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Jack Redley
Lead Generation

How To Get Webflow Retainer Clients

February 14, 2023

Freelancing sounds amazing in a lot of ways - the well known ideas of working on your own terms, choosing when and where you work and deciding how much you earn all sound perfect, right?

Like everything in life though, it’s not all daffodils and roses - freelancing does have incredible benefits when you have mastered your craft, have a knowledge of how to play freelancing game and have created enough brand awareness for yourself which seems to only come after being in the arena for a while (I am nowhere near that level yet).

If you’re starting out though, maybe you aren’t getting consistent inbound inquiries for work. Maybe you have slow months when you have very little work. Maybe you’re not able to choose the perfect projects for you because you just need work. If that’s you, retainers could be really powerful for you.

What Is A Retainer?

A retainer is a set price for a clearly defined scope every month.

Why Are Retainers Good For You As A Freelancer?

You might be thinking “Jack, I want new exciting projects all the time! I don’t want to work on a website I have already made for a client?”

That’s a fair point. It’s not always the most fun doing tasks for clients on retainers. But let’s think about the benefits of retainers:

Steady Income

As a freelancer, your income might be thousands one month and NADA the next month. It doesn’t have to be like this. Retainers can be a consistent pay check every month. Freelancing is not feast or famine unless you choose for it to be to a certain extent.

Working In A Team

I know this sounds weird but as a freelancer, it’s nice to be dipping in and out of a team occasionally. Like you don’t have to come to all the boring meetings but you do get to know people a little bit which is nice. I’ve been invited by a client to come to Mexico this summer for a festival their organising which would be sick but that wouldn’t have happened unless I had been working with them on a retainer for a while!

Deeper Insight To Business Problems

While you might be making websites in Webflow, it’s important to recognise that these websites are changing and evolving depending on the needs of the company. By creating a company’s website, the job of making a company’s website presence isn’t done - in fact, it’s just the start to a certain extent. You gain a deeper insight to a company’s problems and learn from different disciplines too which can be fascinating.

How Do Retainers Help The Client?

Ease Of Use

While you may have created a beautiful style guide, built the project using client first (which comes with the most comprehensive guide on how to use it possible) and created a bank of tutorials on different website topics, your client may still struggle to use the website you have built for them. While Webflow is a relatively intuitive tool, it is still one of the more advanced no code tools out there and your client may still struggle to use it well. This is why they may want to hire you to manage the site, upload articles, change images etc.

Added Functionality

In addition, the website is an ever changing monster with pages to be added, pages to be taken away, pages to be optimised and functionality changes. This means that having someone that knows the website backwards can help grow a company’s online presence.

Peace Of Mind

While a client may not need you to make pages or fix anything major every month, the client can have peace of mind that you are able to help out with any fixes necessary.

SEO

In my limited experience as a Webflower, clients aren’t necessarily aware of how to get the most out of their website. They want advice about things like Google My Business, how to write blog posts that get traffic to their website and how to search for keywords. You may not have a huge depth of expertise in this area but I have found that the stronger I understand SEO the more I can assist retainer clients who want their website to go from being built to powering on all cyclinders. If you can clearly help them in this area, no doubt your retainer will continue long in to the future!

How Do You Get A Retainer?

After speaking to a few different webflowers, there seems to be some pretty common advice that keeps cropping up that is my experience too:

1) While working with the client, do you enjoy working with them?

This sounds painfully obvious but don’t offer retainers to any client you have. Sometimes, clients are difficult to work with - they may have all sorts of priorities they are juggling and don’t respond to messages quickly (or maybe at all…), perhaps they have a marketing manager you struggle to get on with or perhaps the client is simply not someone you necessarily want to ever see again for whatever reason. That’s fine - you don’t need to offer a retainer if you don’t want to!

If you do like working with them though, continue to step 2.

2) During the project, ask if the client would be interested in a retainer

If you are enjoying working with the client and the website needs may require your services further, explain that you offer retainers and you can discuss options. As Nikolai Bain explains in this video below, you can offer different packages which are clearly defined.

3) When project scope finishes, start the retainer with a new contract

It’s important to finish the scope of work you have been contracted for and have a start date for your retainer only after the initial build is finished. Otherwise, you may just get all sorts of extra random jobs on top of trying to design and build a website which is not on. Get a new contract signed for the retainer!

What Do You Offer In A Retainer?

There is no set formula for offering retainers. It depends on the needs of the client and also what you’re willing to do for the client.

eg. Your client may have a marketing person who will be writing articles, collecting press releases and company podcast episodes and they simply wants you to upload them every week. With a weekly meeting for an hour to talk about what needs to be done that week, you may only be spending max 10 hours a month on this client’s retainer.

On the other hand, a company may be fast moving and need landing pages built quickly. If you’re willing to do this, you might create a retainer proposal to be working 20 hours a week on a retainer for that company.

It depends how you want to spend your time. I would advise working out what you are willing to offer and try and create 3 basic packages which you can adapt depending on specific client needs.

How Much Should You Charge For A Retainer?

The big question. I wrote a long article about how much should you charge for a website which might also help think about this question.

One way of looking at this is asking yourself how much do you value your time? If you value your time at £50 an hour and you have a 20 hour a month contract, charging £1000 seems logical to me.

Like anything in life, the more you do something, the better you will get and as a result, the more valuable your time for a company is.

Final thoughts:

  • Retainers go to shit unless there is clear communication - set up a channel of communication slack or Puzzl or whatever
  • A retainer is not full time employed - sometimes, clients seem to think that since you are on retainer, you are effectively their employee who can “pop on a quick call,” whenever they are working. It’s important to stress boundaries of the retainer or you can be taken advantage of
  • You don’t need to do retainers for years if you don’t enjoy them too much - it’s great to steady the freelancing ship though and tie you over!

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