The Four Pre-Production Steps I Use to Guarantee Success
Before I actually start on any design or video, there are four things that I do to make sure that the project goes super smooth all the way through.
Step 1: hop on a call
Usually I'll get an inquiry through social media, email, or my website. Sometimes they're very specific requests, and other times they’re really vague. Regardless of specificity, I always schedule a call with them before I do anything else.
On that call, we talk more about what the client hopes to achieve with the project. Talking about goals right out of the gates ensures that there’s alignment between the service they’re requesting and the results they hope to see once the project is complete.
For example, I might get a request to shoot a video for someone, but, once we dive into the specifics around what they hope to accomplish by producing this video, we might find out that a video actually isn’t the best tool to get the results they’re looking for.
As a strategic professional, it is my job to catch these issues well before we agree on a service and a price to make sure that I can deliver the value they expect.
This brings me to my next goal for the call.
On top of talking about the specifics of the project, I also like to have a brief discussion around budget. Now that we have a basic idea of the type of service that will be offered, I usually give a range of prices a client could expect to pay for that service. Each service I offer has a base price, and then based on the specific needs of the client, there are additional bolt on services that might be required to achieve certain goals.
For example, I might shoot a long form interview that breaks down the specific services a business offers. The clients primary goal might be to generate a piece of evergreen content that provides more value to engaged customers on their website. However, they might also have a secondary goal that involves leveraging this content to boost their social media presence. In that case, I would offer a bolt-on service to turn the long form video into a series of short form content blocks to use on social media, as well as even converting it into a series of blog posts for their website.
On top of that, this secondary goal might not even be on their radar. But again, as a strategic professional, I see it as my duty to make sure the client is aware of these types of tactics and the benefits they can provide. In this way, I make sure that I’m maximizing the returns on their investment all the way through the process.
Once we’ve covered all of that, if the budget feels comfortable and we’re aligned on basic strategy, I’ll move on to step number two.
Step 2: The proposal.
I usually split my proposals into two parts. The first part is a detailed project overview, and the second part breaks down the budget.
Proposal Part 1 of 2: The Overview
In the overview, I list out the specific goals for the project, as well as the tactics and final deliverables that will be involved to achieve those goals. No matter the type of project, I find that this approach helps the client see the importance in each part of the process and how each step supports each of their goals.
Proposal Part 2 of 2: The Budget
After that roadmap has been clearly illustrated, I group the fundamental steps of the process into core project stages and assign a budget to each stage. This is helpful, especially in larger proposals, as it provides more transparency on where that final total is coming from. Since I brought up budget on the initial phone call and demonstrated the importance of each step of the process earlier in the proposal, usually, there are no surprises here.
Once everything looks crystal clear to me, I’ll send the proposal off to the client to review. I’ll usually offer a time to discuss the proposal over a call, but generally, they’re pretty easy to understand. I also respect peoples time, and while going through the proposal in person or over zoom might be helpful, I understand that my clients are generally very busy and the value they’d receive from me guiding them through a very easy to understand document is likely negligible compared to the amount of extra time that meeting might take out of their day.
So, assuming the client is happy the proposal and wants to proceed with the project, it’s on to the third step.
Step 3: The pre-production questionnaire.
Each type of project will denote a specific type of questionnaire that will be used, however, the ethos behind why I use them remains the same regardless of the type of project. This ethos is broken down into three main goals.
Goal 1: Gather Important Information
The first goal is simple, but if overlooked, can cause project delays and might even spend some social capitol with your client. The number one thing I want to do with each questionnaire is gather all of the important information I’ll need in order to complete the project. This section of the questionnaire is usually most extensive for web design projects, but I find that any project will come with its own set of information that you’ll want to have readily available before starting any work. Some examples of information I’ll grab here are login credentials (how to access company portals, cloud platforms, or company website), project manager contact info (who to contact about what/who to keep in the loop on progress), and accounting info (where to send invoices). This way, I know I won’t get help up in the middle of a project because I sent something to the wrong person, didn’t write down a password and had to wait for a response from someone to get it again, etc. Asking for this kind of information in the middle or even end of a project not only causes unnecessary delays, it can also come across as unprofessional and could decrease a clients overall trust in my expertise.
Goal 2: Brand Alignment
Next, I’ll ask a series of questions related to brand strategy. This ensures that if the business has a clear set of brand guidelines, I’m using them to influence the work that I do so at the end of the day, everything is consistent in tone of voice, color palette, typography, etc. Also, if there isn’t a clear set of brand guidelines to go off of, this can be a great place to pause. I use brand strategy as a foundation for all of the work I do because I believe that it’s the key to remaining authentic, communicating effectively to the correct audiences, and ultimately, reaching customers that can truly benefit from your services.
If a business doesn’t have this in place, I’ll always offer a strategy session to help them build out some structure around their branding before diving head in on a project that likely would benefit greatly from a sound strategy.
Goal 3: Final Deliverables
The final goal of this pre-production questionnaire is to achieve total alignment on the final deliverables for the project. While a lot of this has likely been sorted out through the initial phone call and proposal, there still might be some things the client either isn’t aware about or hasn’t considered that could potentially have a big impact on how the work is delivered. Video projects are a great example for this, particularly when it comes to landscape vs. portrait aspect ratios. Since this obviously has a huge impact on how the video can be used, I always like to have decisions like this in writing before starting the project so that we have the conversations around it before it’s too late, and also so I have something I can point to if the final project is delivered and there is dispute around its formatting. This personally has never happened to me, but regardless, it’s always great to have something in writing.
Once the client fills out the questionnaire, I have all of the information I need to move on to the fourth and final step of my pre-production process.
Step 4: The Pre-Production Kit.
This kit distills the clients answers from the questionnaire into a visual kit that helps demonstrate what the final product will look like. Here, I like to include a series of mood boards, mock-ups, storyboards, and any other visual tools that I think will help communicate what the final product will look like. After I build out this kit, I like to schedule a meeting with the client to go over it in detail. Because there is so much visual information packed into this document, I find that it’s much easier for clients to communicate feedback if we’re both looking at the document together. This is a critical stage of the project so I want to make sure that there are no questions left unanswered. Out of everything in this pre-production workflow, I feel like this kit is the most valuable that I deliver. Not only does it really help clients visualize what the end results will look like, but it also gives me total confidence going into the production phase of the project. Even if the client isn’t totally satisfied with the kit right out of the box, by the time we work through their revisions, everyone is able to go into production feeling fired up, excited, and confident about how the rest of the project will go.
Once I’ve done the consultation call, created the proposal, sent out the pre-production questionnaire, and refined the pre-production kit, now I know with total certainty that I have everything I need as a creative to go full steam ahead into the production workflow and create something that my client can get real results from and truly be excited about.
