If you’re someone who works with different clients all of the time, it’s important that you know how to communicate with each client you have so that you can give them the results that they’re looking for. Otherwise, you could wind up having to spend far more time and money on each of your clients as you have to redo work or work through confusing communication until you know exactly what it is you should be doing.

To help you with this, whether you’re an interior designer or a freelance writer, here are three tips for better understanding what your clients want. 

Start With What They Don’t Want

Unless you’re working with someone that already has a background in the type of work that you’re doing, you and your client both might find it hard to communicate with each other at first. Especially if you’re trying to use terminology you’re familiar with but that they aren’t familiar with, it can be hard to bridge this gap.

Rather than starting with trying to get them to tell you exactly what they want, it’s often easier to start by asking your client what they don’t want or what they’d be disappointed to see. Oftentimes, people have a stronger inclination for what they hate than what they love, especially when it comes to design or creative elements. So if you can pinpoint what they don’t like, you might have an easier time pinpointing everything else about the brief. 

Learn What Their Goals Are

For most creative projects, there is some kind of solid goal behind the project rather than just trying to make something that looks great. If you can uncover what the goals are behind the project, you’ll have a much easier time helping your client to reach these goals. 

Depending on the type of work you’re doing, you should ask your client what they’re hoping to get out of the work you do for them. They might have certain feelings that they want to feel when they see the finished product, they might want things like convenience or ease as their goal, or something else entirely. Once you know their goal, you can help them work toward that with your ideas. 

Build A Relationship Of Trust For Honest Feedback

When working with clients, the main goal for you should be to give them a finished product that they love. And even with great communication at the start, there’s a good chance that things will need to be tweaked along the way until you’re able to get them just what they want. So to ensure that you’re able to bring to fruition what they’ve envisioned, you need to be open to honest feedback from them and help them feel that they can trust you to make changes when they bring up issues. 

If you want to come to better understand your clients as they hire you for projects, consider using the tips mentioned above to help make this process easier for everyone.