GETTING CLIENTS IS LIKE CATCHING CAIMAN

Getting clients as a designer might involve smelly fish guts, but if that’s what it takes - that’s what it takes.

A bit like catching a caiman on Naked and Afraid.

Last night Kaela caught a Caiman after about a week’s worth of trial and error.

That caiman turned into caiman stew, caiman jerky, bbq caiman and even a pair of shoes.

It sounds complicated and crazy, but essentially if you want to catch a caiman all you need to do is -

Grab a fishing line.

Get a medium sized hook.

Attach some rancid fish guts.

Hang it over the spot where the caiman are coming to find food.

Wait.

The problem with catching caiman and catching clients is that you don’t know where to start.

They don’t have the right hooks.

They don’t have any bait.

They don’t have any lines in the water.

And mostly, it’s because THERE”S NO CAIMAN WHERE THEY ARE FISHING!

When a great designer comes to me with that problem - the fix is usually straight forward.

Get clear on who you want to catch (the client).

Put some lines in the water (content and outreach)

Add some fish guts (in this case offers to the market and maybe a freebie or two).

Hang them out where you know the clients are hanging out (Slack, Linkedin, Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook, IRL?).

Wait for them to catch you a client.

Designers get stuck because they don’t know what they want to catch, they don’t have any lines in the water, and they don’t know what bait to use.

You’re already a good hunter, a survivalist, you just need to learn how to catch some caiman.

Then you’ll be smashing back caiman jerky for days like Dan Hoye one of our legendary clients who said -

“Before this, I had no pipeline. Now I have projects booked for months ahead and new opportunities constantly coming in.”