All Posts, Marketing, Web Design
So you made the jump from a safe, warm, and cozy job to the freedom of freelancing. You’ve dreamt about it for so long, wondering how the sun feels during the day while you were locked away behind a fluorescent lit cubicle isles and rows from the nearest window. Well you’ve arrived; so now what? How are you going to pay your bills, grow your skills, and market your skills on a shoe-string budget? Keep reading…
One of the more important characteristics of a successful is maintaining a steady flow of work. That work may come from agencies, current, or new clients. To me, each creative will find their own way to attain their own work but below are a few tips to try:
Online Agencies: These are good because most of the risk is on them so long as you hold up your end of the bargain. If you’re great at creating logos, but really don’t like to get into haggling and negotiating prices, these places are for you. You can create a profile, list your skills, and post your rate per hour or project. Then wait for the emails to come in. You’ll want to do some market research though so that you’re not too high or too low that you price yourself out of work or respect.
Network Locally: This one may be a step out of your comfort zone. Yes we have social media now a days and we can hide behind our keyboards, smart phones, and laptops but live networking still is held in high regard. Find out when and where other business professionals are hanging out after hours; then be there with them. Bring your business cards, but don’t pass them out like free tickets. Instead try making conversation first. Ask individuals what they do and repeat it back to them along with points of view while including their name here and there to show that you are paying attention to them. Before you know it, they’ll ask you for your card and then you can tell them about how awesome you are at design and how much fun you have helping people grow their business and brand.
Sponsor a Community Event: Pro-bono may be a great way to start out especially if you’re skittish about how people may appreciate your work. It’s also great experience in dealing with customers. You’ll run into all kinds, and before long you’ll have favorites and you’ll have some you wish you never met. As a self-starter, your reputation is everything so doing a free design or website for a local church could win you a lot of “oooohhhs” and “ahhhhs” from the members who all work in the community. A few thank yous and nice words from some non-profit organizations that rub shoulders with city officials could propel you to great levels. So even though the money may not have been there, you’ll still have new material for your portfolio, highly visible clientele, and letters of recognition you can tout around like trophies.
Embrace Social Media: This one comes with a grain of salt. There are many outlets out there to use. Find two or three that you can really wrap your mind around and feel comfortable using – and use them! Post daily, post often, but keep in mind you’re looking to engage first. The selling of your skills will be evident enough in your bio. Use it to showcase new designs you created. Get people to rate or comment on your work or even offer opinions and feedback. Learn how to strike up good conversations that may provide some great insight to someone’s problem or project and that could land you a job right then and there or not long down the road since you sound like you know what you’re talking about.
Your Portfolio: Well after showing off and practicing your elevator speech, you must have a place for all these people to view your work and vet your skills. Even if you don’t want to set up a full-out 50 page website that has all types of forms, sub pages, and FAQ’s with endless breadcrumbs, you should still have an online presence. I’ve seen some really nice designer websites that were nothing more than full-width graphics stacked, scrolling, or animated with just a contact page with a phone number and 3 line form. Be versatile though with your displays so that businesses of most industries can envision you doing their work and not think you’re just a niche designer. Unless however you want to be tied to a specific industry. Nothing wrong with that. Let me also mention blogging. A great way to provide great tips on your trade that not only shows insight, but proves you are the authority on that subject matter.
Well for those of you who’ve been doing this for some time, why not offer some tips to others in the comments below.
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If you’ve been in the business of design for over a year you know that each new client you get is going to be different from the last. Some are more hands on and like to micro-manage, others are so “relaxed” they may take weeks or months to get you material you need to get their design project started/finished. The thing is, you never really know until you start working with them.
The Eager to Get Started Client
These are great at first. They’re so enthused by their vision and business;excited about everything that comes out of your mouth and can’t wait to get the ball rolling. Problems could start arriving as soon as you leave the initial consultation visit. Haven’t heard back from them, no responses in email, and deposit is yet to be paid.
The best way to handle these clients is by setting clear expectations – of them as customers. You set the pace on how the project plan is going to play.
The “I Need it Done Yesterday” Client
You get a call out of the blue from some firm looking to get a new website up and running like now. Whether you take on the project should depend on your current workload but you take it anyway because it’s money. Now that you have, they’re nitpicking everything and what should have been a quick delivery turn around is becoming a nightmare on design street.
When dealing with these types of clients be sure to share your project timeline with them highlighting the go/no-go points that require their acceptance and input.
The “I Trust Your Judgment” Client
Now these could be good and bad depending on how many department heads have decision rights. You’ve got a clear road to do what you need to all the way to the finish line of this project. They haven’t really given you much to work on outside of their logo. But when the time comes to show them the almost finished production they’re not happy with just about everything you did saying they “thought you understood what their direction was.”
The phrase “I trust your judgment” should be your red flag that frequent pulse checks and design reviews will be needed.
The Not-So-Computer-Savvy Client
There are a lot of these out there. Care for them like they’re your one and only. Sometimes these clients have all the ideas to make your project a smooth sailing one. Bullet points, flow charts, great selling examples, workflows, graphics. But they’re all in their head – or at least not in a media format you can use. Trying to walk them through file extractions, email, or other types of technology could be a bit frustrating. But there is hope if you’re within driving distance of them.
Start compiling your own dump folder of easy to follow training material to address your most common questions. You’ll find those training docs will come in handy .
I could go on to name a bunch more, but the moral of this story is communication. It’s up to you as the designer to get into the head (or heads) of those in charge of the business to create something that is a worthy representation of their business. Assuming is never a good option, and neither is procrastination. Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.
All Posts, Web Design
We’ve all had different types of jobs referred to us by all different types of people. Some referred by other business associates, and some by friends and family. However, one could easily assume that a job for a friend or family member would be easier than one for an unknown client with no strings attached. Doing word for family and friends comes with a host of warnings. I’m going to lay out 5 quick ones:
1. They may expect you to give them the world and in return expect you to do it for free. This is dangerous because it treads on your patience. If you’re just starting out and need to beef up your portfolio this may be a great idea. But if you’re a bit seasoned and have actual paying client then decide on this “charity” work, you may end up in more work than you originally planned.
2. Your work may be subject to difficult scrutiny. Because this is for a “buddy” they are obviously closer to you than your clients. This closeness presents an open arena for them to nit-pick every little thing they possible can about the work you’re doing for them.
3. Actually getting paid. Most designers charge a deposit or retainer for new projects. No work gets started without that. A family member could easily tell you that they’re going to pay you when they “get their check” or give you excuses about all the free things they’ve done for you in the past.
4. Liability. This is a strong warning here because if something goes wrong during the project development, or even after, you’re on the hook not only as a producer but also as a friend. You may be expected to pay for some unseen expenses or even damage control when it may not even be your fault.
5. The separation of friend and client. This may be difficult because you may have daily conversations with this person and part of those conversations need to be cut short in order to talk about business. Its easy when business talk is daydreaming and forecasting on the end result of the project, but when it needs to be about payment, deliverables, due dates, and other key elements of the project it could cause for some phone silence.
I personally have a few experiences dealing with family. I’d say out of four, 1 was truly successful. The other three I’m still wondering what happened or what is going on. And they range from missed payments to projects that were assumed to be free just because.
Your time is valuable, remember that. As a freelancer you really need to focus on what actually makes you money. You don’t really have time to get involved with extra stuff that distracts you from what really matters. Now I say that with a grain of salt, because exposure is exposure. You could have a friend or relative that could render your project some great media attention that gives you a huge boost. That boost may be worth looking over my 5 warning signs above.
I’d love to hear you’re responses to work you’ve done for friends and/or relatives. Had great experiences, let me know your best. Had some bad ones, I’d sure love to gripe with you.
Web Design
Maybe I should have titled this, falling behind on “my” projects, since that’s where I’ m coming from anyways. Recently I’ve moved my family from Connecticut back to Florida. Orlando Florida is now the new home of Design Theory. Though that’s my main excuse for falling behind on my projects, it still remains just that; an excuse.
When times are good as a freelancer, your phone is ringing every other day with a new potential client. Some calls may be just for price quotes, while others may be for proposed work that needs to be done yesterday. (I’m not even getting into that). We all like to sign new deals, and get that first deposit to get started on a fresh new project. It’s a new chance to be more creative, use new skill sets, photoshop brushes, whatever. It’s exciting talking to this new client and getting to know them and providing feedback on what they want. But how do you feel when it’s 3 months later and things haven’t really progressed as much?
You’ve got 35% of the project done or started and getting more information from your client is like pulling teeth. Or you have four or more projects that have all exceeded your projected time of delivery and they’re all needing to be done. Or you’re chasing after clients for final payments and just making those phone calls to collect is daunting enough not to want to do it at all. All of these excuses have a negative effect on your job performance.
So what do you do about it? Well there are already a bunch of lists out there from many well-known authors like David Allen or Mark Forster, or Timothy Ferriss to name a few. One thing that has worked for me is to start each day off with doing the least project or task that I truly want to do. You know that boring one or the one that really is outside of your comfort zone. Once that’s out of the way, I personally feel better about myself and more accomplished. It also makes my remaining tasks so much easier to complete.
There really aren’t too many good excuses for falling behind. Especially when you’re contractually obligated to a project for your clients. They have deadlines and expectations too. Thinking about the big picture outside of yourself is necessary to being a great freelancer and it also gains respect. If you have any tips on how to keep from falling behind please be sure to share in the comments below.
All Posts, Web Design
As a designer, either in graphics, coding, programming, or in web, we tend to get totally involved in our projects. A lot of times we juggle more than two projects at a time without our clients even knowing, but still providing full support and service. Over time we get used to this type of multi-tasking without even thinking about it, scheduling time to plug in updates, billing, and more. Now what about projects and to our own websites? When will we have time to post new blogs? Update images and links? Yea, this is one of those things I can say (generally speaking) that we all put of way too much.
Between client emails, conference calls, meetings, and the occasional work here and there, it’s hard to find the time to actually do work on our own projects. That includes updating those little annoyances about our work that people may have caught and we still haven’t had time to fix. You also have to consider time to learn new apps and technologies pertaining to your trade.
I’ve learned that time management is such a necessity but is often overlooked. Most of us pretty much go about our days with a general idea of what tasks we will accomplish. Whatever is most important and approaching a deadline, we put to the top of our list of things to do, and the rest is a bonus or shelved for a later date. However there are days where this could totally bite us in the rear for lack of planning. I’ve come up with 5 quick and easy ways to find ways to get to our own projects while keeping in step with our client ones.
1) Populate your calendar down to the hour. This may seem like a big task, but once you get it started and up to date, filling in your tasks and projects by the day and hour will really help you find open times.
2) Create a To-Do List. There are many books out there on Getting Things Done (GTD), and all will recommend a list of some sorts with all of your tasks. Since we’re so tech savvy, there are also smartphone apps and web sources to help with this also. Toodledo is a great free one to get you started.
3) Set Realistic Goals. If you know you need to make some serious adjustments to your own site or work, set a goal for when you want to complete it. Not just a mental one, but actually write it down and place it somewhere that you’ll be constantly reminded of it. Be sure to make these goals tangible. After completing a few you’ll feel proud and accomplished.
4) Eliminate the fluff. The constant checking in on your social sites, spam email accounts, watering the plants, watching sunsets, calling to check on mom. You know what I mean. These fillers are nice “fluff” but take away from what you really need to get done. Though it may be important
5) Make yourself accountable. Now this may be the toughest off all, but I promise it works. Being a freelancer, you really are only accountable for your deliverables to yourself and your client. As an employee, your tasks need to get done so that the next person in line can do theirs. So appoint a fellow designer, friend, or significant other to monitor your projects. Maybe start with the big ones at first so you don’t start resenting them with the smaller tasks and projects.
If you’ve come up with ways other than what I’ve described please let us know in the comments below. It’s all about helping others improve, and we all know we can use improvements every now and again.
