212: Crafting Your Communication Protocol

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Brandi: [00:00:00] Ever felt like you're speaking a different language than your clients? Not literally, but in a way where messages get lost in translation, leading to frustration on both sides. Well, you're not alone, my friend. Today on the Serve Scale Soar podcast, we're diving deep into the art of clear communication, which is the cornerstone of a thriving freelance and ad management business.

Because if you've ever had a client wish for better communication, Or maybe you're wishing for better communication on your side. You're in the right place. Today we're unpacking my tried and tested communication protocol to keep your clients satisfied and your business booming because nothing will wreck your business more than poor communication.

I've seen it time and time again. And I will tell you in the last six months, it's coming up even more. So let's dive into this episode that will truly [00:01:00] redefine the way you interact with your clients and ultimately boost your revenue, keep clients longer, and make you rave able. And referable so do not miss out on this episode if you're like I want to be better at my business I want to keep clients longer and I don't want to get frustrated when poor Communication happens this episode's for you.

So let's jump on in 

Welcome back to the serve scale soar podcast, the go to place. If you want to start grow or scale your freelance ad management business, I'm Brandi Mowles, your host. And today we're diving in to one of the most crucial topics as a freelancer or a service provider. And honestly, just as a human, which is communication.

This is the number one topic that I hear complaints about from both the client side and the service [00:02:00] provider side. So today we're going to take it from your side as the service provider and break down my communication protocol. So you know exactly how much. How little you should be communicating with clients, how to communicate, and you can create your own protocols.

So you never, ever have a client that says, I really enjoyed working with them besides the communication. Because lately, this is the number one thing I'm hearing from old clients about service providers is that they're just not getting communicated with like they should be or like they wanted. So if you're ready to improve your communication, keep clients longer and make more money, my friend, let's dive into today's episode.

The client communication protocol consists of five essential elements. I'm going to break those down for you today. And so let's talk about each one and why you need them. And then you can start implementing where you see [00:03:00] your biggest holes with your client communication. 

Step one of the protocol is systems and processes. Before we move forward with anything, we have to have systems and processes for communication, just like we have systems and processes for anything else. So we have a whole episode on the systems and processes. You need to successfully run your business as an ad manager.

We'll link up to that in the show notes. So you can check that episode out, but having systems and processes. And I think that is one of the most important things you can set up, especially if you don't want to have a large team and you want to scale past three clients, systems and processes are everything.

Because if you don't set them up now, once you've already grown, you're going to have a lot of issues. I do one on one coaching with agencies that already have, eight to 10 to 20 clients. And they're at that about 10 20, 000 per month goal, but they want to go to 100, 000 per month. [00:04:00] And I do one on one coaching with these agencies.

And one of the biggest things I see is their systems and processes are not set up for their revenue goals. And they're usually coming to me because they're having a lot of issues with clients not happy, Or they're burned out or they're just not seeing the results that they want out of their business.

And they're not sure how to fix it. And the first place they're looking at is sure as heck not systems, but it's the first place I look at is their marketing and then their systems. So when we talk about client communication protocol, We have to talk about our systems and processes. And some of the things that you can look at to check off to make sure you have in place is one, how often are you communicating with client and then are you expressing that to your clients?

Are you communicating daily, weekly, monthly? How much communication are you having with them? Two, how are you communicating with them? Is it Voxer? Is it Slack? Is it email? Is it all [00:05:00] over the place? Ideally, we want to have one communication channel. So with my consultant clients, that's through Voxer. It works really well with us because usually we're working with teams.

We're going back and forth on communication. But when I was working with one on one ad clients, The communication was through Slack so we could keep everything really organized or if you have a Minnesota click up wherever But I don't like email and that's just because people's inboxes get really messy But email could be your preferred channel just because it's not mine doesn't mean it's not yours We have some clients that use whatsapp So just finding whatever platform you want to use and use it But only having one communication channel is really really important And then three is your response time.

What is your response time? Is it 12 hours? Is it 24 hours? Is it 48 hours? Is it only through business days on the weekends? We have to have that dialed in. So with us, our response time is 24 [00:06:00] hours within 24 hours business days. So Monday through Friday and our business hours are 8 30 a. m. Through 3 p. m.

Eastern. I think our inbox is maybe 4 p. m. But for me, I'm really not responding to anything in a box after 3 p. m. And so you get to make that but is that spelled out like your response time? Is it spelled out? And then that also goes into the fourth element of systems and processes. What are your office hours?

Are you working on the weekends? Are you not? What are those times? For us, it's a hard no. We don't work weekends. Some people do some people work weekends when their clients are in a launch, but you need to spell this out. What are your office hours? And then that goes into number three, which is your response time.

So with our systems and processes right now is a great time to do an audit of this. How often do you communicate? How do you communicate? What is your response time? And what are your office hours? And not just having these in your head, but are they spelled out? [00:07:00] Do you have these written down anywhere?

That's really, really important. Okay, so protocol one is systems and processes. Protocol two is setting expectations. Here's one of the biggest Like mishaps I see with service providers is you have these things, but you're not setting any expectations for your clients and the Expectations can start at the discovery call if someone says, you know How often should I expect a report you should be able to tell them what I like to do is tell them the process Of what happens next so I tell them like once you sign your contract and pay your invoice, then you're going to get a new questionnaire.

And then that we're going to do your kickoff call. And then I provide bi weekly reporting. So I'm setting the expectations right from the beginning on the discovery call. Do you need to do this for everyone? No. Is it a good like place? Maybe. Another place is a proposal. So having [00:08:00] that outlined in your proposal, this is something I did if it got brought up on the call, but it wasn't normally in my proposal unless I was talking about reporting, which is a form of communication.

How are you going to report and what does that look like? And then the big ones are through our contract, through our kickoff call setting expectations really starts with your contract. Your contract is there, yes, I guess in case you get sued, but the likelihood of you getting sued is very, very slim.

But what it really is, is to have your scapegoat, your contract. I've always said this is your scapegoat. So when a client steps over those boundaries, you can blame it on the contract. So is your communication? Mm hmm. Outlined in your contract also on your kickoff call. Are you going over this information on the kickoff call?

Are you telling them? Hey, this is what it looks like. This is how often you'll hear from me and then we have to set those expectations daily weekly [00:09:00] and Monthly anytime they are overstepped. We need to bring it back and say like here's how I communicate Okay, so we've went over protocol one system processes, then setting expectations.

The third step is boundaries. Once you set these, once you set expectations, You've set the processes. Now you have to uphold the processes. You have to stay in line, which are boundaries. And so whenever we create boundaries, it's up to us to enforce it. I always think of this saying, if you give them an inch, they'll take a mile.

Usually you're talking about kids. But with this, it's like that with our clients. If you give them an inch, so you respond on the weekend when you're not supposed to, you respond after five o'clock when you're not supposed to, you add it, they email you, but you've already told them that your communications through Slack and they email you and you respond back to that email instead of going into Slack, you're giving them an inch and very soon you will see [00:10:00] that mile.

And then you're going to be like, Oh my God, this client drains the life out of me. I like, they don't follow any of my processes. And it's because you've allowed that to happen. You have to take responsibility. And a lot of times we don't want to be confrontational and a lot of us are people pleasers. And so we get into this Oh, it's just this little thing, but then it turns into a big thing.

So as a business owner, this is your chance to step into your power and set boundaries and it will make your business so much better. And it takes the little things every single time. If a client is late on their payments you know what? You got to set those boundaries. You got to add that late fee.

If a They communicate with you in a way that's not part of your protocol. You need to let them know based on our contract. This is where we need to communicate You can always blame it on your contract So even if you're a people pleaser, you don't like confrontation and a lot of times communication isn't confrontation You just are expecting like [00:11:00] oh my god, they emailed me now.

I'm gonna have to tell them to like Respond through Slack and then they're going to be mad at me. They're probably not, they probably just didn't know. So then you just send them a message in Slack and say, Hey, I saw your email, but because of we use all of our communication through Slack, I didn't want anything to get lost.

So I want to respond to you here. That's not confrontational. That's just resetting boundaries. And so we have to step into that. And remember, we are the business owner. We are setting the expectations and we can't expect our clients to follow the rules that we set in place if we're not even following them ourselves.

So boundaries are really, really important and you have to be willing to enforce them if you set them. Okay. So number four, Hard conversations when it comes to communication. You're gonna have hard conversations About scope creep like oh my gosh We have to dial that back in if someone asks us to do something all the time.

I have Students and conversions for clients [00:12:00] are certified and they come up to me and they're like a client's asked me to do this They want me to fix their funnel. I'll give you a real life example. So I have this one. She's a Certified student and she came to me and I already knew this client was gonna be a red flag when she was telling me about like the onboarding and everything, like We live and we learn.

And so he started really stepping out and asking for her to do stuff that was not in her contract at all. Like researching, like how to get books printed on demand type deal and how to ship them out. And I was like, this is not part of your job. And we have to know that We don't have to do stuff that our clients ask.

If it's outside of our contract, you don't have to do it. So then we have to dial it in to scope creep and be like, Hey, this is outside my contract, but if you need help, I can recommend a few people that may be a good fit for this. We also have to have hard conversations about late [00:13:00] payments. That's why we have this in our contract is like, what happens if there's a late payment and you have to have these conversations.

Don't do the work. I'm sorry, but if you haven't been paid, you should not be doing the work. You have to get paid first or what will happen is you'll be like they're, they said they're gonna pay next week and then they don't pay and then you've been doing all this work and there's nothing you can do to get it.

That's why we have to have these hard conversations. And a lot of people probably don't think you're gonna be willing to have a hard conversation. So they let this stuff happen. Because they know, especially men clients, I will tell you will really, really do this where they don't think you're going to have a hard conversation with them.

Cause you're a sweet, like you're so sweet in your business, but they would never do that to another man because another man would speak up. So listen to me right now. This is really important. If you are a woman, you have to stay in your power with these conversations, especially working with men, because I [00:14:00] see them push the boundaries more than anyone.

Not necessarily with scope creep, but especially with late payments and things like that. Okay, other hard conversations that you want to prepare for beforehand. It's so much easier to prepare for these conversations before they actually come up because then you're not in the emotion and you can really think logically like how would I handle this conversation and then you create a process around it.

So what is your process for when someone asks you to do something? Do you have a default template you can send out? That's a great thing to have. Late payments. What is your process for that? Do you, is it in the contract? Do you add 10 percent late fee? What is the process and what is the email say that goes out with that?

Okay. Then renewals and non renewals when it's coming time to renew a contract. What is your process? What is the non renewal process? If you don't want to continue to work with a client and you want to break up with them, what does that look like? Once again, it's so much easier to have these hard conversations outlined now.

Then when [00:15:00] you go and actually are in the moment. So let's think about that. What can we put in place now when something doesn't go right? So we have a whole episode on bounce, bouncing back after bad results. And we'll link that up in the show notes. But with that, especially what, what do you do? So one of my one on one coaching clients, he was telling me that they had an issue and ad didn't get turned You know, didn't get turned off when it was supposed to and so it spent some money and it shouldn't have been.

He refunded the client the ad spend money that MetaAd charged for it. So that's one of the protocols. If an ad doesn't get turned off when it's supposed to and it is your fault, then you refund the ad spend to them. That's, that's one example. There's so many examples. And sometimes when these like it doesn't go right, these aren't things you can pre plan for, but there are things that you have to deal with in that moment.

And that's why having a community like conversions for clients or certified is so powerful because you [00:16:00] don't have to deal with this hard conversation alone. You can brainstorm and get feedback from other people to see have you had this happen before? What did you do? What do you think I should do?

And then everyone comes to help. I see it every single week in our communities. Okay. Missed deadlines. So if they didn't get you the graphics in time, if they didn't get you whatever you need in time, what is your process? That is something you can plan. Also raising your prices. What do you have in place for that, that communication?

So those hard conversations, a lot of them can be planned out ahead of time. So you're not in your emotions, but in your logic when you create these. So which ones of these do you need to get in place? Okay. So we've went through one, two, three, and four. So systems and processes. And I'm going to walk through some examples of all of the things that I learned through this channel.

So let's get started. Okay, so what do we learn through this channel? I'm going to go into a very basic overview of what this channel a lot [00:17:00] of people are learning about it. A lot was into video games, video games, and we're going to get into a little bit more detail in a little bit. We're going to get into the basics, how to play the video game.

Presentation. So like how I can record this podcast or do a live webinar or anything. I think it's helped with that. But no one actually said, how do we have conversations with people? How to have those hard conversations, how to have meaningful conversations. It's not something we were taught. Most people don't grow up in families with great communications because once again, no one taught us how to communicate.

No one teaches us how to communicate with our kids. They send you home with your baby and say, here you go. No one teaches you how to communicate with your spouse unless you go to counseling. And so at the end of the day, we, this is probably the number one thing we all need to do better at. and work at and learn because we weren't taught.

But just because we weren't taught something doesn't mean that we can't be taught that now. So entrepreneurship is a great place for personal [00:18:00] growth because not only do you grow in your business, but you grow in your life and who you are as a person. And I think that's one of the biggest gifts of running a business.

Sometimes it sucks. Sometimes you're on cloud nine, but at the end of the day you are learning something and you are growing as a freaking person, which is amazing. So some of the books that I recommend if you want to learn to communicate better is How to Win Friends and Influence People. That's a classic.

Crucial Conversations is another one. You can find all these on Google or on Amazon and Emotional Intelligence 2. 0. So when we start focusing on growth and honing in on these skills, then we will naturally see better client relationships and it all starts with communication. So our five steps, effective communication protocol, one systems and processes to set expectations.

Three have boundaries for hard conversations and [00:19:00] five be committed to growth. 

my friends I am so excited for you to go implement these strategies Take more action keep clients longer and change the narrative that freelancers are not good for you communicators, because my friends, you are, you just have to step into your role and show people how it's done

Brandi: . So if you're ready to learn more about how to start, grow, or scale an ad management business, so this can be the year that you finally hit your revenue goals, because Hey, after all ad managers are the highest paid and highest sought after freelancing gig you can offer this year, then head to brandimowles.com/adtraining transcribed And register for my upcoming live training or watch it on demand 

so until next week, my friends go out, serve your clients, scale your business and soar into the success you [00:20:00] deserve.