Episode 36: Smart Habits for Building Lasting Relationships with Your Clients with Amanda Calvin
In today’s episode, we’ll talk about something that, as freelancers, we all aspire to achieve: building lasting relationships with our clients and leveraging those relationships to build our referral networks.
To discuss this topic, we invited a special guest to join us. She’s not a translator or an interpreter, but she works in a creative field, and we think it’s extremely valuable to look outside our profession and see what other freelancers are doing so we can learn from their approach.
We’re excited to welcome Amanda Calvin to join us today.
Amanda is an experienced graphic designer and business owner. She completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Design and Visual Communication and has extensive experience designing identities, websites, illustrations, graphics, and motion graphics for over 80 organizations across the United States. In addition to being a full-time business owner and designer, Amanda is also an adjunct professor at her alma mater, Kent State University.
Amanda prides herself on equipping clients with the knowledge and confidence that allows them to implement and maintain their visual identity long after the project is completed.
We have experienced Amanda’s work firsthand (she designed our podcast logo for us!) and have been impressed with her thorough and positive approach.
We know you'll learn some great tips from Amanda that will help you create positive experiences for clients so they’re eager to come back and refer other translation and interpreting clients to you!
Here’s what we talked about:
What services Amanda offers, what kind of clients she works with, and what her typical workday looks like
How she started her freelance business and how her career has evolved
What her client onboarding process looks like and how she builds her clients’ trust in her expertise and the solutions she offers
What she does to understand her clients’ needs and priorities and how she creates an ongoing dialogue with them
How she set up her project delivery process and what she does to invite clients to share feedback on their experience working with her
How she expands her client network through referrals
How she protects her boundaries between work and personal life
What smart habits have been crucial in her career
Resources we mentioned in this episode:
Amanda’s website: A.Calvin Design and her design services for translators and interpreters
Motion graphics developed for American Translators Association in honor of International Translation Day in 2019 and 2020
The Secret Rooms: A True Story of a Haunted Castle, a Plotting Duchess, and a Family Secret by Catherine Bailey
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