Resourceful Designer: Strategies for running a graphic design business

Are you promoting your design business through social media? [sc name="pod_ad"]Many designers don't know how to use social media to attract design clients. They post their work hoping to attract business, but all they get is a following of fellow designers. Does this sound familiar? I'm by no means an expert on social media. That's why I invited Andéa Jones of OnlineDrea  to join me and help clear...

Are you competing with discount designers? Let me start by saying that I've never lost a client to discount designers. I've had clients question my higher prices, but in the end, they ended up hiring me. I know that many designers have difficulty justifying their costs to their clients so I thought I would share what I do when a client asks "Why should I hire you when I can get that designed cheap...

Lowering your prices can hurt your design business. I was talking to a fellow designer recently who is concerned about competing on prices. He asked me what I do if a client says they can pay less for a logo at Fiverr, Upwork, 99 Designs, or any other discount design platforms. This isn't the first time I've heard this concern from a designer. You may have experienced this exact thing with your cl...

Turning down design work. The idea may seem foreign to you. Especially if you're relatively new to running your design business. If you're at a stage in your freelance career  where you're trying to establish yourself, you're trying to get your name out there; you're trying to make ends meat and pay your bills, then you might not be ready for this concept. Turning down design work may not be in yo...

Have you ever considered designing in a particular niche? Have you heard the term "The Riches Are In The Niches"? It shouldn't come as a surprise that the more focused you are on a particular sector, the more familiar with it you become. And the more familiar with it you become, the more you are perceived as the expert in that particular sector. Graphic and web design is no different. Designers wh...

Have you thought of your contingency plans? [sc name="smartpress" ]So you're running a graphic design business. You're plugging away day after day, week after week, engaging with clients and designing amazing things for them. Life is great, and you're living the dream. But what if the unexpected happened? Are you prepared? What would you do in the event of a national disaster that destroys your ho...

Do you ever feel like a fraud? In a previous episode of the Resourceful Designer podcast, I talked about Superhero Syndrome . It's when someone takes on more responsibilities than they need or should take on. Sometimes doing things they are not qualified to do instead of doing the logical thing and finding someone qualified for the task. Today I'm talking about the opposite of Superhero Syndrome....

What's holding you back? [sc name="pod_ad"]September 30 will mark four years that I've been releasing episodes of the Resourceful Designer podcast. During the time I've received hundreds of emails from people thanking me for what I do. They tell me how much I've helped them, inspired them and motivated them. There's no way for me to express how this makes me feel, knowing that me, a designer, work...

Don't waste time when you're not busy. Wouldn't it be nice to have so much design work that you don't have time during your work day for anything else? Come to think of it; I don't know if I'd like that. I enjoy a bit of downtime now and then, and I'm sure you do too. Downtime, when your brain isn't working at one hundred per cent concentrating on some important task or churning away pumping out t...

How do you charge for design work? [sc name="pod_ad"]Do you offer fixed prices to your clients or is hourly billing your pricing strategy of choice? I'm not interested in how you come up with your rate or your price. What I'm asking is, do you or don't you know how much a design job will cost before beginning the project? Today I want to share my opinion on why you should stop billing by the hour...

Do you use Cold Emails to attract clients? Equivalent to Cold Calling, Cold Emailing is when you send unsolicited email to someone without prior contact. A Cold email is a very effective way to reach out to potential new clients. So effective in fact that it's been in use since the first businesses were around. OK, maybe not cold emailing, but cold calling has been. Even before phones were invente...

Do you worry about your eyesight? Do you worry about your eyesight? As a designer, there's pretty much no escaping being in front of a screen. If you're like me, between the computer, phone and TV, you probably spend more time each day with your eyes staring at a screen than you do sleeping. Face it, we're slaves to our tech displays. Did you know that this constant exposure to one screen after an...

The Goodbye Packet Last week I told you about Client Offboarding , the process of finalising a design project and preparing a client for working together again in the future. Offboarding is a way of informing a client that you've completed the work they've paid you for, and any additional work from this point forward will be considered a new project, incurring further fees. In this last part of th...

Client Offboarding [sc name="pod_ad"]Client Offboarding is the final step in building that oh so meaningful client relationship that will keep them coming back to you time and again with more design projects. For the past few episodes, I've walked you through the various steps of Client Onboarding  — everything you need to do to turn a potential client into a paying client. But once the client is...

The Design Contract The Design Contract is the final part of the Client Onboarding Process . This vital part confirms that a potential client is now a paying client. In this series, I talked about the Client Onboarding Process as a whole before breaking it down into the individual components, the Intro Packet , the Client Meeting  and the Design Proposal . Each of these different elements helps wi...

Continuing the client onboarding process with the design proposal. Part 4 of the Client Onboarding Process is the Design Proposal. A tool you use to convince clients that you are the designer for their project. Last week I told you all about the Client Meeting . The part in the process where you learn about the client and about the project they are presenting to you. After a successful client meet...

Are you ready for your next client meeting? In part 2 of the Client Onboarding process,  I told you all about the intro packet  and how it's the foundation for setting expectations going forward with your client relationship. If the intro packet is the foundation, then the client meeting is the framing, or structure if you will. Think of the client meeting like a job interview, which in a way it i...

Do you have an intro packet for your design business? An intro packet is a tool you use to land new clients and facilitate the client onboarding process. It can either be a dedicated page on your website, a detailed PDF or better yet, a well designed and nicely printed piece to hand out to potential clients. An intro packet is a great way to create a good first impression of who you are and what y...

What is Client Onboarding? Client onboarding is the process of turning potential clients into paying clients. It's the process of introducing them to your business, addressing their questions and concerns, and ensuring they understand the services you offer and your processes while providing those services. Onboarding is all the steps from the initial contact with the client until you start workin...

Understanding Priorities will help grow your design business. Whether your design business is still new or you've been doing this for many years, I'm betting you started it feeling greedy. Meaning you took on any design work that came your way. That's OK. Not many designers just starting their freelance career are picky about the type of work they take on. I'm not talking pricing. Just because you...

What does a designer do on April Fools Day? This week's release happens to fall on April Fools Day. The one day of the year where tomfoolery, shenanigans and levity abound. A day when you put all seriousness aside and let out your inner practical joker. I thought of trying to pull one over you by starting off saying something like "I've decided to end the podcast, and this will be my last episode"...

How much thought do you devote to protecting your WordPress website? [sc name="pod_ad"]I want to share something that happened to me this week. I came home from a nice lunch with friends to both an email and urgent voicemail message from a client saying someone had hacked their website and their URL redirected to a porn site. This is a relatively large client of mine that gets a decent number of v...

Building Client Loyalty = Repeat Business I have to preface today's topic of building client loyalty by saying everything I'm going to talk about here won't help you if you are not a good designer. You don't have to be an amazing designer, simply being a good one will do. As long as you know what you are doing, then you will benefit from today's topic. Face it; if you are not a good designer, ther...

Have you ever considered selling digital products? Selling digital products is a great way to put your design skills to the test. Not only will you challenge yourself to come up with great ideas, but if you're successful, you can make excellent money doing it. I've never tried selling digital products myself so on this episode of Resourceful Designer; I'm happy to be joined by Tom Ross, the founde...

Do you have an organization strategy? I was recently leafing through an old business magazine from the early 2000s, and I came across an article on organization skills. Specifically, organization skills to help you regain control over your schedule, your environment and your life. Although this article wasn't about design, I found a lot of what it said still applies to today's businesses and us as...