Create a Stunning Creative Invoice Design for Customer Support

Creative invoice design for Customer Support

There is no better and faster formula for you to become a professional creative freelancer, than constantly learning and putting into action what you’ve learned! By research, trials, and many failures, I managed to set in place over the years an effective process that is helping me to reach my creative business goals. Because I want to help you reach your objectives faster than I did, today we’ll continue the customer onboarding journey we’ve started in the last episode! I’ll share with you all you need to know about project proposals, contracts, and invoices so that you can implement them right away into your freelance creative business and grow. If you haven’t seen it yet, make sure to watch also the first part of my Customer Onboarding Process series, dedicated to Services Guides and Business Inquiries! Hello guys! My name is Loredana, and I create strategic and playful illustration, brand identity, and packaging design services, for ambitious small businesses who want to achieve their own definition of Success! Let’s jump straight into the third step of the customer onboarding process: the Project Proposal! Now that you managed to gather all the necessary information about your prospect client and his business objectives, based on inquiry questionnaires or calls, it has arrived the moment to send him your unique custom Project Proposal. If you don’t use this professional presentation document yet, you should because it will help you to: Leave a lasting impression on your potential client, Make sure that both you and your prospect understand the exact project objectives and scope, process, investment, and outcome of the project, Provide fantastic customer experience, Have a solid guide and reference for the project stages from start to finish. Help you maintain a doable timeline, Position yourself as a pro and a real problem solver, Facilitate the relationship between you and your prospect client, Promote and pitch your services and vision for possible future projects. When designed to look professional and on brand, and written effectively, your project proposal should be able to clearly explain what you want to accomplish for your prospect client and his business, as it breaks down the entire process for both you and your client. Writing an effective, on-point, and easy-to-understand Project Proposal is one of the most important skills you must master as a creative freelancer. Maximize the effectiveness of your efforts by doing some previous research about your prospect client and his business needs to show him that you have a good understanding of the project objectives and are convinced about doing business. At this stage, your potential customer already knows who you are and what you do because he already downloaded and consulted your Services Guide on your website, or you already sent it to him by email. If you want to find out more about it, make sure to watch my previous video! Start bold! A project proposal should identify right from the start your prospect client’s business problem for which you have the right strategic solution. Based on the objectives established with your prospect during the business inquiry stage, instead of offering a general outcome, be as specific as possible. Does your project proposal offer an opportunity for brand awareness and growth? Don’t write just “to create a brand identity”, a better objective would be “to help the client create a strategic brand identity for his business so that he can build his brand awareness and thrive “. Sounds more specific and polished, isn’t it? Do so for each project objective! A good project proposal doesn’t just list the services you promise to provide for your potential customer, it also explains the entire process for the project, from onboarding to offboarding, as a timeline. Think about project phases as being a compass that provides both parties a road map by which to navigate the entire project process. Describing the process required to produce all the deliverables, step by step, is key in convincing your prospect client that you are the perfect match for the project. Showing the entire work process, and the clear tasks for both you and your prospect at any stage, including giving feedback, the revisions process, and offering details about the deliverables included, helps in creating a professional and collaborative relationship between you and your potential client where you both provide valuable input to achieve common project objectives. Go in-depth about each phase or milestone of the project on a separate page! Ho, ho, ho! Do you like the video so far? If YES, then press like and subscribe to Loredana’s channel for more graphic design, illustration, and business pro tips for creatives and small business owners! Ho, ho, ho! Testimonials stand for the quality and the success of your services and products, enhancing your personal brand reputation. I suggest you level up your favourite project review received from a previous client and show your prospect the value of the services you've provided for his business! Highlight how your services provided effective business solutions, including images with all brand deliverables created during the project, and last, but not least, add your client’s sweet, sweet words about your collaboration. Along with the project stages, your proposed service package or packages play the part of project scope, as they include the totality of outputs, outcomes, and benefits and the process required to produce them. Based on your prospect’s business objectives, you might propose to your prospect only a custom service package, or maybe more, including a Pro one. This gives your prospect a more comprehensive understanding of his business needs and how each of your proposed packages of services will better benefit his business, leaving him space for decision. Describe in depth how each proposed service package is aiming to solve the problems your prospect client is facing, giving clear details about the deliverables included, the benefits, and the process. For each custom services package proposed, you must include: To successfully accomplish the project objectives, you need to set a realistic and doable timeline that will guide the entire process. I advise you to leave some wiggle room for revisions and tweaks. Give your potential client clarity on every portion of time consumed in a project phase so that he can keep track and respect the timeline of the project, ending with the full estimative timeline of the project. Obviously, besides passion, you do all the hard work to pay your bills. But rather than focusing on price, you should instead shift the attention of your prospect to the value that your proposal creates for him. Include all the project deliverables and the prices for each package of services, stating below the total project investment. In plus, is the investment final or estimative? Is there any possibility that you might charge additional fees such as license costs or additional revisions? If yes, then write it! This is one of the most important sections that set the legalities of entering into a transparent binding agreement with your prospect client. To be professional and avoid any future misunderstandings or conflicts, include all the rules regarding the payment, rounds of revision included, project cancelation fees, intellectual property and copyright, the communication method, and elements part of your freelance contract of services. Break down each element from start to finish, starting with the payment of the investment. You should answer these questions: Do you offer plans for the total investment? What payment method do you offer? Which is the deadline for paying the invoices? Who will pay the transfer fees and currency exchange discrepancies? In the final section of your project proposal launch your final bold call to action for your prospect client! Now that your prospect is hooked on your project proposal and is ready to join you on the journey, you must inform him about the exact next step in the process. In this section, I invite all the prospect clients to contact me for the final binding approval via my email, using an interactive hyperlink. Having interactive email and URL hyperlinks integrated into your presentations increases the customer experience for your prospect client because they help your prospect to easily navigate through the process. Also, include information about your working hours, the waiting time for a response from you, and your website link. Consider sending your prospect a follow-up email after two days of silence. Do you want to know one of the best time-saving tricks? Presentation templates! I advise you to create an InDesign presentation template for the Project Proposal and reuse it with the obvious necessary adjustments for all your prospect clients! Because I want to help you jump straight into booking clients, I designed for you this cool Project Proposal Interactive Presentation Template! My interactive 20-page template will help you to save time and energy, your most valuable resources as a freelance creative, and present your project objectives, process, skills, know-how, and solutions for a potential client like a Pro! Modern and interactive, you can easily adjust this presentation template to fit all your specific needs as a creative business owner. Besides a Project Proposal Interactive Presentation Template 20 pages InDesign file, you will receive the typeface used, and an in-depth PDF on How to use & export my Interactive Templates. I will guide you step-by-step with prompts, descriptions, and tips on how to use, personalize, and export effectively this interactive template, even if this might be the first time when you strategize your services or when you open Adobe InDesign. I will live you in the description the link for this essential interactive presentation template for creative freelancers! Use this modern template to level up your personal brand, process, income, and reputation! After receiving the final written project approval from your prospect, it’s time to successfully end the Onboarding process, by both signing your freelance contract and the client paying the invoice for your first deposit, so that you can jump working on the project. A freelance contract is the foundation of a successful project and a key part of running your creative business, being an official and legally bilateral binding document or agreement between two parties. A contract outlines the exact offer, project details, and working terms between both parties - what a party is promising to deliver and what the other one agrees to pay in exchange, thus helping to prevent any misunderstandings. One of the biggest mistakes that beginner creative freelancers make is starting to work without having a custom contract signed in place. No protection, no process, and no payment guarantee! In plus, having a weak and vague contract will not protect you from AWAL clients, those who silence and ghost you, or scope creeps, those who demand more, and more, and more work and revisions than initially agreed. Scope creep has become one of the main reasons why many creative projects fail. Having a custom freelance contract will: Protect you from AWOL clients Protect you from Scope Creeps Provide a professional and trustworthy customer experience Certify you will be fully compensated for your work. Build trust and ensures the client that he will receive what he paid for. Ensure that both parties are on the same page and are held accountable throughout every step of the project. Most of the time it will be your duty to take care of the contract, so let me show you what you must include in your agreement to make sure you will avoid scope creep and be fully compensated for all your hard work! Include all the business details for both contracting parties and the agreement. The agreement or the consideration is a short and general statement of what is expected of you to fulfill the contract. It may sound something like the x parties agreed to sign this contract for the provision of graphic design services to the following terms. Definitions or defined terms are words that are given a specific definition in the contract, to prevent any misunderstanding. Before signing, a client must read first the definitions, to make sure he understands exactly what he is agreeing to. Think about defining the meaning of a contract, beneficiary and provider, services, copyright and intellectual property, force majeure, and any other important element that may be included in your contract. Now it’s time to get super specific about what deliverables your client will receive at the end of the project. List all the deliverables included and add important details regarding the number, file types, design variations, round of revision, and presentations. Clarity is key! This one is straightforward: you must add the exact period of duration for the contract, along with the starting and the end dates for the project. It’s also best practice to include a clause regarding the extension of the contract by signing an addendum in case of any additional deliverables your client may request, which will imply a new timeline and a new price. In the capitalist world time is money, so state the total price for your time and know-how, the investment that your client agreed to pay you. Some creatives quote by project value for extended projects, while others choose to charge hourly for super short projects. It’s u up to you how to charge for your work, I personally charge per project as there is no time tracking implied and there are no surprises for the clients. The easiest way to define your payment terms is by answering the following questions: Which payment methods do you accept? Do you require a deposit upfront to start the project? Do you offer payment plans? How many milestones? What are the payment deadlines? Will you charge a late fee for any missed payment deadlines? Will you charge a rush fee for any additional revisions outside the scope of work? Who will cover any fund transfer fees and currency exchange discrepancies? Most of the creatives, including myself, charge a 50% deposit of the total project price to begin working on the project, and the remaining 50% at the end of the project, before sending the final deliverable files to the client. Briefly, the client must pay the full price before receiving the object of the contract, thus being less risky for you to be ghosted and left unpaid after all the hard work! Also, to avoid scope creep, outline how many and which revisions are included in the contract price and state how much you will charge per hour for any additional revisions. This section is highly important for creatives, as it states who, when, and where owns the copyright for the deliverables produced during the project. Think about clarifying if your client will receive exclusive or nonexclusive rights and ownership of the deliverables after paying the final deposit. Cleaver would be to transfer only a part of ownership. For example, the products featuring your design or illustration can be sold only in X country and if the client will want to sell them abroad, he will have to pay an extra amount because his business will gain more value and revenue out of your services. That makes sense, right? Also, I advise you to reserve yourself the right to showcase the deliverables created during the project in your portfolio, social media, web, and mass media. In this section you should state the exact obligations both you and your client have, to successfully conclude de project and the contract. Two of them are obvious: you must create the deliverables and the client must fully pay you to enter into their possession. But you should also think about respecting deadlines and confidentiality. This one is straightforward: Do you offer refunds (partial or total)? If yes, in what situations can a client claim a refund? Force majeure frees both parties from obligation if an extraordinary event directly prevents one or both parties from performing the offer as natural causes, governmental actions, pandemics, etc. Include information about the process of claiming force majeure. Write the communication method for the development of the project and include the contact persons for both parties so that you’ll know exactly with whom you will be in touch during the project. Both you and your client are obliged to protect and not reveal any personal data or information gathered during a project regarding the scope of work, creative concepts, workflow, know-how, documents, and price. You should always include a termination clause in your freelance contract that specifies what will happen if you or your client need to cancel the project. Make sure to include details about who owns the copyright for the deliverables created until the cancelation moment, and what project cancelation fees will be associated with your client. Even though I wish you to never have legal conflicts with your clients, you must include in your contract: What will happen if you and your client don’t manage to amicably solve a potential dispute? What will be the exclusive jurisdiction for all disputes I also add to the contract an appendix, where I include in-depth information about all the project stages, the tasks, and deadlines for both me and the client, and the procedure for each round of revision so there will be no miscommunication. After both signing the contract, YEY! you should send your client an invoice for the first deposit of the total price, to justify the cost of your services. An invoice should be simple and easy to understand and must include: the term Invoice, a unique invoice number, the invoice order reference number (the number of the contract), the business details for both parties, a tax number if your state allows you to collect sales tax, a breakdown of your services and deliverables, a breakdown of prices and the total payable amount at the end, the balance due amount, the payment method and bank details so that you get paid on time. Putting together powerful and branded freelance contract and invoice templates will save you lots of time, as you would simply need to barely modify them every time. Please let me know in a comment below if you would be interested in purchasing my custom brand identity freelance contract and invoice InDesign templates! Now that your client paid the invoice for your first deposit, I officially declare that you have successfully concluded the Customer Onboarding Process, and you are ready to fully dive into the project! Don’t forget to have fun! I hope you enjoyed the second part of the Customer Onboarding journey, and may this series motivate you to improve your strategic process, your customer experience, and customer services so that you’ll evolve and thrive as a creative small business owner, no matter your background! Show your support by giving a like and pressing subscribe to my channel for more graphic design, illustration, and business pro tips for creatives and small business owners! Finally, heave yourself the merriest Christmas ever! Merry Christmas! Take your brand strategy, design, and illustration games to the next level by watching these videos!