The Top 7 Myths of Creative Firm Profitability

1. Thinking that just being a “great designer” alone is going to make your design business successful

The biggest misconception is that being a “great designer” is enough. What is critically more important is marketing and your relationships to those you market to. You could have a bunch of dead-beat clients who are “one and done” who do nothing but penny-pinch and are never seen or heard from again (unless it’s the next “emergency”).

These are the clients you do NOT want. What you do want are the steady, high-value, repeat clients who are willing (and pre-disposed) to referring others to you and who know the value of design and are WILLING to pay for it.

To accomplish this you need to have a “system” in place to attract new clients and a system to continue an ongoing relationship with them (via a newsletter, fax updates, tele-seminars, etc) The good news is once you HAVE a PROVEN system in place you can get be free to create “great design”

2. Believing all you need to do is “get your name out there”

What does that mean exactly, “Get your name out there?” Well, I know it means paying a lot of dough to have “brand advertising” or “brand awareness” Of course when you are in the design business that is all you see – it is everywhere. But it rarely works for the freelancer and small design studio owner. It just sits there likely a moldy blanket gathering dust and moth balls.

So allow me to suggest direct marketing. I know this is “taboo” in the design world but I KNOW it works. With DM you receive instant feedback on your campaign as to whether your marketing is working or not because it DIRECTLY asks for the user to take action through creative offers, guarantees, attention-getting headlines, emotional copy, multiple bonuses and more. With DM you ONLY pay for direct RESULTS.

Bottom line is we want our hard-earned marketing dollars to be efficient and effective.
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Good Blog Articles on Stupid Clients! Also a Good Web Design Checklist too.

I have to say I found these three articles to be to the point. They show what is involved in design and client changes and seeing things laid out like this might be a good idea to slap your bad client around with a printed copy of these just to teach them a freaking lesson. 😉

13 Reasons Being A Web Designer Sucks

A Website Design & Development Project Checklist

10 Reasons Your New Website Won’t Launch Today

Cheap Design Companies Suck!

Cheap logo companies devalue professional graphic design services. They offer logos as low as $100 with unlimited revisions. That comes out to about $5 per hour that you would make on a logo if you spent 20 hours on the project for a small local business. I can tell you the last time I made $5 an hour was back in 1990. Here are some links on this subject:

Why logo design does not cost $5.00

Why Logos Should Cost More Than $300

Logoworks.com Rip-Offs

Your logo makes me barf

Any design project takes time. There are several steps to take when creating a logo or a Web site.

These same companies that offer cheap logos also offer cheap Web site design services. The same problems noted above on the links I have provided are the same for Web design. Many of the designs are templates, nothing really custom and probably stolen from ligament designers or businesses. How else could logoworks.com or other cheap logo sites offer design services for so freaking cheap?

Read more on the CreativePublic Business Q&A section — Question #2
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This is a fun site – Web pages that suck!

With that said, I have a client who recently came to my business asking me to estimate on a shopping cart site. She was having a terrible time trying to figure out these Web site design tools that Godaddy.com sold her and told her how easy it was to design her own shopping cart site for cheap. Well, first off, that is just bad business selling a customer who knows nothing about ecommerce and telling them how easy it is to setup their own shopping cart!

She gave up on Godaddy and came by my office. I gave her an estimate of $7,000 which she was quite surprised how expensive it was. I explained that there is lots and lots of time involved, which included: meetings, the design process, training to use the shopping cart, training on how to update site content, helping setup inventory and inventory tracking, plugging the shopping cart into Quickbooks accounting program, help with getting a merchant account, secure certificate setup, hosting setup, image cropping and color correction, and so much more. Godaddy.com or any cheap Web site design company will not help you with this and if they do, there will be costs involved and not on the cheap. 

You see, these cheap companies draw in the client who does not know better and has not done their research. These cheap companies target these folks saying they will make their life better, “just buy from us and we will get you a great logo and Web site for cheap”. Then, you know what happens? The client realizes how screwed they got and did not get what they thought they were paying for. If they would have gone to a professional designer in the first place, this would not have happened.

Keep in mind, it is all about educating your customers. Tell your customers about logoworks and how they conduct business, tell your clients it is not as easy as Godaddy.com makes it sound to setup a shopping cart site. If they decide not to do business with you, then it is their loss. More than likely, if they did not do business with you and preferred to go to logoworks for their project, you are better off not having that person as a customer. The cheap customer is always the most trouble for a business!

Asking For Money From Your Client

by Jason Baird – weboutsourcing.com

I want you to ask for money and want you to do it frequently. If they won’t pay you shouldn’t play.

People have crazy ideas so don’t expect them to be reasonable.

If someone talks to you about a project, you should do enough work for free to figure out what the client wants and how much it might cost. No more or less than that.

Meeting them in person is good too but you might want to at least throw out some sort of money amount for a minimum project. If that minimum amount gives them cold feet then you shouldn’t bother to meet with them. They might be calling up 5 companies and they will just get free ideas from you.

Give them a proposal, which can be extremely brief, but give them something that describes what they want and what you will deliver. You can put a range if you want, and you could even say that this is a “good faith estimate” but that the final amount will be based on time spent.

Then ask them for a downpayment to begin work. People and companies can change their minds for all sorts of reasons. If they want it done fast, they can pay fast. Reason they might change their mind after you think you have a deal include the president or owner having other ideas or a cousin in the business, a sudden cashflow or budgetary freeze at the company, the marketing person getting fired, the company getting bought out and on and on. 

I advise not doing any designs on speculation. They assure you they want to do business with you but they “Want to see what you have in mind” for the project. Don’t do this unless you are willing to risk doing all the work for free. I will not do it. Some clients have horrific tastes and will not like anything you do. Once you start doing stuff for free when do you stop? Mmm I like those designs but can you change the blue to red and change out those pictures to something else?  

Well, mr. client, I sure can, if you want me to do that I need a downpayment for half the amount of what I estimate to be the total amount for that peice of the project. If you do the designs for free, make sure you immediately close that door once they like it or don’t like it. Don’t let them keep dragging the free out.
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Celebrate Your Humble Victories

by Doug Farrick

By taking the time to celebrate our small, humble victories we reinforce a “success mentality” and allow ourselves to enjoy the process all the more.

We all have small, humble victories as we move forward in our journey as creative professionals.

I remember when I first started my design business. My wife helped me find the location and also helped me paint. Tuscany yellow on one side and apple green on the other. Plus all the legal stuff, equipment, etc. It was a lot.

But after it was complete I remember we had a glass of champagne on the floor at dusk to celebrate. It sort of capped off that particular project and made that small celebration in the new office something I will always remember.

Since that time I have tried to practice the same ritual in celebrating

It is not enough to recognize your humble victories but you should celebrate them. I believe we need to take time and reflect upon how these “little victories” build upon each other, one day at a time, until you are standing at the top of your profession.

Celebrating your successes no matter how small also helps build confidence in yourself. For example, every time I landed an A-list account I bought that champagne. It was a way to reinforce a “success mentality” which have allowed me to take on larger and larger challenges.

So give yourself permission to celebrate your humble victories – whether they be for landing that marquee design client, taking that public speaking program, setting up a new office system or any other milestone.

It will make your journey all the more sweeter.

I hate taxes!

Yes, I said it. I hate taxes, who doesn’t? I know why we have to pay them, taxes help build roads, infrastructure, schools and more. However, don’t you as a small business owner, get sick and tired of working your ass off to pay these banksters who are getting our tax dollars?

Think about it, the government takes about 12% to 15% or more of your hard earned money and for what? Depending on how much you make a year, that equals a lot of time you work just to pay the government so they can give your money away to big banks and corporations. Think about this, if you make $100,000 a year you would be paying close to $15,000 in taxes for the year. That means you work about 2 full months to pay the government only, that is not fair at all and to watch it go to waste is a kick in the teeth to me.
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Time to Retreat?

We all need time to get away from our design work and “re-charge” our creatives batteries. Problem is – do we do it often enough by actually planning for a “retreat”.

Think about giving yourself some time off by planning a personal, partner or family retreat. I know this sounds like common sense but how often do you actually plan it and then follow through?

I suggest planning a retreat at least once a month whereby you take the complete weekend off (if you don’t already) and engage with others in “non-work” activites – like plan a weekend to visit tag sales or go hiking or just work together around the house.

Or, if a personal retreat, treat yourself to a spa for a massage and complete pampering or rent a cabin in the mountains for a few days and enjoy the marvels of nature or head to your nearest big city and take in play or visit some museums.

Although a retreat may feel like an indulgence it serves the same purpose of refreshing your mind and re-charges your creativity.

Use These Secret “Public Domain” Photo and Illustration Resources for Your Next Creative Project(s)

Here are some little known, quality public domains (that means free) photograph and illustration sites that can be used immediately for your current or upcoming creative business projects.

What does Public Domain mean exactly? A work is in the public domain if it is no longer protected by copyright. This means you can copy and use the work freely, including preparation of derivative works and use of images commercially without infringing or violating anyone’s rights.

There are so many stock photo sites on the web that it becomes difficult to keep track of all of them. But who has the time to hunt all these down?

If you visit the same ones regularly (anyone heard of istock?) it might surprise you to know just how much free quality public domain photos, illustrations are out there. It’s massive.

Although all of these sites have been reviewed as public domain please practice due-diligence in re-reading each websites terms of use.

Public Domain Sites

Open Clip Art:

http://www.openclipart.org

Print and Photographs Online Catalog:

http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/catalog.html

Karen’s Whimsy:

http://karenswhimsy.com/public-domain-images/

Library of Congress:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html

Public Domain Media:

http://web4j1.lane.edu/libraryservices/mediainst/graphicsguide.html

United States Government Photos and Multimedia:

http://www.usa.gov/Topics/Graphics.shtml

United States Department of Defense:

http://www.defenselink.mil/multimedia/

Free Images and Sounds from Microsoft:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/clipart/default.aspx

Ebooks on the web:

http://libweb.lib.buffalo.edu/ft/EBooks.html

stock.xchng:

http://www.sxc.hu/

http://www.sxc.hu/info.phtml?f=help&s=8_2 (terms)

MorgueFile:

http://www.morguefile.com/

Pixel Perfect Digital:

http://www.pixelperfectdigital.com/free_stock_photos/

http://www.pixelperfectdigital.com/terms (terms)

Image After:

http://www.imageafter.com/index.php

http://www.imageafter.com/terms.php (terms)

Free Photos Bank:

http://www.freephotosbank.com/

http://www.freephotosbank.com/index.php?action=show&cat=terms (terms)

YotoPhoto:

http://yotophoto.com/

Visualizing Your Design Success

I know, you’ve heard it all before – visualize what you want and it will magically “pop” into your reality, yeah, yeah, yeah. But hear me out.

See, you need to “practice” visualization in a specific way to achieve any results.

First, when you visualize an activity, your muscles actually undergo electrical impulses that correspond exactly to the physical actions you are imagining – you’re muscles effectively “learn” what you want them to accomplish.

Optimally, you want to be in as relaxed a state as possible (you can even do this while driving) Then start “seeing” yourself producing positive outcomes (this will take time to get used to – as it takes some time to get “re-wired” – but stick with it)

Next, and this is KEY, do your “scenes” on a regular and CONSISTENT basis (at least a few times a day).

Use this powerful (and greatly underutilized) tool to visualize key meetings, design presentations, financial goals and business growth.

Take a cue from the many super successful athletes, salespeople and business executives and you’ll be amazed at all the positive events occurring in your design business.

Who Cares About Copywriting?

by Doug Farrick

So who really cares about copywriting besides those actually making a living at it? For starters, YOU should.

I was interviewed by one of the brightest and up and coming copywriters in the business today. His name is Ben Settle. His site is: http://www.bensettle.com. Ben wanted to discuss how to better use design when copywriters are designing their marketing pieces. 

We had a terrific conversation that covered the gamut of issues regarding copywriting and design. Of course the design is very important but the words are even more so. They really drive the tone or “voice” of the piece.

If you do not really know much about copywriting or copywriting principles I would get on a fast track to learning them.
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