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Case Study: Skype Guest Jill Anderson

Lesson twelve this's the skype chat with jill anderson hey welcome thank you for joining us. So, jill, why don't you begin by telling us who you are and what you do? Sure my name's still anderson my company is jill in design I'm a web designer slash developer and I make websites for creatives and their clients beautiful and we were talking and I shared with the group earlier today what your original goals were when we started working together in twenty twelve so I wondered if you could just elaborate a little bit on what those were and what you have been doing or what you did to reach them. Sure, yeah. When we first started working together I was kind of all over the place that kind of worked for a lot of different clients. I did a lot of different things I did print, I did webb I'm I did it for all kinds of industries, so I definitely needed to streamline that. I also want a really happy because I had this a fairly large client they were a lot of my business but I was working nights a...

nd weekends and they were crazy and I need to get rid of them and I wanted, you know, my nine to five my neighbor friday um and I needed help doing that. So tell us what your marketing plan is. We just spent the day talking about marketing tools tell us a little bit about what marketing tools you have in place and how that is affected and change your business and helped you reach the goals. Sure, I think the largest thing wass actually defining a target market and really narrowing my offerings. S so now I pretty much do web design and development and that's it and I have this great target market that's designers, illustrators, creative copywriters, you know, anybody in that bane um and then you know, if they need help with their clients projects too, so just having that, uh, kind of set in stone helps with my marketing, so I'm doing a newsletter I'm doing blogging, really focusing on the content, marketing peace and knowing exactly who my audience is really helps because otherwise I can't be talking to anybody about anything, but this way I know who that end user is and that stuff they're going to be interested in what they're going to want see for me so let's, go back first to this idea of targeting a market because we have talked a little bit about it and some of the things that have come up are the fear of alienating people and as you said, you at first were doing anything for anyone, and then you started to focus in on creatives were you not afraid of alienating everyone else? Uh thinking getting out just a bit but I think he said something about the fear of alienating people and yet the one thing to remember is this is just your marketing it's not your whole business so if I have a client that comes to me it doesn't fit in with my target group but it's like the most awesome project ever sure I'm going to take that uh but it just really helps to streamline your message so I really wouldn't worry about alienating people by having a target market because the people that are going to help you know they're really going to appreciate that you're an expert and their industry for their type of project excellent and uh I've been talking today about email newsletters and there was a lot of activity in the room and in the chat room about email newsletters and nobody everybody hates them actually a lot of people hate them and can't imagine what they would possibly write about so can you tell us a little bit about your email newsletter and do people hate it or not? What do you hear people saying about it sure yeah I am I don't think people hate it I think he will like it I hope they like it I have some sign ups today so that's exciting um the you know there's a whole lot of ways to do your news letter but the way I have mine set up is I kind of have a little intro just a paragraph or two about what's going on I send it out monthly and then I also highlight what I've been writing about all my block so there's usually two little snippets about my block post just a couple sentences with a link to read more on then at the bottom is you know who I am and what I do and you had a contact me if if somebody's interested and you know every month I send it out almost every month um and when I do I usually get some responses like right away like, oh great newsletter or oh that's so also what you were talking about or just people who randomly haven't heard for me or they've heard for me but maybe haven't been ready uh we'll say hey, you know what? I do want to talk to you uh we set up a time to chat so it's definitely great to keep in front of people on a regular basis and I think actually we didn't talk about this earlier but it's not about quantity here either it's not about building the biggest list you possibly can it's more about having a very targeted, high quality list of people who I really do want to hear from you and I think one of the problems is that when people hear the phrase email newsletter or email blast all they think of is the medium and the fact that there's so many of them in their inbox and the truth is it's just a way to stay in touch. And so if you position it that way, that people who land on your website are interested in your business and may not be ready yet and therefore want you to stay in touch with them. And your newsletter is simply the way you do that, right? That's less about I'm sending an e mail newsletter and I want people to want it. It's not about the newsletter it's about the effect of the newsletter, if you will. Yeah, I think definitely staying in front of people, and I think a lot of it has to be sales e or stay on me or anything. It should just be personal, you know, light something easy for people. And actually, jill, I was telling the watchers and listeners that you don't even write your own newsletter. I hope that's ok to reveal that deeper writes it for you, and some of the questions were but how would how would people how would someone else no, how to say what you want to say, like, how exactly does that work? Sure well first off de gier is an amazing copywriter so that's that's the first part is you got to find someone who you work really well with but we hop on the phone for maybe a half hour or an hour every month and I rattle off whatever it is I'm thinking about, she has a lot of questions and then somehow she boards that into some concrete log poach uh she sends him back to me and they're usually perfect but you know, I might edit a few words here and there, but it certainly helps me actually get it done lauding takes a lot of time or at least for me it takes me forever to write something but this way it's all there and I'm just ready to go and you don't feel like it's cheating to have someone else riding your newsletter I don't think so I mean they're my ideas and it's what I'm saying so it's not like uh you know, I'm taking her thoughts and, you know, repurpose ing on his mind there things that you know, content that I'm generating um, you know, and you're my best friend of, like, seventeen years like read a block post and was like, oh, you don't write that like that totally you so you know it's important to get work with someone who captures your voice so beautiful. Ok, what I also want to do jill is show the before and after of your home page when you first came to work with me and the most current version and I wantto have you talk a little bit about what is different and better between the two so we're going to bring that, uh screenshot up and we're looking at the old and the new which you sent me so talk to us about what's different about them. Yeah. So, so funny to look back at your work from, you know, a couple years ago and I think oh, my gosh, what was I thinking? Uh, yeah. So the one the old one, this was before I had any kind of real target market. I mean, I guess I to find a couple industries, but again, they were all over the place, and I think that that that main hero area that's an image there is it's really kind of talking about me and, you know, style or whatever, instead of talking more directly to whom I target viewers are, um, kind of clutter there's a lot going on, you know, along the bottom above the footer I'm talking about all the different types of work that I do, and, um, you know, today's website is a lot more cleaner, I think and really targeted towards the types of business that I want to get I have my bait piece or opt in or freebie give away whatever you want to call it right there in the header you know kind of prompting people like please sign up for my you know newsletter and here's this great three report you get when you do and what's it called jill um the uh five chips for partnering with a web designer and why why is that the topic of your freebie um that is a kind of a question that I get asked a lot from uh my target audience you know, like they you know I worked with a lot of say print designers who you know they want to do work for the web they want to do their own design but they're really not sure how and they just want to know you know how could we create a great partnership so it created a whole, uh freebie peace that kind of goes over those details beautiful all right um I want you just briefly if you would also to talk about your packages which are available on your website and how that makes your life easier and then we'll talk a little bit about your twenty fifteen goals sure. Yeah um yeah my packages I am a huge fan of package pricing because it works for me and I think it can work for people when uh you kind of maybe offer a similar thing to similar people so I do a lot of web site design website development I do website design I'd ended up looking andan I also kind of will add on to that which then social media design from content design you know if people need that free report that they want to have on their website designed you know that's a package so it help what kind of quantify like here's all what I offer here is a price and kind of helped people understand you know what it is so that when they do reach out they don't have sticker shock or they have no idea like there's some kind of um nothing in place to help with the prospects are on reese ipe and of your packages which is the most popular uh leave the website design and development one yeah and that's also my favorite wanted teo beautiful all right so tell us what your new goals are jill sure so for twenty fifteen I revamping my website again so there will be even newer and greater wonderful things to look at um I'm also kind of putting together ideas for what a product could be possibly you know it's a wayto bring in maybe some passive income or you know some other way since there's only so many hours in the day that can only work so much you know what else can I be doing on dh then also may be doing some were speaking engagements my spoke it how and cfc last year which is awesome so kind of looking at what I could do this year excellent all right so uh maybe we have questions in the chat room in studio street four jails for anybody have questions for dil drina off the top of my head I'm curious hi jill yeah you could package websites because it seems to me each website is so unique and so different and some have two hundred pages and others have five and you know how did how did that how do they fit into a package sure yeah I mean for me I do a lot of sites for small businesses on dh they generally have the same maybe not the specific number pages but uh I mean maybe around the same amount of content so all my packages I have you know x number of pages x number of projects whatever you know if somebody came to me and they had a two hundred page website again okay let's look at that separately and I'll give you a quote based just on your project uh but the package is kind of a guideline of like what a normal project for me so it is definitely important when you do packaging that package pricing not it uh you know, you kind of quantify what a typical type of project is any other questions saying yeah, hi, jill um just wanted to know how do you go about dealing with difficult clients and what do you do when you have clients that are expecting more out of a package and you can deliver? Um yeah, well, that one big client I was talking about a while ago that when I fired no, I yeah there's just not enough time in the day to deal with difficult people. I mean, sometimes you have to, but I would say, you know, in making your expectations clear a tte the beginning is helpful like I have a a page on my web site about my values and e kind of talk about like I am a mom and a wife and I have this life outside of my job and you have a life too, then we'll probably get along great and, you know, just kind of being up clear about those boundaries and the expectations for your clients are really good having a contract to super great the all the things that are on my packages page when I do an estimate for a client they like, get that written down so that, you know, we can always go back and the scope gets kind of crazy to say, well, here's what we agreed to so let talk about what it's going to take for this extra thing you're wanting beautiful. Any questions were jill in the chat room. What century people are really identifying? Kathleen ellis is saying people have been very less intimidated now that she's offered package pricing as well. For what she's totally identifies with jill and three eighty media's do says the same. I do packages from my email newsletter designs as well, and those two started doing really well. Excellent. All right, so we say goodbye to jill. Yes. Bye, jill. Thank you. Thank you. See you and confined till at jill in design. Dot com, as you know. Oh, she forgot to mention the beach house, which she is one of her goals, but we'll talk more about that. All right? And then, as part of the lesson, we're going to wrap it up here. But the lesson, uh, and the exercise includes, you know, just what inspires you about what jill is doing and what would it motivate you to dio something to think about? Raina? I'm definitely inspired by the time limitation that she put on into her goals and seems to make work, that is, that would be a huge thing for me. I want to work this many hours a day for this many hours a week, absolutely anyone else, justin, I like the idea that if you just focus on your target market that that doesn't mean that more people aren't going to find and connect want to connect with you you focus on them but the clients will keep coming so that was really inspirational e yes it's not about what you go after it's about it's not about what you take it's about what you go after that your marketing is about what you pursue and you're welcome you're free to take whatever you want jane is the fact that she's been able to create financial independence and consistent flow of income every month to our own business that's kind of yeah it's amazing what she's done actually and she turns people away concert gently like no, I don't feel like working with you so um our spp bonus, as we've said before is a case study about exactly what jill did she didn't get have a chance to tell us exactly what she did in that one year, especially to achieve her increase so you can find that as the arse bp bonus on the course page and the extra goody for that for this segment is the weekly marketing checklist which goes along with the marketing plan that is available in the online store but you can get just the weekly checklist which is a visual essentially of what to do every day as we discussed it so that's at the bit lee link with command fees, case sensitive and let's, just wrap it up here. I want to give a little preview of where we're going, right? So now that you have a plan, who will you use it on? And how will you find the right clients? That's the main question, so to recap, I just want to go over what we've covered so far and where we go from here. So we learned when we focused on you and your marketing, and the first step is deciding what you need. We talked about your goals and the mindset required for success. We also talked about the five top marketing tools, and we put it together in a marketing plan, so in session to what we're going to cover is, as I said, we're going to focus on your clients and your prospects, which is all about seeking and finding the people who have what you need to give and the specific lessons in there will be about repelling your nightmare clients, we're going to start with who you don't want to work with, and they were going to talk about how to attract your ideal clients, who you do want to work with, and then, uh, we're going to talk about how to reach out to your ideal clients, and we're going to end the day by talking about howto qualify your ideal clients, because once you attract them, then you need to make sure that they're the right ones for you is all about you and your prospect. And then in session three, we're going to cover. You're pricing and your proposals, and this is where we are going to talk about packages. So how you ask for what you need? We'll go over the art and the science of pricing. I'll give you best practices for winning proposals. We'll talk about how to close the deal, and then we'll wrap it up by putting it all together in one. Easy to understand bundle. So I just want to thank again my illustrator ian keith, uh murray for the beautiful illustrations and shudder stock, which has contributed some images as well. And I want to thank creative live. The team so far here on our first session has been awesome. Thank you to the studio audience. Thank you to the online chat room.