6 tips on presenting design work to your clients

Many sign companies get frustrated working with business owners who have little or no experience buying signs, truck wraps or brands. But put yourself in their shoes and consider things from their perspective. Let’s face it: Many have no idea about what you can do for them, the questions they should ask you or why your expertise is so critical for their success.

Most clients start the conversation purely from a commodity standpoint—only considering how much this work may cost— instead of realizing it can be an investment that yields them dividends. And others may assume that because they own their business, they are also qualified to know how to best market it. They know what they want—they just need someone to “make it.”

With so many issues and preconceived notions about what you can do for them versus what you should be doing for them, you have to take a few steps back. Try to figure out the best way to give them what they need, even if it’s not what they want. Here are a few tips to try and help get your clients to arrive at “yes” sooner.

Consider the source

The reason why it’s sometimes hard to get clients to trust you goes back to what you do to instill the trust. Often the old saying “We have met the enemy and he is us” holds true. What you do in terms of marketing your expertise holds the key in establishing trust.

Is there a valid reason communicated to your clients as to why they need to trust you? Have they seen examples of how your work has helped someone just like them? When you don’t make a case for a client to trust you, don’t be surprised when they want to tell you what to do. You haven’t established to them that you are, in fact, the expert.

Spend time on mockups

Making better presentations goes a long way for helping establish expertise and professionalism. This includes not only displaying your own work, but how you present it to clients. It helps clients to better visualize how your ideas will translate into real world examples.

For example, if you are pitching new logos, showing three concepts on one page is sometimes not enough for people to understand how those concepts might work for their most important applications. Often, we are tasked simultaneously with designing a brand and a subsequent truck wrap. We often find clients didn’t fully appreciate a concept until they saw how we planned to integrate it on a truck. Usually, that seals the deal—the clients fall in love with the logo once they see it on a truck or a sign or even business cards.

Use mood boards

We frequently use mood boards to help clients better visualize a particular idea or concept. A mood board is a collage of images that show the mood or feel you want to create. It helps them better understand a potential color scheme and the overall vibe their branding might take. Internally, our design team contributes to various Pinterest boards, and then we organize some key images to present to clients. Typically, we can present mood boards in conjunction with very loose sketches. For Mars Service, we pitched the idea of a retro-themed brand and presented our ideas revolving around “out of space” and ’50s or ’60s visuals typically associated with that concept. The client loved the sketches, choosing one right off the bat, and then we went to a final rendering.

Speak, don’t email

I always find that it’s best to verbally pitch logo and design ideas rather than to just email them to clients. It’s nearly impossible to communicate your vision in an email. And clients can’t gauge your excitement nearly as well by reading it as they can by hearing it directly from you, the designer.

It also allows for a more useful, two-way exchange of ideas. Sometimes, it’s easier to walk them through the concept and counter objections in a more productive way.

Don’t overwhelm them

Limit the number of ideas you present to a client. By showing too many different ideas, often none is likely to really stand out. Often the client gets confused.

Or they may show it to several people and have no clear design chosen, which only confuses them more. We typically present two or three concepts.

Patience is nice, but force is sometimes required

Never underestimate the significance of your role, and how critical it is to your client’s success. This is a huge decision for your client, and sometimes they are simply afraid. And rightly so: They should be afraid.

Have patience when working with them, and don’t be upset if they are not sharing your enthusiasm—just yet.

Sometimes there isn’t that “aha moment” when the client leaps up and down at your concept. Sometimes that moment won’t come until later—maybe months later, after they’ve had the courage to forge ahead with your vision.

We’ve had many clients whose business has doubled or tripled since rebranding. Many of them didn’t fully love the idea we had for them. But a year later, after they’ve had huge success, you can bet they love it now.

There’s a great line from Don Draper in Mad Men who says, “At a certain point seduction is over and force is actually being requested.”

Be firm in your belief in your ideas, and confident that your work is going to result in a positive change for your client. You can’t fake that enthusiasm, and if you’ve done your job right, clients will be better able to trust your expertise.

This appeared in the March/April 2015 issue of SignCraft.

We invested in hiring a photographer to shoot photos of white trucks. We then retouched the backgrounds, which gave us a perfect canvas to not only present and pitch ideas to clients, but to use for our own marketing purposes. Since we own this art, we can use it however we’d like. Finding images with Google searches then using them in your own marketing efforts is one way to find yourself sued for copyright infringement. It’s just smarter to make the investment in your own photography, then spend time in Photoshop creating better “fakes” than you’d ever be able to take after the job is complete.

Although this is a bit more sketching than we normally present, the theme and concept are obviously similar in nature, with slight variations.