Get Over US$1 Million Dollars Worth Of Sales Expertise
As you know, we’re always on the lookout for ways to help you improve your business and maximize your success through resources and content. Today, we’re writing to let you know about something which could potentially have a dramatic impact on your business, it’s called the Million Dollar Challenge.
The Million Dollar Challenge is a fabulous collaborative program put together by a business TV channel. It provides a select group of businesses with the opportunity to get access to world-leading advice from top experts, as well as tailored campaigns and marketing resources for their business, on a risk free basis.
During a global “recession” this is surely something worth investigating.
We’ve looked into this further, and we’re mighty impressed. It is something which is perfectly aligned for any business which has a solid product, service or model, but is just not growing fast enough. It’s also perfect for a business which is frustrated by failed attempts at business development, or is concerned about ROI from marketing efforts.
Current participants range from a high-end software company to an executive search firm. There are also SME’s on the Million Dollar Challenge.
We asked yourBusinessChannel if we could tell all of our contacts about this program. They’ve set up an explanatory video for you to view here. If you are interested, you can also answer a few simple questions online to apply straight away.
This is a great video and really gets to the point of clients abusing vendors and service providers. I am sure every designer has had this happen to them more than once.
A smooth, efficient and reliable design business is often the result of implementing smart business systems. Does this sound like your firm?
Implementing reliable business systems is one area where I wish I put a little more emphasis when first starting my business. Besides doing all the design there was often little time left for the business end (billing, marketing, contracts, etc.) and putting reliable systems in place.
Why is this important? For a number of reasons, the first being it can free you up from having to do/create repeatable actions. If there is no process in place you tend to do things a bit differently each time.
Second, you want to shift your paradigm from working in the business” to working “on the business”. This means you want to shift your mentality to having systems in place (like a franchise) so it can operate independent of you.
So start to investigate what “systems” you have in place. Make a list, then try to identify a system (or procedure) that can automate it.
Examples of ways to automate include: using templates, process automation apps, autoresponders, defined roles & responsibilities and automatic payments among many others.
And a system does not have to mean a $4000 CRM software solution, it can mean hiring your sister to do your books on a defined basis or giving regular work to a virtual assistant. An added bonus is that a highly systematized business is much more valuable if you ever consider selling it.
Another company doing logos on the cheap ( http://logotournament.com/ ). I guess what really chaps my tail is that designers are dumb enough to sign up for this low pay junk or no pay at all competitions. Are they really that desperate to get money for their work that they will submit logo designs and hope to get selected so they can earn a measly $200 to $300? Now I am starting to think the designers are to blame and not these site creators, or maybe it is a little bit of both causing these troubled times in our industry.
My favorite comment on the home page of this site is “See your first company logos within hours, not weeks.” Well heck and shucky darn, what a bargain, I can get a logo in hours compared to a real designer who would actually put some freaking effort into the design, research and do true branding studies.
Okay, one more funny comment, “No Photoshop/PSD logo designers allowed. We are professional logo design community and strongly believe that a logo must come in a true vector format.” Well, if only having your logo in EPS format makes your logo a good logo, then I guess they are right. What the heck about research and development, what about time to understand your client and their business?
For the same effort you put into signing up for one of these competions, you could spend that same time getting quality higher paying clients in your own local community or surrounding towns. I just cannot see how this could be beneficial, it is just hoping again for Blue Sky to come raining down on you with cash from the heavens. Good luck with that, because even if you did get paid by this site and their client for your logo, you are coming out on the short end of the stick and worked your butt off for just a few bucks.
Overall, you would be better off submitting your designs to stock and template sites, you would get a better return on your time and could sell more than just one logo.
Well, I just got off the phone with a total idiot. They wanted to create a networking site for realtors where an agent can signup and create a profile and have direct engagements with other agents through different email lists and groups. Basically a dumb down version of Facebook. I chatted with him a little and then came the words “donate my time”. Then the conversation went on where I would donate my time now and then once the site started to get traffic, then they would solicit home inspectors to buy ads and then I would get a cut of those ad sales.
Needless to say, I told him there was no way I could donate my time on such a massive project. I explained that he would be looking at $15,000 to $20,000 minimum for developing, designing and branding such a site. Which technically, that is on the cheap side of the fence too.
I then proceeded to tell him that I do not work on Blue Sky promises and that I could only do the work if they were willing to pay for it. Of course he said no (and he seemed to get mad a little), and then I told him that no designer in their right mind would do such a large amount of work for free in hopes to get future work and income based off of an idea that might or might not work. And, then I hung up on him!
I know hanging up on someone is rude, but I have to say this, I am dang tired of dealing with these types of idiots and have no patience for them. I am not burning any bridges since there were no bridges to burn. Besides, who needs referrals from clients like this? Not me! I can just see it now, everyone they refer to me for a Web site design project will want free design work and if the site does well, they will pay me then. What a freaking joke!!!!!
It is time to stand your ground as a designer and blow these people off and laugh in their face. These people are not just ignorant, but they are flat out scammers looking for a free ride! They pray on desperate designers looking to build their portfolios with the promise of blue sky when in reality, the sky is black and dark with doom and financial ruin.
Stay far away from these “evil doers”. Use that time to get real clients that are willing to pay you real money for your hard work.
Avoid these 7 surprising “critical” firm killers and success for you will be just around the corner.
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. Read the rest of this entry »
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:
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?
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!
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. Read the rest of this entry »
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. Read the rest of this entry »
Sometimes your ideal customer and your *actual* customer can be two completely different animals causing you much frustration. Here’s a few thoughts on how you can “sync” these up so you can market smarter and more effectively.
On the surface it seems like a pretty basic question but if you dig a little deeper it gets more and more interesting.
