Lesson 6 - The timeline page

Delivering creative work to clients is different than normal creativity. When you make films or designs or take photos for your own projects, that process is usually lacking one key competent: a launch date. Even if you do set a launch date for your personal projects, it’s unlikely that delays cost thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

For a brand, delays can cost a lot.

This is why it’s essential to explain to your clients on discovery calls how long your process takes. Businesses have launch dates. If they don’t hit those launch dates they could miss out on holiday traffic, influencer endorsements, or revenue. Even if a delay doesn’t cost a brand a lot of money, it could cost your connection at the brand respect with their bosses.

On a discovery call, taking your clients through a timeline page not only helps them plan how far out they need to hire you, it gives them confidence that you can do the job at all. This is another key way to differentiate yourself from other creatives pitching for the project. While they blab on about “storytelling” and their creative process, you’ll be proving to your client that you have a plan, and you know how to deliver for them on time.

Depending on the service offerings you’re explaining to your client on a discovery call, you might need one page to explain your process. Maybe you need a dedicated timeline page for each of your services. Maybe it’s a grid view, or a calendar view for them to compare. (This is something I dive into with clients who book the Capabilities Deck Workshop—we build the ideal deck based on their services to make them as clear as possible.)

This is also a great moment to help your client imagine what life looks like for them in the near future based on your timelines. “In three weeks, you could have a batch of 10 social assets,” you might say on a discovery call. “By the middle of next month, you could see your commercial running during an episode of Stranger Things.”

Just a little icing on the cake.

Tune in tomorrow. We’ll be discussing the most important page in a capabilities deck. The page that’s most likely to get clients to tell you their budget.