How To Sell Strategy Without Design or Visuals- Role Play ep. 10
How do you talk strategy on the first call? How do you get paid for thinking? How do you close the lead?
In this episode, Chris gives Melinda advice on how to explain strategy to potential clients and how to close the lead without using visuals to explain what you do. You can demonstrate the value of thinking by talking and listening.
02:11 Qualify the client: Can they afford me? Are our goals aligned? Do you vibe? Is their request realistic?
5:53 So essentially what we do is we do discovery, and in the discovery we try to learn about not so much you and your company brand, but more importantly, who your customers and users are.
8:10 Okay. So, what I can do is I can send you a deck that will outline our process so that you have something more concrete (I don’t know if this is something that you need to share with your team.
8:53 Yeah, I’m taking notes because I want to say that we’re essentially not doing exactly the same thing, but you’re right how you took the two meetings and you’re putting them into one. When I said “case studies,” I did mean “process.”
9:41 Now most of the time, it never goes that smoothly where I just say that and they’re like, “Great! Here’s all the money in the world!”
10:24 It never happens. I’m sorry. Let me restate: It almost never happens. It has happened to use before. Where I’m literally driving in from home to work, and I’m closing a hundred-thousand dollar job in my car because I wasn’t even thinking it was a real job: “And yes, this sounds great. We’ll start the schedule Fri--I’ll coordinate with the executive team to come out to Los Angeles to come and work with you.”
12:05 Well, if necessary, I would send no proposal. If you want me to roleplay that, I could do that, but I’m just saying: All these things are, uh, in a way, crutches.
14:10 Now I’m getting all this work and a lot of leads, and now it is developing a structure to my business and systems and the process and like a very solid framework so that I can even see how much I can take on and when I need to hire people and when there’s a bottleneck, I’m in that growing pains place where I have a lot of work, but I need to know how, how can I not grow so fast that I can’t support all that work and hit the timelines and take on multiple things?
14:53 Okay, time to get help. I told you before: Do not hire anybody, but I think it’s time to hire somebody.
17:21 Yeah. “Strategy before” was me gathering all of the questions, um, in a questionnaire, that I needed...that I personally needed to design a logo, so that was asking a lot of similar questions to what I do now, but in a completely different way.
18:15 In the questionnaire, it was “the question.” And I might follow-up with their answer, depending on what their answer was if I didn’t understand...um, in the workshop, I can dig deeper into things (I’m trying to find golden nuggets).
22:34 In one way, I’m just listening & just writing down what she wants. In another way, I’m really trying to surface what she really wants.
23:28 Here’s the difference, really: 1st, I could’ve just gotten you something with mozzarella and you would be fine. And you just wanted to be full, so I could’ve gotten you lots of different meals, but then I got us to the perfect meal, the one that matters the most to you. And it takes time to figure that out.
24:14 In the world of design, there’s lots of logos that I could’ve given her, ones that she could’ve ordered. But once I enter into dialogue, I found that there is a preference.
25:32 When you do this correctly, you should have almost no competition. [No other vendor] will go as deep [in the discovery stage] as we just did.
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Пікірлер: 334
I listened to this video about 11 times and practiced as you outlined Chris. I just closed a $9k client on the first call, thank you so much!
It's crazy how timeless this advice is. There's a mindset shift happening to me right as I write this. Definitely saving up for the brand strategy core kit. Thank you Chris, and thank you Melinda!
@thefutur
6 жыл бұрын
You’re very welcome.
This is so crazy. I just landed my first gig pursuing strategy. I feel like I'm walking in Melinda's shoes. I'm learning so many of the same things trying to shift from just graphic designer to a serious problem solving for businesses. Another great video! Way to go Melinda!!!!!
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Thanks David!!!
15:44 Yes! Having a paid discovery / strategy / road mapping session upfront where the only deliverable is the project plan (that they can take elsewhere, but rarely will) it gets rid of the prospects that want to fight about price. The strategy session is really the most important part of the project so it makes sense that it should be paid and take a little bit of time.
I am about to graduate a Graphic & Communication Design course and these videos of strategy are really opening my mind up to how I can be paid for my thinking and ideas, which is all I ever wanted, whatever medium goes with it. Design & brand strategy is a perfect pair.
@thefutur
6 жыл бұрын
hi amy. see you on the other side.
More role playing Chris!!! Let us get inside that crazy amazing mind of yours!!! Thank you for this video!!!
@thefutur
6 жыл бұрын
Shayne Mabaquiao we have many more. In fact Matthew and I are working on a course.
I absolutely love these sessions. I'm in a slightly different industry (pro audio) but have found these ideas can be applied to it as well. Keep on uploading! one of my favorite channels right now :)
@thefutur
6 жыл бұрын
welcome. we don't discriminate.
@NeologicStudios
6 жыл бұрын
Small world, Julian! We were just chatting on facebook last night :P
Eye opening! I feel so silly doing what I've done in the past now... It really made sense when you switched the subject of conversation away from design. It clicked. I feel like I have to go out of my way to thank you guys for every video you put out. Had my first strategy session with a client at SoHo House West Hollywood, Ive never been invited to a place like that. During the meeting I felt like I knew what I was doing for once. Never thought I'd be doing this type of work my first year out of school. My client told me that 'I wasnt like the other designers' they've dealt with and that I 'understood' them.
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Congrats!!
Thank you so much for this series. It’s blowing my mind to see Melinda’s growth, and you’re really modeling the way for my better future. Thanks Melinda for the courage to keep this up!
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
hellobont thanks! It's blowing my mind to see my own growth too :)
@RyanMayer
6 жыл бұрын
Couldn't agree with @hellobont more! Incredibly appreciative of this series and your courage! Thanks so much!
@jamayil11
6 жыл бұрын
the club 33 butter for their bread rolls though... it's been 10 years since I've ridden up the french lift and walked passed the piano to the smell of delicious food. this series is already awesome and you just kicked my brain into over drive with club 33 nostalgia.
The Role-plays are great, they already provide a lot of value. But actually seeing Melinda grow alongside The Futur in the past year has taken it to another level. Excellent content with lots of value, love it! Good luck to Melinda too, she'll make it if she keeps this up. Thanks also Chris for all the insights you provide and the nuances you apply!
Loving the roleplay structure, great to see it being played with! The metaphor was really strong. I thought Chris was trying to get a one to one comparison with the salad metaphor, but the Disneyland detour was a welcome one! Really highlights the vividness of the imagination when spurred on by verbal cues, in a way that visual cues alone might even interfere with if not done carefully. This deepened my understanding of what an open dialogue can conjure for the mind, and the potential of this type of conversation in business and life.
@thefutur
6 жыл бұрын
Lion excellent.
Time to watch right before bed, get inspired and have my brain resist sleep in the name of getting better! Thanks guys! Great watching you grow Melinda!
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Thank you Jalisa!
Great video! The benefit the client gets when they understand their audience is so key. Love how you described that.
Chris, excellent demonstration between classic approach and design thinking approach. The outcome is completely different. Essential method for every startup. And that's how you go from a logo designer to business advisor/mentor :)
Great advice. I had to run an emergency errand today during my appointment but I took the call while driving anyway. None of my notes were available. All I did was ask questions and give analogies. Call ended with the client saying, "Great talk."
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Great!
These video series are really on point for me personally - last year I started to evolve into strategy a bit and now I'm more and more involved in thinking versus making
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Wonderful!
I used to split this in four parts. 1. planing, 2. design. 3.coding. 4. ux (user testing/interaction design)
This is fantastically useful (it's ratifying my own thoughts and evolution) and made real with the role playing. Bravo!
Wow the strategy concept just clicked with me, I get it now. I just had this happen where I did the strategy for this restaurant and they decided to go with another company. We figured everything out for them and they decided to go with someone else I got paid for the logo so it wasn't a total loss but we didn't get the deal lol. Thanks for the intel!!!
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Vision One 76 glad it clicked for you!
Seriously my favorite channel fav guy to go to get a great perspective on things amazing every time
This is quite an interesting topic, as business people in the creative industry, there's definitely a challenge when we engage with clients. Creating proposals is all good but it's time consuming and if you're a small company, even worse, since you spend hours working on something that you hope the client will like and sometimes it's out of their budget. This is something that is happening a lot in the East African industry. However thanks to Chris, talking strategy without visuals is possible.
@thisisgosby
6 жыл бұрын
George Kishe hahaha. Experience is the best teacher. Ila we ni boss haha
@GeorgeKishe
6 жыл бұрын
Hahaahahahaha you are the boss bro.
Much live to Melinda! She is such an inspiration to me! And thanks once again to The Futur for such great videos! ❤
This was amazing, I would LOVE to see more content like this! This was insightful as hell. I literally just redid my process for onboarding clients a month ago and after watching this, I want to redo it again to make it better!
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Brittany Barnhart always a work in progress. :)
This is like my favorite episod from The Futur so far. Pure gold right here.
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
ale necula aw thanks!!
Thank you so much for this video! :) I'm going to change my whole selling strategy now. I used to send questionnaires as well. And it doesn't evoke any emotions at all. I just discovered very obvious thing that usually people make decisions based on emotions and not on robotic and super logic way.
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
So happy to hear you're taking action. :)
Great content as usual! Rock On!
Thanks Chris, I see the open ended question in practice now.
This. Is. Awesome. Thanks Melinda for sharing, and Chris you keep on getting better and more concise, sometimes so concise I actually have to rewind because the single sentence wasn't enough. Great work.
@thefutur
6 жыл бұрын
trying to keep it short.
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
:)
am at 8:48 and had to pause cause this is already sooo next level. LOL. wow. I have sooooo much to learn
This channel is part of my morning routine. Thank you🙏
Loved the session, especially the "order taking" scene. xD You guys definitely help put the perspective into play!
Great video guys! Inspiring and educating, love it!
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Dan Ring thanks!
Can you apply those crazy techinques to the CGI industry? This crazy. I just finished the Influence book it open my mind on lot of things but this session....danm. I'll read more books. What's really amazing is that you make deep connection with the client I love that.
Hi New Melinda! Keep Crushing It.
I really love the analogy about Club 33. Most clients are not really sure what or how to explain themselves. Really clever! Thanks for this!
A lot of great tips in here. Thanks for all the effort making this ep happen!
Thank you SO much! I'm learning a lot!
Best example to understand. Love from another part of the world.
Loved the analogy of ordertaking! So helpful :)
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Same here.
Really enjoying your videos. I make a point to upvote everything I watch and get value from. Thanks!
Again, priceless! Thanks from Finland.
I love all of Melinda's videos. This was great!
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
ProlificBanana thank you ❤️
So much value in this new episode ! Thanks !
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Glad you like it!
Absolutely valuable as always. Thank you for sharing!
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Leslie Arellano thanks for watching!
Your channel is crazy valuable, thank you so much💯🥂
I would LOVE to see an example proposal for brand strategy!! By the way thanks Chris for all you do, total legend. Much love.
Chris, Thank You! Simply Amazing!
This is gold! Thank you :)
I think that I've hit that spot... I follow The Futur for quite some years already, and all evolved, developed, stacked, into this place. To do Branding. To think with the costumer. I was saying, around a year ago, or more, that I'm wasn't going to be bending pixels all my life (I'm 41 yo right now), and that this was the logic step. And considering all the content from The Futur, I ended up knowing 5 or 6 people that I can relate to to be my sort of heros and to emulate their way of thinking, approach to problems, that I want to follow. Chris, of course, then Marty Neumeier and Seth Godin, then Fabian Geyrhalter and David Brier, and recently Melinda and Bryan Elliot... This kind of content has been my main «food for thought» daily. I binge watched hours and hours in the previous days/weeks of Seth Godin content, but I intent to binge all of you. I started with Chris, then Fabian, then Seth... I'm kind of stuck, for the good reasons, with Seth, and I'm just consolidating my ideas regarding his Branding/Marketing idea and reading his books so that I can move to another «hero»... So, thank you! Wrote this at minute 17:25, going back to the video... :D
The process is fantastic It is really take time. I’m taking time too to learn all of this. I hope I don’t get overwhelmed and overthinking and start doing
Ah Melinda! So inspiring 😊 It's lovely to see you back on the channel again. So fired up by the progress you've made. Keep growing 🌱🌸
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Melissa Claasen thank you!!!
@MelissaClaasen
6 жыл бұрын
Melinda Livsey 💜☺
This is so good. I'm so glad that I found the Melinda Livsey playlist, so I can track her progress from before, when she was focused mainly on deliverables, to her most recent videos and processes. I haven't started freelancing yet, as I wanted to have examples from clients before, and to do that I felt I needed to have a way of doing things. I think I just found my way. How does it feel to think that - as your mentoring continues, and more people just entering the workforce are exposed to this way of doing things that - one day many other designers may be _starting_ their freelance career with your methods, instead of changing their established methods to fit the framework you laid out? Do you have thoughts on how you plan to address those issues? I've seen you talk to people about changing to a Strategy first mindset, but I just wonder how it would be reworked into a plan of starting with Strategy from day one. Also, thanks for the help!
Amazing conversation and process. Tons of value. I've been working on my app and this is exactly what I needed. Thank you.
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Great!
Thank you for sharing, so much value for is creatives in it!
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Konrad Samarajiwa glad you liked it!
Love this channel!
On point -- great to see your progress, nice work!
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Thank you Jason!
More role playing Chris.. This is simply amazing!
@thefutur
6 жыл бұрын
sure thing.
Great! So helpful! Anothere piece in the puzzle.
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Jakub Kuik awesome!
This is so valuable. TY!
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Welcome!
I'm still stuck at the stage where selling discovery is a hit and miss. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't for me.. when it does though, the budget for the whole project is good enough to have a 2 to 4 months runways, but then, since only a few customers qualify, things can get dry in between.. hopefully, I will rock like you guys in a near future, for now let keep on trying and trying and never stop...
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
You'll get there. I still run into dry times too.
That's great what Melinda became in one year only!! thanks for sharing and for this new way to explain your process!
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Thanks!
@mostafaa.5271
6 жыл бұрын
Thank you for being so brave to share your experience with us, it's so inspiring!
Thanks Chris! Now I know what to cook for Melinda! :D
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Ruba galline hehehe yes!!!!
OH MY GAAAAWD! This is just gold, guys!!!
@thefutur
5 жыл бұрын
Aww. Thanks.
The audio alone makes this so watchable, Chris! Thanks for this awesome content - keep it up!
@thefutur
6 жыл бұрын
benefit of being in the "box" w/ me.
@thefutur
6 жыл бұрын
glad you like it!
Great episode guys. Living vicariously thru Melinda.
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Nick Inzunza ❤️
Hi Chris! I learn so much being a Freelance GD & appreciate the business side of it so much! I would love to know what the contracts and proposals look like when you send them!
@thefutur
6 жыл бұрын
we are working on a kit for contracts. but we already have one for proposals.
This will change my life. I'm sure about it. I'm still starting out, but i'm learning as much as possible. Thank you so so much for this Chris and Melinda. : )
@thefutur
4 жыл бұрын
You’re very welcome
Content is S T R O N G in this one. 💯💯
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Riley Jones 🙌🏻
Awesome video! Very helpful! Thanks guys!
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Welcome!
Great stuff! My mindset is changing, I can't wait to put this into practice.
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Daniel Adeyemi great! Then report back.
@daniel.adeyemi
6 жыл бұрын
Sure, I will
Thanks for dope insight - appreciate the specificity!
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Marcus V. Bracey :)
This ish is golden. Thank you Master Do and senpai Melinda!
@thefutur
6 жыл бұрын
Thank you.
Like before watching :)
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
;)
Awesome guys! I have so far come to the "sending clients logo design questionnaire" thing. I was really trying hard to understand when Chris suggested the third way but: Initially, I found it a bit difficult to understand the difference as he also asked some questions and secondly I could not relate the food example much with the graphic design thing or how can I implement that (personalized experience) to my future prospective clients. P.s. I would really appreciate if any of you two can take out time to explain a bit more. Thanks a lot in advance for reading this and giving your precious time. :)
Thank you guys
Very Cool!
So much gold! 😍
Great video! I'd love to know how Melinda has evolved her lead generation too. Keep up the great work guys!
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
James Eccleston networking and building relationships is my #1 way.
Super, Thanks for this ep.
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Fausto Genao Arias thanks for watching.
It works dude... !
Love this. A question about the deeper side of strategy? If a client was to change their business model or service based on your advice, as an agency would you need some kind of indemnity insurance incase the new model didn't work and the company claimed your advice lost them money?
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
The service/business model change came from the client realizing that on their own, through the process, not necessarily me giving advice and saying they should change it. Of course I was apart of the process of them discovering that they needed to change, but in the end, I was just the fascinator who helped them come to that conclusion. Do you blame the therapist if you tried marriage counseling and still ended up getting a divorce?
I love this episode I wrote everything you said from the role play. do you have a video where you role play the discovery part of the strategy?
Awesome video!
So much of this is striking a chord in the way that I have been doing business, and it is time for a change. Besides randomly searching to find best the brand strategy practices; is there some source that I can devour to set my business on the right track?
Melinda is so cool! i think she can be your permanent co-host! haha
@thefutur
6 жыл бұрын
Sham Shahar she’s pretty smooth.
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
You're kind. Thanks!
Thank you so much for the gold. Chris please can you do episodes wherein you role play with yourself? I feel like most of the role plays I've watched are partly unrealistic - still very helpful though, don't get me wrong. If you could please share more real world push-back scenarios that will be incredibly helpful. For example in response to your ballpark quote - "That sounds quite high for a custom Wordpress website, I've been quoted half by other companies. What extra value are we getting from you by paying that much extra?"
Love these videos .. drop us some links for the music at the end Chris !!
great stuff, again. Interested in more of the discovery of users. Lot of studios get new companies/startups and don't really have an audience yet. They can predict a bit of who they are going after, but are there any tricks to get a better understanding of their future audience. The obvious would be to look at competitors in the same space but you don't have as much access to the data, sales, etc...
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Market research would makeup this portion. I, personally, have not done this yet.
I've been following this channel and, specifically, this series for a bit now. I've had a design business for a year now on the side that I've recently started trying to grow so I can run my own business full time. But it's been tough. I'm working hard at it and this series has ignited and reshaped my entire approach to design and has instilled a new passion for strategy. I've read "Creative Strategy and the Business of Design", "101 Things I've learned in business school", I'm almost done with "Stop Stealing Sheep and Learn How Type Works" and just broke into "Hey Whipple, Squeeze This." Do you have any recommendations on books to learn more specifically about how to do strategy on a deeper level. "Creative Strategy and the Business of Design" opened up my eyes to how design should be approached and gave a great foundational knowledge on strategy but I want to know more. I'm hungry! Any crumbs you can throw my way would very appreciated. Thanks for everything! (sorry for the long comment)
@thefutur
6 жыл бұрын
hi Blake. Value Proposition Design is a great resource. Give it a try. you can actually download the whole thing for free on the Strategyzer site.
I love the idea of this... I'm wondering when/how I will get to the point of being at this level of a designer. At the moment, I have the desire to be a good designer, my work quality just isn't at that level yet. Always trying to improve though
This was outstanding... but mozzarella ain’t cheese 😂❤️
Thank you for this amazing content. Just a question: when you go through that whole dialogue and conversation trying to diagnose the preferences and what is perfect for the client, aren't you here trying to get what the client want , but not what its audience wants ? How you figure out the latter ?
Hi guys! I'm a graphic designer and a big fan of the channel! The Futur is the reason I open KZread nowadays...I have a big question if someone can please tell me: Where did Melinda learn Branding strategy? I heard her saying she learned from Core? What exactly it is and where can I buy it too? I wish to level up my skills! Thanks!
@thefutur
5 жыл бұрын
here's the link. www.thefutur.com/product/core-strategy-kit/
Thank You.
She has grown so much!
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
It's interesting how many tangents there are with design and software development. Admittedly design and software development are in their own lanes respectively, yet I can see parallels. For instance brand strategy kind of maps to sales engineering, or requirements gathering to be more general about it. Any way great video; now I hungry for some cheese!
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Randy Andrew right?! Same. But you already knew that. :P
I'd love to see this whole thread with Malinda. Is there a playlist? I just got lost in a sea of so much to watch - and this would really be of value to me.
Hey Chris, what you recommend as far as clients payments. 1. Do you break down your cost as monthly payments 2. Do you do 50% up front and the rest when the work is completed 3. Do you take the a full amount I would like to know how to start charging. Thanks in advance
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
mae he's taught us 50% 25% 25%
@mae2309
6 жыл бұрын
Melinda Livsey thank you Mel!! You just got a subscriber :) keep them videos coming
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Wow, thanks!
Good content!
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Sauza sounds :D
Awesome awesome stuff guys. Great to see how much Melinda has grown! Have you guys already done a scenario of what a roadmapping session actually looks like? I've done a few in the past, before actual work was done, but would definitely like to compare how Chris Do does them.
@melindalivsey1
6 жыл бұрын
Yes! It's called CORE and it's sold on the Futur's site. Or lookup some videos about it on their channel.
6 жыл бұрын
Is it the "Core Strategy Kit" or "Selling Strategy & Overcoming Objections in Sales" product?