Welcome to the final entry of a very important topic in our opinion: making yourself irreplaceable. With this year off to a similar if not more challenging start as last year, now is the time to focus on being different.

So we are wrapping up discussing four main topics:

1 Relationship King
2 Service Superstar
3 Industry Ally
4 Valuable Partner

NUMBER FOUR: Valuable Partner

Do you have clients who would say you are an integral part of their business? If not, what are you doing to get there? #beirreplaceable

Taking care of your current clients is just as important as getting new ones. We have covered ways to make yourself as irreplaceable as possible. All of the tips in the world still pale in comparison to just good old fashioned great work. If you are not producing great, strategic, well thought out creative, then all the tips in the world will not matter.

Avoid Status Quo: In this writer’s opinion that also means continually helping your clients progress. When you have a client for a long time, it’s easy to get into a lull of expected solutions. When you feel this is starting to happen, switch up the creatives working on it, or have critiques with design friends. Do whatever you can to keep some fresh perspective. You can also take a time out to have a retreat with your client once a year and take a look at their business together. Look at trends, competition and internal scenarios to make sure you are helping them stay fresh with a current perspective.

Set Boundaries: You are only as valuable as you are excited about working with certain clients, but every excitement has to have its limits. When you set boundaries for your personal well-being, your clients still need to feel you have their best interests in mind. So be clear about your work hours, your availability, your payment needs, project process, key contacts, etc. Conversely, take initiative to learn their expectations, too. This way both parties will know expectations, have less communication issues along the way, and you can focus on what is important - the work.

Stay Optimistic: EVERYONE has tough clients. No matter how big or famous. So remember that if you are in a challenging scenario, people have been in your situation before. Some have been fired by clients, have done 50 logo revisions, dealt with project creep, and have been beaten down by an experience. You have a choice: you could get upset about it, or you can be optimistic and figure out how to appropriately handle the scenario. Handling something difficult properly will reap you awards 100% of the time. And it allows you to keep an optimistic mojo to handle these types of scenarios better or to avoid them altogether.

Being a valuable partner is mixture of process, time, manners, vision, consistency and understanding that we are a service business. When we realize these truths of our industry and learn how to incorporate them into a work flow that helps create great work, we are on our way to being irreplaceable.

Welcome to part three of a very important topic in our opinion: making yourself irreplaceable. How are you going to do that?

So we are discussing four main topics to think about:

1 Relationship King
2 Service Superstar
3 Industry Ally
4 Valuable Partner

NUMBER THREE: Industry Ally

How are you showing your clients that you understand their needs, their industry, their dreams? Understand their business and #beirreplaceable

In design school we studied things like theory, typography, history, production and if we were lucky, a little marketing. But most of us had very little business exposure, training, or understanding on how to relate our design education to the business world. More than ever we need to take time to understand our clients’ needs and points of pain. If you don’t specialize, which is a whole other subject to talk about, then you may have a lot of homework (depending on how many different industries your clients are in). Here are a few tips on how to learn about your clients’ world:

1) Listen for industry terms, trends, acronyms and competitive speak in meetings so you can google it later. If you have a great rapport ask for details in the meetings, or do both. This will also give you a chance to do more online research to help you understand your client’s world better.

2) Read your clients’ and/or their industries’ leading blogs via RSS or subscribe to thier industry publications. A peek now and then will help you stay up to speed and could give you ideas on ways to help them stand out. These will also help you with new regulations, trends, or major topics that will help you understand where they are coming from.

3) Try to understand your clients’ corporate culture. If for example they have an initiative to be more sustainable, you can recommend making an online report and/or using more FSC certified printers or paper. Or if they want to increase internal communications, you could help them set up an intranet or create internal environmental messaging, brainstorm team events, etc. Whatever the case, when you understand your client, the best chance for more business is with a client you already doing business for.

4) Going to trade shows can be an amazing way to create a deeper relationship with your client. Spending time with them in their world, walking the floor to talk about competition or where they want to go can be invaluable. Also, depending on the industry, there could be many new opportunities by working with suppliers, clients or even competition where acceptable. Having an understanding and track record in that industry helps you sell and makes you more of an expert.

5) Use your collective experiences from other industries too. Some project or program you did in one industry might be “cutting edge” or refreshing in another. Figure out ways to share that knowledge to make a case and show your clients how you can help them stand out in their market.

The best practice is and will always be to do your homework and have conversations with your clients. From there you create relationships that allow you to serve them better. And then they will value your services as irreplaceable to them.

What do you do to stay on top of your clients’ business?

Your theme, especially this year, should be to make yourself irreplaceable. How are you going to do that?

The design and visual communication field boasts over 55,000 different companies in the U.S. When you add freelancers, crowd sourcing, and the person who still has CorelDRAW, the competition is steep, especially for clients that may have more pressure than ever to watch the bottom line. Of course, if we lose work to the guy with CorelDRAW, we probably didn’t want that client anyway, but I’m just saying there are a lot of us out there.

So how do you #beirreplaceable? We’ve got a list of several great reminders, and we will be covering one at a time for the next few weeks. Short and sweet, and something for you to think about. Some of the topics will be:

1  Relationship King
2  Service Superstar
3  Industry Ally
4  Valuable Partner

NUMBER ONE: Relationship King

If your clients don’t think they or their needs matter to you, how will you #beirreplaceable to them? Close your email and pick up the phone. Send a (real) card on their birthday. Remember their name and spell it right. Know what hobbies they have or how many kids they have. Pay for lunch. Send them interesting links about business related items, or shows, or things they are interested in. Connect them to other clients when there is a good business match. Send them a holiday gift – maybe for an unexpected holiday. But more than anything be genuine. The little things matter, and if you do not know yet, relationships are king.

What are you doing to stand out and #beirreplaceable? Any of these things? What do you do in client relationships that has been most successful?

Learn your client’s “new normal”, because it’s not business as usual anymore.

Our clients’ businesses, and therefore our careers, have changed forever. Sure, we can attribute some of this change to the explosion of social media, lightning fast communication speeds, and the new economy. But the bigger and longer-lasting change is in the foundational nature of how our clients perceive and value design.

As you know, our clients are still under the same pressures as always, such as looking good to the boss or shareholders, being profitable, showing measurable success, and more. But the stakes are higher now; budgets are tighter. This applies to both them and us. So how do we become valuable in this new environment?

Our ability to show clients more strategy, metrics and research is more valuable than ever, and I think this is good for us. However, when we started our design businesses, these really weren’t key areas of focus, were they? Sure, we thought we’d need to create an occasional brief, do some client meetings or frankenstein some things now and then, but we didn’t count on having to stay on top of technology, designing in both print and online environments, doing more work for less money, and the list goes on. Now don’t get me wrong…I’m not complaining, just explaining. See, this is our “new normal.” In addition to design, we need to stay up on global innovation and pressures in order to remain relevant to our clients. Your clients’ businesses have changed, and they will continue to change faster than ever before. As their partner, you need to understand this and help them manage it. You need to understand their points of pain, and you also need to recognize where their industry is headed and brainstorm on keeping them on track going forward. Go to their tradeshows, read their trade pubs, visit their competitors’ websites, and gather info from their vendors and parallel industries. A few years ago, it was all about showing a process that gave value to design. The strategy was packaging that process and “selling” it to clients. Well, our process is more complex and valuable than ever and “selling it” requires showing value and results beyond just design. So talk to your clients and come up with ways of tracking success and understanding the new pressures they’re facing in this new economy. It will pay off for you, too.

Cameron Sinclair, an architect and founder of Architecture for Humanity, is a past TED Prize winner. His most recent talk gives a different perspective of the financial and construction meltdown through the “boom and bust” refugees. His presentation questions us with an undeniable truth: at the bottom of the matter, the most sustainable approach to work values human life and rights above all else.

In your work, where have you faced ethical issues? With your employees or employer? With your clients or coworkers? Tell us any stories or responses you have experienced.