Marketing Tips & Sales Strategy Tips

Why You Should Invest In Attending Live Events

December 11, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

Autumn is always a crazy time of year. When summer ends and kids go back to school, the vast majority of people get back to work with a focus on getting specific things done before the end of the year. Often, those specific things include a brand redesign, a website redesign, or website improvements and feature additions to start the year off strong. Business is always busy and booming in the fall, and this year it was even crazier than normal because of all the live events we attended or spoke at.

I LOVE live events.

How To Achieve Higher Profits While Working Less And Enjoying More Freedom

August 9, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

“I want to work less and make more money,” is a common desire among internet business owners, freelancers, and entrepreneurs, but often with so much work to do, it seems next to impossible.

If you focus on sales and marketing, you end up falling behind on client work, and if you focus on client work, you risk losing potential new business. Sometimes it’s a struggle just to get ahead of the work you have so you can take the evenings or weekend off… and maybe you’re even so busy that things are starting to slip through the cracks? I have been there, and almost 10 years ago, it all came to a head one night when I realized that I had a big problem in a very embarrassing and public way, and that it needed to be fixed as soon as possible or my business would begin to suffer greatly.

After celebrating Bourn Creative’s twelve year anniversary this July, I decided to share my story, the lessons, learned, and how I overcame exhaustion and stress to run the streamlined, freedom-based business Bourn Creative is today.

11 Steps To Get Off The Freelance Income Roller Coaster And Improve Cash Flow

July 13, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

Freelancers, entrepreneurs, independent professionals, and even small agencies at some point, all have the same problem — riding the income roller coaster, where in some months you’re overflowing with cash and in others you’re barely scraping by.

When income fluctuates between extreme highs and lows, stress levels rise, sleep is lost, and a constant state of worry begins to take over. I know because I’ve been there.

In the early years of Bourn Creative, I didn’t have a problem finding new clients or landing new business. So while my income has never been a challenge, my cash flow was a big challenge, and that affected the forward movement of my business and the stress levels associated with being a freelancer.

Here’s exactly what I did to get off the income roller coaster and improve cash flow:

Selling A Million Dollars In Design Side Projects

May 18, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

Development is clear cut. It works or it doesn’t. The code is well-written or it’s a mess. Design on the other hand, is subjective, with the success of a project often based on the client’s ideas, perceptions, opinions, and personal experiences of what good design is.

Jennifer Bourn (that’s me) is founding partner and lead designer of Bourn Creative. While she spends her days designing high-end, complex, custom WordPress sites and brand suites, she has also sold well over a million dollars in just side projects and add-ons ranging from in price from $75-$3,000 — and the journey has been good, bad, and at times, down right ugly.

Jennifer recently teamed up with iThemes Training to deliver a free webinar called Selling a Million Dollars In Design about selling design services that skips the hype and sugar-coating, and gets right to the mistakes made, lessons learned, and business practices implemented over the 12 years Bourn Creative has been in business.

Red Flags: When To Not Hire A Designer

April 24, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

Design shapes perception and perception is not only reality but the foundation of your brand. Making the decision to invest in professional design for your business is making a decision to put your best foot forward, actively shape perception, and show up in the world as professional, authoritative, credible, valuable, and trustworthy.

While investing in professional design is a no-brainer for savvy businesses who want to accelerate their success and increase sales, making the decision to hire a professional designer can be wrought with stress, worry, and frustration if you don’t know what to ask when interviewing a designer or what to watch out for when signing a contract.

Bourn Creative celebrated its 12 year anniversary this past summer, and for 12 years straight, I have heard horror story after horror story from business owners who signed contracts without understanding the terms, didn’t receive the files they should have, ran into problems and delays, and encountered challenges that caused them to walk away with nothing or a design they didn’t like.

Each and every time I hear these stories, it breaks my heart a little bit because these situations can be avoided with a little due diligence up front.

Listed below are eight red flags to watch out for when hiring a designer. If you encounter any of these situations, say no thanks and move on.

Your Website Contact Page Deserves To Be A Priority

April 7, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

When anyone thinks of creating a new website, writing website content, or interacting on an existing website to improve user experience, the onsite customer journey, or conversions, they almost always begin with the key services, products and sales pages. They then look at the checkout pages for online purchases, the home page, testimonials or reviews, the about page, maybe an FAQ or support page. They even look at the blog. Rarely does any website owner prioritize the website contact page.

When it comes to the contact page of a website, most people barely give it any thought.

Even some of the most beautiful, well-designed websites in the world have ho-hum contact pages. A basic contact form is added to the page, the page is checked off a list of website to-dos, and focus is given to something that matters more. Or worse, the website contact page is viewed as a necessary evil and is created to be more of a barrier than an invitation.

How to Build a Strong Brand and Design for Your Learning Platform

April 4, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

I’ve been lucky enough, at industry events and at CaboPress, to spend some quality time with the talented folks over at LifterLMS. Not only do have they created a great product, the LifterLMS WordPress Plugin, they are also really good people. So when Chris Badgett reached out about being a guest on their podcast, LMScast, to talk about branding, of course I said yes!

In this podcast episode, Chris and I talk about branding as it relates to creating an online course.

Build Your Email List Fast With An Irresistible Free Offer

January 10, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

While brands and businesses are all but racing to social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, SnapChat and Instagram, they still are only reaching a small amount of the market. The irresistible email opt-in offer can change that.

The cornerstone of any successful business, online or offline, is its coveted marketing list — the list of customers, clients, prospects and other interested folks who have given you permission to market to them.

Email lists are critical to the success of your business because while not everyone uses social media (it’s crazy, but true), everyone has an email address.

Want to sign up for a social media site? Go ahead. They’ll require and email address.
Want to buy a product? Sure. They’ll need your email address.
Want to subscribe to a publication? No problem. Give them your email address.
Want to become a member? Great. They’ll also ask for your email.

How to Build a Sustainable Referral-Based Business

December 29, 2016 Jennifer Bourn

If you’re a business owner, freelancer or entrepreneur, you’re probably going to networking events and conferences, being present on social media, and investing time and resources in blogging, cold calling, advertising, email marketing, search engine optimization, free offers, teleseminars, webinars, online challenges and direct mail. You’re doing it all to chase new leads, make more sales, gain new clients… and it’s exhausting.

Yet even though you’re working hard to close new sale after new sale and avoid the dreaded self-employment income roller coaster, it feels like you’re always behind.

Wouldn’t it be awesome to be able to stop chasing clients and instead have them chase you? How transformational would it be to have all the new clients and customers you need seek you out, and all you have to do is serve your clients and do what you do best?

This shift in new client and custom acquisition strategy can happen by focusing your efforts on building a sustainable business based on referrals.

Understand How Consumers Make Buying Decisions To Increase Sales And Fill Your Pipeline

December 2, 2016 Jennifer Bourn

Imagine what business would be like if you didn’t have to pitch and sell or seek out and convince new clients to hire you. Imagine how different your business would be if your pipeline was consistently full and potential clients said “yes” with excitement after only a conversation or two.

Over the years, our project size has increased dramatically, but our approach to consistently making high-value sales with ease is still the same. A successful sales process requires a core understanding of what is most important to buyers and how they make buying decisions.

Learn Your Clients’ Wants And Needs

Before you can even have a sales conversation, you first have to understand what your clients need — and not just their surface wants, but their secret inner desires. They might tell you they want to sell more books, fill a program, sell out an event, fill a practice, or help more people. Every clients wants to achieve those things.

Every client wants to make more money.

But you need to explore beneath the surface wants to figure out why they really are reaching out to inquire about your services — and it’s often not what you think.

Clients want to be heard and validated

Everyone has a varied set of life experiences that shape their views in different ways, especially when dealing with design, which is subjective and emotional. One person might think a design is amazing, while another thinks it is awful. Both perspectives are right, they just have different background stories.

How To Create An Ideal Client Profile And Use It To Make Your Marketing More Effective

November 7, 2016 Jennifer Bourn

Last week I shared some thoughts on the gut of surface-level blog posts about defining an ideal client and why it is helpful in business. My article on Defining Your Client Persona To Create Targeted Marketing Messages walks you through what an ideal client profile is, why you need one, and how it helps your marketing efforts. I even provided some tips on how to identify who your ideal client is.

The feedback on the article so far has been amazing, so I wanted to take it a step further and really dig in deeper to share exactly how to create an ideal client profile, in another article I wrote for GoDaddy, Narrow Your Focus: Tips For Creating An Ideal Client Profile And Putting It To Work, including:

9 Ways evaluate data to create an ideal client profile
How to get the data needed to create an ideal client profile
How to use an ideal client profile

Here is the full article:

Define Your Client Persona To Create Targeted Marketing Messages

October 31, 2016 Jennifer Bourn

There is a lot of talk about defining an ideal client profile or ideal client persona online and throughout social media, especially in the entrepreneurial, freelance, solopreneur, online business, and internet marketing arenas. Some of it is good, some of it is okay but a bit misguided, and some of it is downright incorrect — yikes!

The problem is the same for anything that becomes a marketing buzz-word or assumed magic pill for success: everyone, even non-experts, jump on the hype bandwagon and start writing blog posts to earn extra traffic and capitalize on the buzzword. This means that many of the blog posts attempting to teach you about ideal client profiles and how to use a client persona aren’t teaching from first-hand experience and wild success, but from mere regurgitation of what they themselves have read online.

If you’re not quite sure what an ideal client profile or client persona is, or even how to use it, this article I recently wrote for GoDaddy, Cast a narrower net: Define your client persona to easily create targeted marketing messages, will get you started in the right direction:

I Hated Facebook And It Was All My Fault

November 15, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

I remember sitting in the audience at the very first “big” conference I had ever attended. I was surrounded by people who were taking action, investing in themselves and their business, and talking about things no one at the local networking groups I had been attending for more than a year were talking about.

There were about 500 people crammed in a too-small ballroom in Los Angeles and there was excitement in the air. We were learning about new tools, tactics, and strategies for building our businesses online — email marketing, search engine optimization, blogging for business, WordPress, and this new thing called social media.

We learned about this website that had started just for college kids, but was now a place that entrepreneurs and business owners could connect and be friends and talk business using the internet.

How Freelancers Can Get More Clients Through Referrals

September 19, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

If you’ve ever spent any time with me at a business event, WordCamp, mastermind retreat, or other event, you know I love to talk shop. I’m also pretty much an open book, always down to talk strategy, branding, messaging, design, client attraction, blogging, and more. Most of the time, if we have time, I’ll also get into your messaging too and help you get some clarity — I just can’t help it!

So when iThemes reached out to do a short interview on landing my first client, getting my best clients, and what I know now that I wish I knew when I was first starting out, I was thrilled!

The first, best, wish your knew series has been pretty popular, so iThemes reached out again (I just love them) with questions about about how freelancers can get more client through referrals.

If you’re a freelancer who is interested in getting more referrals, you should check out this article with advice and wisdom on earning more referrals from not only me, but from Carrie Dils, Curtis McHale, Aaron Campbell, Brad Williams, Jared Atchison, and Bill Erickson.

In the article, we answer questions like:

So how can freelancers generate referrals and form solid relationships with clients?
Are there any shortcuts to earning more referrals?
How do you build long-lasting relationships with clients?
What are some of the ways you get referrals?
How do I ask for a referral?

Check It Out

First, Best, Wish You Knew Interview With iThemes

August 29, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

Recently I was interviewed for the first, best, and wish you knew series running on the iThemes blog. Now you may be thinking, “iThemes? Didn’t you do something with them before?”

Yes! Earlier this year iThemes invited me to lead a webinar training for graphic designers, web designers, and developers titled How to Consistently Create Content That Builds Your Business And Attracts Clients. And yes, it’s still available to watch and you don’t even have to opt-in to watch!

But back to today’s business, my first, best, and wish you knew interview. In this interview post, I answer the questions:

How did you find your first client?
How did you find your best client?
What do you know now that you wish you knew before you started

If you’re looking for clients, or wondering how others get their best clients, check out my interview and then click through the rest of the posts in the series.

Check It Out

10 Ways Close A Sale Faster And Easier Without Being Too Salesy

August 12, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

Sales. Ick. Blech. Ugh. There is very little that the average designer, developer, freelancer, or business owner likes about sales, except the very end result of gaining a new client or customer.

With that in mind, my latest article for WP Elevation gives you 10 different ways you can shorten the sales cycle and get prospects to say yes to hiring you, buying from you, and/or learning from you easier and faster — and how they could work in your business.

The idea behind the following 10 tips is to sell less and yet still close new sales.

Identify The Decision Maker
Create Unique Packages
Build Trust With Testimonials
Showcase Case Studies
Get Prospects To Agree With You Throughout The Sales Process
Offer Fast Action Rewards
Add Value With Bonuses
Provide Flexible Payment Options
Leverage Urgency and Scarcity
Ask For The Sale

Shift The Client Conversation From Can’t To Can

April 17, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

As a freelancer or an agency, client relationships are the most valuable asset we have. Clients are the backbone of every successful services company and happy clients result in more referrals, more sales, and more business.

Clients come to us because they need help. They need direction, guidance, advice, consulting, strategy, and design and development work. They need an expert in an area they know very little about, and they need to trust the designer or developer they hire to deliver a quality product and quality experience.

But that isn’t always the case. In my latest article for The GoDaddy Garage, Shifting the client conversation from can’t to can, I write about the negative implications of using the word can’t in conversations with clients, and how it can sabotage the experience your clients have working with you.

Here’s the article:

Clear Expectations and Streamlined Onboarding Set The Tone For Client Relationships

February 16, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

Recently, I published a the blog post How To Implement A New Client Onboarding Process And Set Expectations. It walked people through all the basics of creating a new client onboarding process and why it is critical to the success of a service based business.

This post was so much more popular that I could have imagined and generated a lot of emails and questions about the topic, so I wrote a follow up post Clear Expectations and Streamlined Onboarding Set The Tone For Client Relationships about it for WP Elevation.

In the article, I dig deeper with the two most important parts of the client on boarding process:

Welcoming new clients and confirming hiring you was a great choice
Setting crystal clear expectations

I also provide sample content you can use or model when communicating with your clients! Yes, I give you a sample welcome email and a sample expectation-setting email.

Here’s the article:

How To Get Your Content In Front Of The Right Audience At The Right Time

October 2, 2014 Jennifer Bourn

Consumers don’t take action when you want them to take action, they take action when they are ready. They don’t buy when you want them to buy, they buy when they are ready to buy, and they certainly don’t read your newest article or blog post just because you published it — it has to be the right audience, and the right content, at the right time.

As a content marketer, your job is to make sure that your content gets in front of the right audience at the right time — when they are ready. That means making sure your content is easily accessible and can be discovered in many different ways on different platforms.

In my article How To Get Your Content In Front Of The Right Audience At The Right Time for CoSchedule, I break down how to reach the right audience, with the right content, and the right time, and provide tips and suggestions to help you get the most out of your content.

Here’s the article:

What Happens When You Outgrow Your Networking

September 25, 2014 Jennifer Bourn

When I first founded Bourn Creative in 2005, networking was a critical part of my initial growth. I attended several events each month for years and it generated a ton of business. But over time, my investment in these groups created fewer and fewer new opportunities. Those that were my ideal client had already became my clients, and those I wasn’t working with didn’t have the budget to invest with us.

Eventually I had to face reality. As I grew as a business owner, my business grew, and as a result, the level of client I was serving grew as well. Soon those same networking groups that had helped me reach that point in my business were no longer a fit.

In my article What Happens When You Outgrow Your Networking? for WP Elevation, I share my own networking experience and story, provide some tips and suggestions for reflection, and discuss where you go from there and how to uplevel your networking.

Here’s the article:

How To Answer The Question “What Do You Do?” With Confidence

September 10, 2014 Jennifer Bourn

Networking is stressful. Almost no one I know enjoys it or gets excited to network with a room full of strangers — and it’s most often because they don’t quite know how to answer that dreaded question “What do you do?” in a powerful way.

I hate this question! It’s a lazy question. It is vague and encourages the most basic and boring of answers. Asking it is like asking the other people to put on a show.

In my article How To Powerfully Answer The Question: “What Do You Do?” for WP Elevation I not only address exactly why people have such a hard time with this question, but what you need to know to answer this question in a powerful and meaningful way.

I even break it down into a simple, step-by-step formula that will help you communicate with confidence and ease. Plus, I’ll walk you through how to squash common objections, talk about your services or products, and how to tell them what to do next if they are interested — all without feeling too salesy or pushy.

Here’s the article:

"The design you are looking for is not in the portfolio. Their portfolio is a record of problems they’ve solved for other people, with those other people’s constraints, and those other people’s budgets. And it reflects those other people’s brands.

Hiring a designer is like hiring a tailor. You look at their previous work to see the quality of their work, to inspect the stitching, and you study the posture previous clients, but you’re not here to grab one off the rack. Those are all datapoints to help you decide if you’re going to let them take your measurements."

Mike Monteiro

Not Enough Clients? You’re Probably Networking In The Wrong Place

August 16, 2013 Jennifer Bourn

Recently I was being interviewed about owning a design business and how we have successfully built a brand and grown the business (and the profits) year after year.

About halfway through the interview the conversation turned to clients and client attraction — how to get clients, where to find clients, and how to keep clients — and inevitably we started discussing networking.

After all, no one can hire you, buy from you, or learn from you if they don’t know you exist. So you must market your business, get out from behind your computer, and network with others. You must share with other people what you do!

The problem is that a lot of business owners, especially designers view networking as not-working, and believe that if you are not working, you’re are not getting paid. So instead they sit behind their computers working and tweeting, and waiting for someone to hire them. But the reality is that networking is the cornerstone of growing a successful business. Through networking you can expand your network, build strong relationships, find strategic partners, find clients, grow as a business owner, and more.

Why You Should Invest In Attending Live Events

How To Achieve Higher Profits While Working Less And Enjoying More Freedom

11 Steps To Get Off The Freelance Income Roller Coaster And Improve Cash Flow

Selling A Million Dollars In Design Side Projects

Red Flags: When To Not Hire A Designer

Your Website Contact Page Deserves To Be A Priority

How to Build a Strong Brand and Design for Your Learning Platform

How to Build a Sustainable Referral-Based Business

Understand How Consumers Make Buying Decisions To Increase Sales And Fill Your Pipeline

Learn Your Clients’ Wants And Needs

How To Create An Ideal Client Profile And Use It To Make Your Marketing More Effective

Define Your Client Persona To Create Targeted Marketing Messages

How Freelancers Can Get More Clients Through Referrals

First, Best, Wish You Knew Interview With iThemes

10 Ways Close A Sale Faster And Easier Without Being Too Salesy

The idea behind the following 10 tips is to sell less and yet still close new sales.

Shift The Client Conversation From Can’t To Can

Clear Expectations and Streamlined Onboarding Set The Tone For Client Relationships

How To Get Your Content In Front Of The Right Audience At The Right Time

What Happens When You Outgrow Your Networking

How To Answer The Question “What Do You Do?” With Confidence

Not Enough Clients? You’re Probably Networking In The Wrong Place

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