S03 Episode 5: Building Trust Through Roadmapping with Lionel Martin - a podcast by Brennan Dunn
from 2018-07-31T10:00
When you shop for anything, check with the business owners and ask, “How’s business going?” They will be happy to share their thoughts. Roadmapping involves interviewing and understanding a client to identify their needs and craft a solution for them. Take care of and protect your clients to develop successful and reliable results.
My guest today is Lionel Martin, a software and DevOps engineer who helps technology startups improve how they build using the Cloud. As a freelancer, he experienced the income and project roller coaster, which was very stressful. Lately, he has been doing high-value consulting. Lionel shares tips he has implemented that may benefit your company. Tactics he uses that are game changers to make a good impression on clients and get them to pay him more include being more descriptive rather than prescriptive and not having a portfolio.
Today’s topics include:
- Organizing your business and personal life: Schedule, time, and
bandwidth - Making mindset changes by setting up hands-on consulting and
roadmapping to be able to implement strategic or tactical changes - 4 Phases of Engagement: Diagnosis (identify problems), Prescription
(recommended solution), Implementation, and Reapplication - Expressing empathy during diagnosis and prescription to understand
why client is willing to spend money on you; walk in their shoes
before going directly to your comfort zone - Having hesitations and being confident enough to talk with any client
in any industry and deliver value - Having curiosity, willingness to help, and asking questions - talk
business with people - Getting qualified leads and clients involves content marketing and
focusing on strategic conversations for productizing (3 months for
productizing to packaging) - Building trust and positively changing your relationship with clients
through roadmapping; others deliver biased advice geared toward their
services Waterfall vs. Agile Development: Where do you need to get
to, where are you now, why is now bad, why is there better, and how
can you help them get there? Assess risks - Hear It Before They See It: Investing time to talk to client,
offering proposal, and getting them to buy an option
Resources and links:
Further episodes of Double Your Freelancing Podcast
Further podcasts by Brennan Dunn
Website of Brennan Dunn