the proposal via email, they have questions, they send you an email about it and then of course now it's Friday at 7 p.m. and now you're out clubbing and you can't answer their question. So, and remember that a proposal needs to propose a clear solution to their specific problem, right? The more specific you get and the more helpful you can become in your proposal, I guarantee you, you're gonna close better clients. So once you have sent the proposal, this is your educate and nurture time, right? So you wanna educate your client on your onboarding process. What does that look like, right? Does that look like a strike payment, a PayPal payment? Does that look like a 50% deposit? What does that look like? What does your onboarding process look like? Do you send them a series of documents? What do you do, right? So you can also send them success stories of your past clients or your portfolio work or pieces of your portfolio that are similar to their project, right? To get them to accept that proposal, right? So you can also send them articles related to their problem or related to their project. So educate and nurture, right? And then of course, follow up. Don't be the 90%, be the 10%. Onboarding, right? So you need to have a clear, clear onboarding process. So you need to set clear expectations up front, right? So I send every client of email primer, right? How I like to communicate via email. Clear subject lines, how I like to communicate in the body, right? Don't attach your logo to every email because when I go to search for that attachment that you sent me three weeks ago and if your logo is in every single signature, then every email has an attachment, right? Stop it. So you need to have an easy payment process. Stop making paying you money difficult. Make it very easy to pay you online and now you have fresh books and Stripe and PayPal. It's very, very, the cash app. Like I go out to eat to dinner with my friends and we split the bill. I give them money via cash app. They get it immediately. Stop making it difficult to pay you money. Establish communication guidelines up front, right? If you don't like to talk on the weekends, tell them. Don't call me or text me on the weekends. And if you don't like to do business over text message, tell them. I don't like to do business over text. Email me something, right? So that's where you establish these boundaries, right? Always establish boundaries in this onboarding process. That means they have accepted the proposal, right? They're ready to pay you money and now you're setting these clear boundaries, right? And of course, I always stress to people to request that 50% deposit up front. It protects you from non-payment. That 50% is gonna get you that bulk or that block of hours to get you through to maybe the next milestone. So let's say you did your due diligence. You asked your questions, right? You thought they were a good client but they turned out to be the bad client and they run off and never pay you again. You at least got 50% deposit and you protected yourself from partial non-payment. Deliver the project, right? Don't just get the money and get ghost and then I have to deal with you. You're a bad client, right? Or you're now a frustrated client. Deliver the project, right? Stagger your delivery dates in milestones, right? So create these milestones and these milestone moments. So schedule, so you wanna schedule at least a weekly update whether that update is through email, phone, webinar, et cetera. Schedule that weekly update. Keep that momentum going, right? Keep that energy high and that momentum going. Now referrals, right? Request a testimonial when the energy is high. You've delivered the project. They're really excited, right? So their staff is excited. They're excited. Everybody's high energy. Get that testimonial when that energy is high as opposed to three weeks from now when they're like, yeah, yeah, I'll get to it, right? And then always ask for referral at the time of launch because energy is high. They're excited. You're excited. Get that referral, right? Because great clients move in packs. That's what Nathan Ingram said yesterday, right? So great clients know each other. They play golf together. They go to dinner together. They drink together. Great clients know each other. So after you have launched the project, nurture, right? So your nurturing process can be continuing to nurture the client after their launch, right? Look for other opportunities. Yesterday there was a talk about transactional emails through WordPress, right? So using a transactional email service, you can actually email your client and say, hey, I found out about this. You may be dropping emails from your website. Let me set up this transactional email service. That's another opportunity. This is my current tech stack, right? I didn't do this overnight. This took me about a year to configure and get right. So WordPress, duh, right? Gravity Forms, duh. Capsule CRM. Gravity Forms is connected to capsule, right? That form submission goes right into my CRM. FreshBooks, accounting, MailChimp, my automation. That's my nurture process. Automation, learn it, do it. It's gonna make your life a whole lot easier. I'm trying to run, I see you over there, lurking in the background. I'm running, I'm running. All right, this is my referral track process. So in my CRM, I'm able to set up a referral process, right? So it's gonna remind me to do the next thing that I need to do because I have a lot of stuff going on. I got a two-year-old daughter, right? I got a wife, right? I got a house. I got other things. I got other clients. So it's gonna remind me of my next step. Thank you.