Resourceful Designer: Strategies for running a graphic design business

Do you vet potential new design clients? How do you know that you're the right designer for a project? Or maybe the question should be, how do you know a potential new design client is right for you? In the past, I've covered what to ask during a discovery session, 50 questions to ask every new design client, and four vital questions to ask your design clients about their projects. Almost all of the questions covered in those episodes are for building relationships with your clients after you've decided to work with them. But I don't think I've ever talked about that first contact with a potential new client before. First contact. The first contact refers to those times your phone rings with an unknown number, or emails you receive from unknown people or the conversations that start when someone finds out you're a designer. How do you determine during those initial first few minutes of contact if this potential new client is someone worth investing your time and energy? Because as a designer, you will hear from people who you don't want anything to do with. So what do you do? You conduct a quick, impromptu interview. First contact questions. Here are some questions I like to ask before getting too deep into a conversation. If I'm not satisfied with the answers, I politely end things before I waste too much of my valuable time. 1) What can I help you with? Cut to the chase. There's no reason to have a conversation with someone if you cannot help them. The first thing you should do is ask the client what it is they need your help with. Many people don't know what graphic or web designers do. In the past, I've had people ask me if I could redesign their restaurant's floor plan, create blueprints of their new building, develop software or apps for them, design 3D prototypes in C.A.D. and many more things I'm not capable of doing. So before wasting your time, find out if this person does indeed require your skillset. 2) How do you expect me to help? Once you've determined the client can benefit from your skillset, the next step is to find out what they expect from working with a designer and if it's worth your time. Some clients are not looking for your design or creative skills. They're looking for a person who can take the idea they already have and recreate it on paper or pixels. Some designers don't mind that kind of mindless work, but I don't. If the conversation starts with "I know exactly what I want, but I need someone to do it for me." then there's little chance I'll end up working with that client. I went into business for myself so that I can work WITH clients, not FOR clients. Now I understand that you may not be in a position to turn down work. If that's the case, I suggest trying to turn the conversation towards how you can offer more to the client than being a simple instruction follower. 3) Is there a deadline for your project? To grow and prosper in this field of design, you must form relationships with your clients, which is difficult if you're working on a tight deadline. For existing clients, it's not as big a deal since you already know them. But the first time you work with a new client, you should take the time to get to know them, their business and how best to assist them. Of course, deadlines are subjective. A two-month period for a small website project allows ample time for relationship building. However, if they say they need their site launched by next Wednesday, I suggest you pass. Regardless of how simple it sounds, if they're that rushed and under pressure, that stress will be passed on to you. Determine if the deadline is a constraint you're comfortable working within. 4) What's your position regarding this project? I ask this question because I want to know if the person contacting me is the one I'll be dealing with for the project. I've agreed to too many projects in the past only to find out later the person I thought I was working with turned out to be a middle person, and once the project started, I was dealing with someone different. I don't like is to find out after I'm hired that the person that I talked to is now out of the picture, and I'm left dealing with someone else that I haven't vetted. If I'm going to be working with the Owner, CEO, Chairman or whoever, I want to know, and I want to meet or talk to them before I agree to anything. 5) What budget did you have in mind? I know, budget is not a topic you like bringing up. But wouldn't you rather get it over with now, instead of later during a discovery or pitch meeting after investing your valuable time? I like to know right from the start if a client can afford me. If their budget is $500 for a website or $150 for a logo design, I can politely end the conversation, wish them all the best and get back to whatever it was I was working on when they called. Of course, I'm being harsh here. I don't merely brush a client off because their dollar sign is low. I explain why I charge the prices I do, and on some occasions, the person is convinced and realizes that increasing their investment is beneficial to them. But most times, after explaining why their budget doesn't fit my prices, we part ways. If they can't afford me, they can't afford me. That's just the way it is. 6) Are they able to pay my deposit? The last interview question is about payment. Depending on the project, I insist on at least a 50% deposit before starting any work. I'm strict about this. "The check is in the mail." Or "it's going through our accounting department" are not good enough excuses. I need the money in hand before I start on anything. If the client makes excuses or complaints about paying a deposit before we begin, I can only imagine how the rest of the project will go. In these cases, it's best to turn down the project. Interview the client before hearing them out. Of course, there are many other questions you should be asking a new client before agreeing to work with them. The purpose of the interview is to vet the client and quickly determine if it's worth spending any more time discussing their project. In some cases, even vetted clients don't work out. But most occasions, you can save a lot of valuable time, and possibly some big headaches by asking questions and quickly determining if the conversation is worth prolonging. What questions do you ask to vet potential new design clients? Let me know by leaving a comment for this episode. Thank you to Wireframe for supporting this episode of the podcast. Check out the new season of Wireframe by Adobe – Wireframe is a podcast all about how UX can help technology fit into our lives.

How are you going to take your design business to the next level? "What got you here won't get you there." I've heard this phrase a few times over the past couple of weeks, and it got me thinking about my life, my design career and my business. This is not about Marshall Goldsmith's book of the same title. Although I hear it's a great book. It's about the phrase itself and how it applies to you and your design business. At its core, "What got you here won't get you there" is such a simple statement, and yet it holds so much truth. You can only get so far in life if you stick with the status quo. To advance and grow further, you need to expand yourself and do things you've never done before. Otherwise, you'll never be more successful than you are right now. Are you ok with that? To never be more successful than you are right now? I know I'm not. Thinking back over my career, I can pinpoint specific times when pushing myself, learning new things, or just taking a leap propelled me to bigger and better things. I started working in the design department of a commercial printer straight out of college. I was one of several designers, all of which had attended the same design program I had, but graduated many years before me. Most had been working at that printer ever since. Being the new guy, I was at the bottom of the hierarchy. My education had gotten me where I was, but it alone wouldn't propel me any further. That was up to me. While the other designers were satisfied grinding away, day after day doing the same work, I wasn't. I didn't want to be doing the same thing day in day out. And without even realizing it, I started following the "what got you here won't get you there" principal. I read books, subscribed to magazines, attended conferences and training seminars—all to better myself. Soon, the "new guy" was teaching all the veteran designers new ways to do things. As the years went by, I kept expanding my skills and my knowledge until I was the go-to person in the design department. But was I satisfied? No, I wanted more. In the early 90s, I heard about this new thing called the World Wide Web. It was amazing. It had these pages built by programmers that you could visit with a computer to get all kinds of information. An article I read in one of my design magazines said the World Wide Web was a new frontier for graphic designers, and I was keen to conquer it. My graphic design skills had gotten me to where I was, but they wouldn't be enough for me to tackle this new avenue of design. I needed to learn how to design websites. At the start, computer programers ruled the WWW, but they made very clunky, and frankly ugly websites. Without realizing it, they were leaving the door wide open for graphic designers to build aesthetically pleasing websites that people preferred. Sites that not only easy to use but pleasant to look at and easy to use. I wanted to do that, but learning how to program would be a long and tedious road. Luckily there was this new software by Adobe called PageMill that allowed people like me to design websites without coding using a WYSIWYG interface. They later released Adobe SiteMill, then Adobe GoLive. I used these tools to build good looking websites. Before I knew it, I started a side gig designing websites from home while still working at the print shop. It was the best of both worlds. I got to design print stuff during the day and web stuff in the evenings. However, my web clients weren't as happy. They didn't relish the idea of dealing with me at the print shop for their printed material and then waiting until evening to discuss their website. If I wanted to rectify this problem, I needed to make some changes. What got you here won't get you there. I didn't know how to be an entrepreneur. But I knew it's what I needed to do if I wanted to take my career to the next level. So I left the print shop and started offering both print and web design under my own business. Now I'm not going to continue through my entire history. But suffice it to say, there are many times since starting my business that I needed to leap to "get me there." At some point, I stopped creating "pretty websites" and started offering "strategic websites." I stopped trying to do everything myself and began hiring freelancers and contractors to help with projects. This opened up a whole new world for me and allowed me to grow my business. I no longer had to turn down work I wasn't capable of or comfortable doing. Instead, I could continue to offer excellent services to my clients by farming out those parts I couldn't handle myself. I grew my team to include programmers, illustrators, photographers, designers, copywriters, translators, etc. Then at some point, I realized that charging an hourly rate for my services was not a sustainable model for growth. The only way to make more money that way was to either work longer hours, which didn't sound great. Or substantially raise my hourly rate, which wouldn't go over very well in my small town. What got you here won't get you there. So I changed my pricing strategy and started billing by the project and then later using value-based pricing. Over the years, I implemented discovery meetings, brand strategy sessions, a client onboarding process and started using contracts. All of these things helped me grow my design business. At each stage, everything I had done up to that point was not enough to get me to the next point. I had to take a leap and move beyond what I was currently doing. Are you happy with your career right now, today? Can you imagine continuing as you are right now, for the rest of your working life until retirement? If you're like me, the answer is no. You probably want bigger and better things in your future as well. What got you here won't get you there. Where do you imagine yourself in one year, two years, five years, ten years from now? What steps do you need to take today, tomorrow, next week, next month, to propel your design business to that next level? A good business person, heck, a good person in general, should never be satisfied with there current situation. They should always be striving for more. To better themselves, to grow their business, to accomplish bigger and better things. So what's stopping you from reaching that next level? Remember, what got you here won't get you there. Questions of the Week Submit your question to be featured in a future episode of the podcast by visiting the feedback page. This week's question comes from Ryan How do you handle written content on your client projects. I was wondering if you hire that out to another company, if you write it, or do you require the client to write their own content? I'm having a hard time with content for my clients websites and thought your perspective would be helpful in my decision. To find out what I told Ryan you'll have to listen to the podcast. Thank you to Wireframe for supporting this episode of the podcast. Check out the new season of Wireframe by Adobe – Wireframe is a podcast all about how UX can help technology fit into our lives.

Are you creating systems to help your design business? Mike, a member of the Resourceful Designer Community, posted in the Community Slack group his frustrations with one of his clients. Mike built, manages and updates an eCommerce website for a client of his. His frustration is that every time his client wants a new product added to the site, he fails to provide Mike with all the necessary information, requiring Mike to contact the client, sometimes more than once, for the rest of the info. Mike's situation reminded me of a similar one I had with a client several years ago. And how my frustrations forced me into creating systems to address the issue. Around 2010 a new client hired me to build an eCommerce website. This site would sell a wide and often unrelated assortment of products – everything from baseball bats, sunglasses, headphones, plastic shelf brackets, night lights and car seat warmers. And it was up to me to add every item to the site. After I launched the website, I quickly realized the process my client wanted was not going to work. He started calling me at all hours of the day and on weekends with new products to add even though I explicitly told him I work Monday to Friday from 9 am to 5 pm. And similar to Mike's situation that I mentioned above, any time my client had a new product for me to list, I would have to fight with him until I had all the content I needed to add it to the site. I know this sounds like a toxic relationship. The only caveat was that even though I was charging my client by the hour, and you can imagine how the hours would add up, he never questioned my prices, and he paid his invoices on time. I was making good money, but this client was quickly becoming a pain to deal with. A few weeks after the site launched, I finally put my foot down, and I created some systems to save my sanity. The first thing I did was alter the way I charged him. Instead of billing for my time, I started charging him $50 for the first product and $30 for each subsequent product he sent me on a given day. This change immediately stopped the random emails and phone calls. To save money, my client started saving up products and submitting them to me in bulk. The second thing I did was to create an online submission form that contained fields for all the information I needed to add a product to the website. Things like product name, description, selling price, shipping costs, size, colours, attributes, variations, etc. I made most of the form fields mandatory, so my client couldn't submit it until he had filled it out. In some cases, I included YES/NO radio buttons asking questions like, "Does this product come in different colours?" If my client chose YES, he would then have to fill out another field listing the colours. Finally, there was a way for him to attach product photos to the form. Putting these two systems in place is what turned a nightmare of a client into someone I enjoyed working with. Plus, once I implemented these systems, my client started taking me more seriously. Unfortunately, my client was not a very good business person, and his business failed, and we shut down the site after two years. But that project taught me the value of creating systems. Of course, there are other types of systems. I use all kinds these days. Questionnaires Marketing and sales funnels Social media strategy and calendars Even my daily work process and routine All of these can be called systems. Not only do they make my job easier, but they drastically speed up my tasks, AND they make it very easy for me to delegate work to others. Creating systems for delegation. Systems are a great way to teach others how to do things the way you need them done. I have a system for preparing a new WordPress website before I start designing it. It's my step-by-step process for configuring the WordPress settings and installing and configuring the theme and plugins. I follow the same procedure on every website design I start. I also have a system for launching a site to make sure nothing is forgotten. Before a website goes live, I make sure to check off every item on my list. These two systems are the way I want things done. And because I have them set up as systems, I can easily pass off these duties to a virtual assistant and know that everything will be as I expect. I have a system for my podcast artwork clients. It's a questionnaire, but it's still a system I use to gather the information I require to work on their project. Every time I meet with a new client, I pull out my list of questions and make sure to address each one during our conversation. It makes my job easier, and I never have to contact a client afterwards, saying I forgot to ask them something. If I ever hire a project manager for my Podcast Branding business, they could use my questionnaire and get the same information I'm currently collecting. Because of the system I have, I know they won't miss anything. Creating systems makes you more efficient. The systems I've created make me a more efficient designer and business person. They help streamline what I do and free up my time for other things. And creating systems can do the same thing for you. I bet if you think hard, you already have systems in place. You've probably just never thought of them as systems. But now that you have, maybe you'll start creating more systems that could help you become a more efficient person. What systems do you use? Let me know by leaving a comment for this episode.

My strategy for securing WordPress websites. The internet is filled with unscrupulous people. Are you doing everything you can to ensure your clients' portion of it is safe by securing their WordPress websites? I recently published a podcast episode and article on earning extra income by offering website maintenance plans. Part of that strategy is making sure the websites you manage are secure. I received many questions afterwards asking how I secure my clients' WordPress websites. There are many ways and many tools available for securing a WordPress website. Here is the method that works for me. WordPress Security. Those two words, "WordPress Security" may sound intimidating to the uninitiated. Let me assure you they're not. If I can learn how to do this, so can you. I'm not a programmer. I'm not even a developer. I'm just a WordPress user who figured out a security strategy that works for me. What is WordPress Security? WordPress security involves putting measures in place to decrease the chance of someone compromising a website. If you sell WordPress Security as part of your website maintenance plan, be sure to tell your clients there are no guarantees. If a skilled hacker is determined to gain access to a website, they will, and there's not much you can do to prevent it. The purpose of Website security is to make it as difficult as possible for them, so they leave your site alone and go in search of an easier target. Most hacking attempts are easily preventable with a few simple measures. Here's what I do. Securing Account Login. By default, every WordPress installation provides easy access for administrators to gain entry to a site through the URL domainname.com/wp-login.php. This default makes the WordPress login page the most attacked part of any website. So how do you secure the account login? Hide the backend I use iThemes Security Pro to hide the backend of every website and replace the login page with something else. If anyone tries entering the site via the /wp-login.php page, they'll be taken to a 404 page not found page instead. This is more of security by obscurity, and is not a very strong strategy, but if it helps prevent automated bots and such, then why not do it? iThemes Security Pro > Security > Settings > Advanced > Hide Backend Force the use of a strong password. The stronger the password, the harder it is to crack. Forcing a strong password makes it more difficult to gain access to a site. iThemes Security Pro allows me to force the use of strong passwords. New site users must enter a strong password to create their account, and existing site users are forced to update their weak password when they next log in. iThemes Security Pro > Security > Settings > Password Requirements Prevent the use of compromised passwords. One of the main vulnerabilities of passwords is their reuse. Many people think up a good password, but then they use it everywhere. All it takes is for one database breach containing their user name and password, and a hacker can gain access to wherever the two are used in combination. iThemes Security Pro connects to the haveibeenpwned API and refuses any compromised passwords. As part of this prevention method, I recommend all my clients use a Password Manager such as 1Password to create strong, unique passwords for every site they visit. iThemes Security Pro > Security > Settings > Password Requirements Limit Login Attempts. Even a strong password may be guessed if given enough time. So as an extra measure, I turn on Brute Force Protection in iThemes Security Pro to prevent the number of failed login attempts. I have it set so that three failed login attempts will lock a user out of the site for 15 minutes. After their third lockout, it bans the IP address from even viewing the website. iThemes Security Pro > Security > Settings > Local Brute Force Protection Two-Factor Authentication. Two-Factor Authentication, sometimes called 2FA, adds an extra step to the login process. The way it works is after entering a username and password; users must enter a temporary six-digit code to gain access to the site. This code can be obtained from a predetermined list, one that's emailed to the user, or, my preferred method, using an App on a smartphone such as Google Authenticator. Google Authenticator generates a new unique code every 30 seconds. When logging into a website with Two-Factor Authentication, you must enter the code from the app and press the login button before the code expires. The only way to gain access to a website protected by 2FA is to have the user name and password, plus have access to the smartphone tied to the account. iThemes Security Pro > Security > Settings > Two-Factor Authentication (This is a PRO feature) Passwordless Login I want to mention Passwordless Login as a security option, but note that I don't use this method myself. I explain why, later. Passwordless login is a way to gain access to a website without entering a password or a 2FA code. To use Passwordless Login, you enter your email address on the login page then check your email for a "magic link" that grants you access to the website. No password or Two-Factor Authentication code required. Passwordless login is secure because it requires access to the email account associated with the site. Although Passwordless Login is very secure and works great for clients, I don't use this method. I sometimes need to access to a client's website through their account instead of my admin account. I wouldn't be able to access a site with Passwordless Login since I don't have access to my client's email account. iThemes Security Pro > Security > Settings > Passwordless Login (This is a PRO feature) WordPress Site Monitoring Now that the account login is secure, the next thing I turn to is site monitoring. I want to know when something happens to one of my client's website. Security Logs WordPress security logs are an excellent resource for seeing what is happening with a site. If a website gets hacked, the security logs will have the best information to help you recover. To be honest, I don't understand most of what the security logs contain. But I know where they are, and how to download and share them if I need to get an expert involved in fixing a compromised site. iThemes Security Pro > Security > Logs Monitor File changes iThemes Security Pro allows me to monitor when files on a website change. This is a great way to know when someone had gained access to a site. Be warned; this feature will also notify you of every change and update you make to the site. iThemes Security Pro > Security > Settings > File Change Detection Scanning for Malware iThemes Security Pro regularity scans and notifies me if it detects malware on a website. This has saved me in the past when a client's site became compromised. I was able to fix the issue before it escalated. iThemes Security Pro > Security > Settings > Site Scan Scheduling (This is a PRO feature) Themes and Plugin Management Delete unrequired and inactive themes and plugins. It's much easier to hack into a website if it has outdated themes and plugins installed. The first step in theme and plugin management is to deactivate and delete any unrequited or unused plugins. You can always reinstall a plugin should it be needed. Also, make sure you acquire your plugins from reputable sources. I've seen some questionable WordPress Plugin bundles recently offering thousands of dollars worth of premium plugins for next to nothing. These plugins may work, but they may also be compromised. It's not worth risking your business or reputation over. Keep active plugins and themes updated. As far as security is concerned, when it comes to the WordPress Core, Themes and Plugins, the best rule of thumb is to keep everything updated. Many updates are to patch security vulnerabilities. iThemes Security Pro has a nice feature called Version Management that allows a site to automatically update itself as new versions of the WordPress core, themes and plugins are released. Although handy, I leave almost all of this feature off. I prefer updating plugins myself. Should something on the site break during an update, I want to know right away. The only option I turn on is the "Auto Update if Fixes Vulnerability" option. This allows updates only if it fixes a security issue. iThemes Security Pro > Security > Settings > Version Management (This is a PRO feature) Manually updating the WordPress Core, Themes and Plugins. For updating my client website, I use iThemes Sync, a WordPress manager. iThemes Sync allows me to monitor and update all my clients' websites from one dashboard. iThemes Sync sends me daily emails telling me what plugins and themes have updates available. I can log into iThems Sync and perform all the updates from the one dashboard without having to log into each website individually, saving me time. The basic version of iThemes Sync is free for up to 10 websites. Domain security. Whenever registering a domain, I highly suggest you include domain privacy. Some hosts include domain privacy while others charge an extra fee. Domain Privacy hides the domain owner's contact information from the public. Without domain privacy, a domain owner's email address, mailing address and phone number are available for anyone to see. Since it's common to use the same email address to register a domain and access the associated website, without domain privacy, you're handing hackers half of the login information they need. That's my WordPress Security plan. That's it. That's what I do to secure my clients' WordPress websites. This is not meant to be an add for iThemes. There are many tools you can use to do the same things I do. Some of them possibly better and maybe less expensive than what I use. But I've been using the iThemes programs for several years, and I know, and I trust them. And so far, knock on wood, they've worked for me. What's your strategy for securing WordPress websites? Let me know by leaving a comment for this episode.

If only I knew these things before starting my design business. You know that saying, hindsight is 20/20? It means that it's always easier to see things when you're looking back than when you're looking forward. Before I decided to leave the print shop where I worked as a graphic designer to start my graphic and web design business in 2006, I had a preconceived notion of what to expect. Some of what I imagined turned out to be accurate and some of what I believed was way off. For example, I imagined how much I would love running my own business, spending my days designing beautiful things for great clients. It turns out I love it even more than I anticipated. However, I do spend a lot less time designing than I thought I would. I didn't know many designers in 2006 who were running their own business. There were a few who used the print shop I worked at for their client's print work. But they were more of what I call freelance designers. Meaning, they had other sources of income and did design as a side-gig. So there was nobody for me to emulate. I did have one friend, Jason, with a successful design business in Toronto. I talked to him quite a bit before deciding to go it on my own. But even with those conversations, there was still a lot I didn't know or wasn't expecting when I did eventually jump ship. So here are ten things I wish someone had told me before I started my design business. 1) You don't need a lot of clients to run a successful design business. Before starting my design business, I thought I would need 50 to 100 clients for my new business to be sustainable. Boy, was I wrong. I quickly learned that a solo designer could make a good living with only a handful of clients. In fact, during the first two years of my business, I only had 11 or 12 clients. Clients come and go, but on any given basis, a dozen clients is a good number to aim for. More than that and you risk overloading yourself with work. 2) You'll spend a lot of time on things other than design. Running your own business is a lot of work. And a lot of it is considered non-billable time. Things like invoicing and bookkeeping, keeping track of expenses and taxes, writing pitches, contracts and proposals. And so much more. I thought I would be spending my days in creative bliss, designing beautiful things for grateful clients. But there have been days when I'm too busy running my business to design anything. 3) You need to become a time management expert. When you work for someone else, they tell you when to take breaks, go for lunch, and call it quits at the end of the day. When you're running your own design business, there's nobody prodding you along but yourself. Learn to take breaks and find time to eat—set boundaries between your work and non-work life. Otherwise, you'll burn yourself out by working days, evenings and weekends, and you'll start to resent what you do. Running your own business means a flexible schedule, but you need to learn how to manage your time effectively. When you make your own schedule, you have the freedom to go to the grocery store on a Wednesday morning or to cut your day off early so you can bring your kids to their karate class or their soccer game. That's the benefit of working for yourself. But you also need to be able to juggle multiple design projects with overlapping deadlines and clients who are not always on time delivering the content they promised you. Conquering time management is the only way to stay sane in this business. 4) The rejections and criticisms will never stop. Just because your the boss doesn't mean clients won't find fault with your work. But don't worry, that's a good thing. It doesn't matter how long you do this work or how good you become. There will always be room for improvement. Clients will reject your proofs or decide not to work with you at all. I've been a designer for over 30 years, running my own business for half that time, and I still have clients turn me down or tell me they don't like certain things I design. Learn to embrace failure, because there's a lot of it when you're on your own. The trick is to learn from them and grow as a designer and as a business person. When the rejections stop is when you need to worry, because that means you're either the best designer in the world and you're way undercharging for your services. Or you've stopped putting yourself out there, and there are no more clients to complain. 5) Fake it until you make it. You can't succeed in this design business if you're timid or hesitant or if you come off as self-conscious about the way you handle yourself. You need to present yourself as a solution to the client's problem. Their best option at success, even if you're not sure of yourself. Confidence comes with experience, but it also comes in the form of self-motivation. If you tell yourself you can do the job, then nobody else will doubt you. The way to make it in this business is to continually go after more prominent clients. Ask for more money than your previous design jobs, pursue larger projects than you're used to. If you keep aiming high enough, soon you'll believe it's where you ought to be. 6) Find a mentor. If you try to run your design business all by yourself without any help, chances are you'll fail. Not because you're a bad designer, nor because you're a bad business person. But because you don't have the support you need to succeed. You're lucky that it's 2020. You have a cornucopia of resources at your disposal to help you start and run your design business. Take the Resourceful Designer Community, for example. The community is home to a great group of designers who love helping fellow community members. In a way, we're all mentors to each other. When I started my design business in 2005, there were no Facebook groups or online communities. What got me through the beginning of my solopreneurial journey were the mentors I followed. People like Jason, who I mentioned earlier. Or Shari, a fellow local designer who helped me get my first clients. Without people to model myself upon or to ask questions of when I needed help, I don't know how my journey would have turned out. Find yourself a group of peers that can help and guide you. It will make your journey so much easier. 7) The respect given to you is a reflection of how much you charge. Clients will never stop trying to take advantage of you. But the level of pushback you receive is closely associated with how much you charge. The higher your rates, the more you'll be viewed as an expert. The more clients see you as an expert, the more they'll appreciate your opinion and the less pushback you'll hear. When I used to charge $100 or $200 for a logo design, clients would try dictating what they wanted me to do. "Move that there," "make that bigger," "use a different colour," "try another font." But as I raised my prices, the less "dictation" I received, and the more freedom I had to design the way I saw fit. Trust me, when you're charging thousands of dollars for a brand identity, clients are much less likely to micromanage you. The more you charge, the more your clients will respect you. 8) Don't put all your design eggs in one basket. You should never rely on one or two clients to sustain your design business. If there's anything I learned over the years, it's that clients can vanish in a heartbeat. Just like investments, you need to diversify where your design work comes from. It's great to have big clients with big budgets, but make sure you have enough smaller clients to diversify your income. I've had several big clients over the years, from huge festivals to big shopping malls, to government agencies that have all gone away. The festival shut down. An investment firm with an internal design team bought the shopping mall. And the government agency amalgamated with another division who did work with another designer. I survived the loss of these clients because I had other smaller clients to sustain me following their departure. 9) You can make a lot more money doing a lot less work. Before leaving the print shop, I was working 40 hours per week at $21 per hour. That works out to $840 gross per week and roughly $550 net once the government took their deductions. When I started my design business, I chose $50 as my hourly design rate. I no longer charge by the hour, but that's another story. Since there are no deductions for the self-employed, for me to make the same weekly income from my old salary, I needed to work 11 billable hours every week. That was it. I mentioned earlier how one of the things I didn't expect when starting my business was how much time I would spend not designing. There are plenty of non-billable hours in the workweek, but it's ok because designers can make an excellent income designing just a few hours each week even while billing by the hour. 10) The riches are in the niches. When I started my design business, I didn't know what a design niche was. It wasn't until a few years later, when I met a designer specializing in the dental industry that I leaned about niching. And to be honest, I didn't give it much thought because she told me how much he hated it. This designer was making good money in her niche, but she had no passion for the dental industry. It was merely a lucrative niche she had stumbled upon. In fact, when I met her, she was planning on getting out of it to do what she called "normal design work" that had nothing to do with dentists. It wasn't until much later that I started hearing about niching again and started to appreciate this specialized approach to design. I recently branched out my design business to focus on the podcast niche. And let me tell you, it's pretty good. The trick is finding a niche your passionate about. That was the problem with that designer I mentioned. She had no passion for the dental industry and grew bored with the work she was doing. So there you have it. Ten things I wish someone had told me before I started my design business. I hope you find these things helpful–especially if you're at the start of your business journey. And if you already have an established design business, maybe I've shared something that will inspire you to look at what you do differently. What do you wish you had known before starting your design business? Let me know by leaving a comment for this episode. Tip of the week Strong Passwords Have you ever heard of Password Entropy? It's the measurement of unpredictability in a password. A password like LMNOPQR is much more predictable and easier to crack than something like L8?X49[. That's why randomized passwords are considered the strongest. Passwords should be composed of upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers and common ASCII characters. When combined, each digit in a password has 92 possible options. Here are the estimated times it takes to crack a password using a four-core i5 processor computer. You can see that the number of characters in your password matters! 7 characters will take .29 milliseconds to crack. 8 characters will take 5 hours to crack. 9 characters will take 4 months to crack. 10 characters will take one decade to crack 12 characters will take two centuries to crack. How secure are your passwords?

Find local design clients to grow your business. If you want to grow your design business, your best chance is to find local design clients to work with. After all, it's much easier to find a client among the people who know you. Of course, as your design business grows, you'll want to expand your reach and acquire clients farther and farther away until you have a global range, that's the dream. But never forget where you started, because, in a pinch, your local client market is where you'll find the most help and the most work. When I first started my design business, all of my clients were within 20 kilometres from me. As my business grew, so did the radius of my client base. 20 kb became 100 km, then 200 km and soon it was all of Canada. Then I started acquiring clients across the USA. Now, I work with people around the globe. But even with that wide-spanning net of clients, my closest connections and best relationships are with my local design clients in my area. And I'm not alone. Ask any successful designer, and they'll tell you there's something special about working with local clients. For one thing, it's easier. When working with distant clients, there's so much you need to learn about them and their environment. Where are they located? Where are their target market located? What's their local environment like? What's their local competition like? And so forth. But with local design clients, you have the inside scoop. There's a good chance you're already familiar with where the client is located. If not, it's easy for you to become familiar. You know the local environment. You know or can quickly determine their competition. All of this "inside knowledge" of your local area gives you an advantage over designers from outside your local area. Plus, you can sit down and talk face-to-face with local design clients, which can only deepen that oh-so-important designer-client relationship. From a local client's perspective, I'm sure they would prefer to work with a local designer rather than someone they can only interact with over the phone or the internet. Not to mention, most people feel good when they support local businesses. Focusing locally is more important now than ever. It's now more important than ever to embrace a Shop Local mentality. COVID-19 has taken its toll on businesses everywhere. I'm sure your local economy took a hit. Nobody knows how long this will go on, but as companies start opening up again, it's essential to support them however you can. Those business clients think the same way. If they need the help of a graphic or web designer, their first thought will be to focus locally for someone before looking elsewhere. That designer should be you. Make it easier for local design clients to find you. Here are some tips to help you get noticed in your local area. 1) Your marketing should have a local presence. Make sure your website prominently displays your address. Clients searching locally for a designer will look for your address to confirm you're local. Clients who are not searching locally won't care what your address is and won't bother looking at it. Carry business cards with you everywhere you go and leave one or two behind at opportune moments. 2) Join local organizations. Organizations such as your local Chamber of Commerce and other business groups are great ways to spread the word about your design services. You can also get involved with local charities. Join their board of directors to committees. Your child school might have a parent committee you can join as well. Business networking groups are another excellent opportunity to get your name out there. Remember, It's not who you know, but who knows you. 3) Submit your business to local directories. A great way to be discovered is to be listed in as many local directors as possible. Local municipalities, chamber of commerce, business groups, newspapers, etc. often host directories of local businesses. Find out how your business can be included. Make sure you are listed in Google My Business so you can be found in local online searches. 4) Do local SEO You know the importance of SEO. However, not everyone knows the importance of local SEO. Local SEO requires a different strategy to ensure you're not only found by local searchers but that you show up as close to the top as possible. 5) Pay for locally targetted ads. Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Google all offer a way to target ads to your local area. Take advantage of this feature and promote your business to those around you who can benefit from your services. Local design clients are there if you look. There are many local design clients and local businesses in your area that can use someone like you. And even though it's great to work with clients around the globe, you shouldn't neglect the ones in your own backyard. When it comes down to it, they're the ones that are more likely to remain loyal when times get tough. They're more likely to refer you to others. And they're most likely to support a fellow local business. Make sure you're doing everything you can to get yourself and your services in front of local design clients and businesses. How much effort do you put into finding local design clients? Let me know by leaving a comment for this episode. Resource of the week LBGT+ Chamber of Commerce LBGT+ entrepreneurs and business owners have a great resource in the LBGT+ Chamber of Commerce. Similar to all Chamber of Commerces, these ones aim to help businesses run by LBGT+ community members. There are many LBGT+ Chamber of Commerces around the world. Check your local area to see if there's one nearby. Here are links to the Canadian and American national branches. Canada's LBGT+ Chamber of Commerce National LGBT Chamber of Commerce

Uninterrupted time can help you become more productive. If you want a more productive design business, arrange your schedule to have periods of uninterrupted time. Time that is free of notifications and distractions, allowing you to focus all your energy on the task at hand. If you're anything like me, you have a million things on your mind, and a good number of them are on your to-do list. But no matter how efficient you think you are, there are only so many hours in a day, and never enough time to get things done. But what if I told you there is a way to get more hours out of your day? Ok, not really. Nobody has come up with a way to slow down or stop time yet. Or at least not that I know of. But there is a way for you to FEEL like you have more time and for you to be more productive. The trick is uninterrupted time. That means no distractions, a span where you focus 100% of your mental and creative energy on the task at hand. Have you ever had one of those days where you feel like you accomplished so much? Chances are, you felt that way because you were less distracted that day. One hour of uninterrupted time is equal to three hours of a regular workday, so it's no wonder you felt like you accomplished so much. How can one hour of uninterrupted time equal three hours of regular time? Let me explain. The University of Illinois and Microsoft did a joint study on the impact of disruptions on the workforce and recovery time after those disruptions. They tested a pool of workers, monitoring their work habits and how they were affected by typical, everyday distractions such as email notifications, text messages, social media DMs and phone calls. They deduced that the average worker takes nine munites to return to a task after an interruption. NINE MINUTES. They're not saying that it takes nine minutes to reply to an email or a DM. But that most people, when distracted, will take a bit of extra time before getting back to the task they were distracted from. Replying to a Facebook Message may only take a few seconds. But while distracted from their primary task, they might as well check to see if anyone liked or commented on their most recent post. Or after replying to a text message, they may as well see if any new emails came arrived. Or they may decide to take the time to refill their coffee before getting back on track. So, on average, simple distractions like a social media DM can take you away from your primary task for up to nine minutes. And that's just time away from the task. There was a study a while back that said it takes roughly 10-20 minutes of working on something to become entirely focused on the job. You may be thinking, "I don't take nine minutes to get back to a task after a distraction." The test subjects in the Microsoft and University of Illinois study thought the same thing. However, when interviewed after the study, almost every one of them was surprised by how long their distractions lasted. Most of them thought they were away from their primary task for only a minute or two, when in fact, they were away from it for three to five times longer than they thought. Even if you ignore your notifications, leaving them for later, they're still a distraction. If you don't click, the distraction still breaks your focus and interrupts your work. Which means it will take longer to complete that task. A study on people's work habits conducted by RescueTime said the average person couldn't go six minutes without checking some sort of communication platform. Once you add in other forms of distractions and 40% of people, never get more than 30 minutes of uninterrupted work time per day. How does this apply to your design business? We live in a world of communication overload. I'm sure that like me, you're bombarded with messages and notifications every day. But what you need to remember is that You Are In Control. You have the power to turn your distracting notifications off. You've probably heard about successful business people getting up at five or six in the morning to get an early start on their day. They often say it's the most productive time for them. The reason is there are no distractions during that time since most people are still asleep. If you're a morning person, you may want to try starting work early. Work from 6 am to 9 am and then take a break for a couple of hours to take care of all the emails, text messages and check in on your social accounts. Or perhaps you're a night owl. Try finding some uninterrupted time by working late at night after your family is in bed. But even if early mornings or late at night are not your thing and you work traditional business hours from 9 to 5, there's still hope. You're in control. You can choose to eliminate distractions from your workspace. Quit your email program. Turn off notifications. Set your computer to Do Not Disturb. Put your phone in airplane mode. If you eliminate all distractions and work for a few hours uninterrupted, you'll be amazed at how much you can get done. Your concentration will improve. You'll be more focused on the task at hand. Your creativity will increase. And problem-solving will be easier. Without distractions, you'll feel like a better designer. Aim for three hours of uninterrupted time. Another study said the optimal amount of uninterrupted time is three hours. Three hours is enough for you to get involved with the task you've started and then slowly build your focus and creativity until you're in a zone where the outside world almost disappears. All your concentration is on your task. I'm sure you've experienced this "Focused Zone" before. Being so focused on what you're doing that, you lose track of time and forget things like lunch. The study claimed that focused times lasting longer than three hours might lead to fatigue, causing you to lose focus. The more engaged your brain is, the more calories you burn. And just like a physical workout, the longer you concentrate on a single task, the more drained you'll feel afterwards. So uninterrupted time is excellent for productivity, but too much of it and you may feel drained for the rest of the day, which becomes counterproductive to the whole process of trying to get more work done. Another study took place with young children at a Montessori school. They observed that when left alone with a task of their choosing, the children would focus for the first hour to an hour and a half. A 15-20 minute period would follow where the children would seem a bit restless as if they were losing focus on their work. The researchers thought the kids were becoming disorderly, losing interest in what they were doing. But it turned out to be what they dubbed "False Fatigue." After this short period of restlessness, the kids became even more focused for another hour as they continued to work on their projects. The kids were so focused that a lot of them became oblivious to their surroundings and ignored distractions introduced by the researchers. After roughly three hours, the kids lost interest and stopped. But they looked delighted with their accomplishments. The same principles apply to adults, including designers like you. Times may vary for you, but three hours of uninterrupted time to set as your goal. Finding uninterrupted time with kids in the house. Perhaps three hours of uninterrupted time while your children busy themselves unsupervised is unrealistic. But what about one hour? Is that not feasible? Mommy Blog Practical, By Default, shares a hack for getting uninterrupted work time without feeling "Mom Guilt" (the same solution works for dads as well.) The hack involves using a timer to teach young kids that while the timer is counting down, it's not ok to interrupt Mom or Dad. Even young kids can learn to watch a timer. When the timer rings, you give your kids your undivided attention. It doesn't matter what you're in the middle of doing. There's no "just a couple of more minutes." You need to follow your end of the deal if you expect your kids to leave you alone during your uninterrupted time. Be sure to read the blog for full details. It's up to you. If you want to feel and be more productive, the easiest thing to do is turn off the communication overload. Limit distractions and get some uninterrupted time to focus 100% on your work. You'll be amazed at how much you can get done in such a short period of time. Do you add uninterrupted time to your schedule? Let me know by leaving a comment for this episode. Resource of the week TinEye.com TinEye is an image search and recognition company. They are experts in computer vision, pattern recognition, neural networks and machine learning. Their mission is to make your images searchable. TinEye delivers image search and recognition solutions to the industries where searching images is mission-critical. TinEye's image recognition is used by millions of people and powers billions of searches across a wide range of industries.

What are you doing to stand out? I was listening to a podcast recently, and the guest on the show said something about how businesses need to stand out from its competition. To which the host replied, "That's for sure, you don't want to be a penguin." Sometimes, the most mundane things that I see, hear or read spark an idea for a podcast topic. Well, that phrase did it for me – Don't be a penguin. What do I mean by – Don't be a penguin? First, let me ask you, have you ever seen a large group of penguins? Maybe at a zoo, in the wild or even on TV? How do you differentiate one individual bird from the rest? I have no idea. And I suspect, unless you have an affinity for penguins, neither do you. Unless one of the penguins has some form of distinguishing feature, they all look pretty well the same. So if I asked you to pick out one penguin from the bunch, you might have a hard time deciding since they all look the same. You would probably look harder for that distinguishing feature to make your selection easier. It's much simpler to choose something that stands out from the rest, than something that blends in. Think of your design business. I want you to think of your design business in terms of those penguins. Or more on point, I want you to think about a client looking for a designer. To a client, unfamiliar with the design space, we're all penguins. As far as they're concerned, we're all the same. So how do you expect them to choose you out of all the other design businesses out there? You need to be different. Your design business needs that distinguishing feature that will help clients chose you. I recently had Col Gray on the podcast. Col's business, Pixels Inc, is growing because he stands out. I'm not talking about Col's Scottish accent. Sure, that's a distinguishing feature in most parts of the world. But it doesn't help him in his home country of Scotland. I'm pretty sure most of the other native designers he's competing with locally have a similar accent. No, Col stands out because of the personal brand he's developed, Including his look. If you don't know Col, he has a very distinct look. He's almost always wearing black. He has a very long beard that grows down below his chest level that he often ties it with hair elastics. On top of that, you never see Col without a ball cap. And not just any ball cap. It's either black or red. So visually, Col stands out. If a company asked multiple designers to pitch them, they'd remember Col. In fact, I'm sure they'd remember him months or even years later. Col is not a penguin. Niching. Do you remember Craig Burton, who was on the show a while back? Craig's design business is called School Branding Matters. One look at his website or even just hearing his business name and you know right away how Craig's design business is different. Imagine a school principal or school director looking to rebrand their institution. If presented with three or four different designers to choose from, which one do you think will stand out as the best choice? The three designers who have practically the same message on their website just worded in different ways? Or the one designer whose website says he helps schools craft compelling visual brands? Do you get my point? The penguin that stands out is the one that gets picked. Even niches have penguins. Even within a niche, you don't want to be a penguin. Take my Podcast Branding business. I know several other people in this niche that offer podcast cover artwork as a service. I also know I'm one of the more expensive options. Some of them charge a fraction of what I do. And yet, I get new orders every week. Why is that? Because I stand out. I ask every client who hires me why they chose Podcast Branding? Most of them say it's because the other options all looked the same, and they couldn't tell which was better. But my business looked different. I presented as the most professional, and even though I cost more, I seemed more trustworthy, and I looked like the one that could help them the most. I'm also the only podcast cover artwork service, as far as I know, who insists on meeting and talking with each client before I design anything for them. I've had several clients tell me that was the clincher. They felt that personal touch meant I would take better care of them than any of the other services that wanted them to submit their information via a web form. So you see, It doesn't matter who's the better designer. It doesn't matter who's the fastest designer. It doesn't matter who's the most affordable designer. What matters is which designer stands out from the others because the one that stands out is the one chosen most often. How can you stand out? What can you do to stand out? You could try embracing a uniquely personal look as Col has. But that strategy could take years to develop. Or you could try narrowing down and focusing on a niche like Craig, and I have. Niching automatically sets you apart from all-purpose designers. But what if you don't want to go to those lengths? What if you don't want a unique look or to niche down? What you need to do is figure out what makes you unique and embrace it. Emphasize it for everyone to see. Be unique. I knew a web designer who exuded personality on his website. For example, this is how he described part of his design process. "Once I know the scope of your project, I'll present you with a proposal. I can do this over video, but I much prefer to do it in person. We can meet at my office or yours, but whoever's office we chose is responsible for supplying the cookies." His site was full of small nuances such as that. And you know what, he told me that most clients he pitches to have cookies waiting for him. I also remember this headline on his website. "I'm a Scottish Web Designer, and I'm very good at it. Web Design, that is, I'm only so so at being Scottish." Upon landing on his site and reading that line, you knew he was different. Some people might be turned off by his presentation, but chances are those weren't clients we would have wanted anyway. Those who did like it saw his uniqueness as different than the other designers and hired him because of it. Don't be a penguin. So ask yourself, what am I doing to make my design business stand out from my competition? What can I change or do better to improve my chances of being the chosen one? What can I do differently so that I'm not just another penguin in the rookery? That's something for you to ponder. Resource of the week ShortPixel ShortPixel improves website performance by reducing image sizes, resulting in smaller images that are no different in quality from the original. The results mean faster loading web pages, which translates into better user experience and better search engine rankings. ShortPixel can be set up to compress images as they're uploaded to your website or as a way to batch process your existing media library. ShortPixel offers a one-time purchase or monthly plans depending on how many and how often you need to optimize images. They even have a free plan if you only need to optimize up to 100 images per month.

If you don't tell them, they won't know. Before I launched the Resourceful Designer podcast on September 30, 2015, I sat down and wrote a list of over 50 topics I could discuss on the show. I wanted to be sure before embarking on this journey that I wouldn't run out of things to say. Almost five years later, and 219 episodes in, I still haven't covered all 50 of those original topics. The ideas behind many of my episodes come from my own experiences in the week or weeks before recording. Maybe I'll read something in a book, or an article or on social media that gets me thinking, and those thoughts emerge into an episode topic. Or perhaps something I hear on another podcast or TV sparks an idea. And of course, my interactions with my design clients often turn into teaching moments for the show. All of this to say, I'm never genuinely lacking for content. But back before I started Resourceful Designer, I wasn't so sure I'd have enough discussion material. That's why I wrote my original list. To prove to myself, I had enough things to discuss. I remember when I was getting ready to start the podcast, looking at that list and wondering which topics I should cover first. There were a lot of good ones, after all. In the end, I settled on what I thought was one of the most important topics a home-based designer should know and "Do Your Design Clients Know What You Do?" became the first topic I shared with my audience. It's an episode devoted to telling your clients what it is you do, because, believe it or not, most of them don't know. I know it sounds strange, but it's true. Most of your clients don't know what services you offer beyond what it is you currently do for them. And almost five years after recording and releasing that episode, the situation hasn't changed. Earlier this week, a client I've been working with for over 20 years, dating back to my days working at the print shop, asked me to send him a copy of his logo in vector format. Curious because most clients don't know what a vector is, I emailed him questioning why he needed a vector of his logo. To my surprise, he told me he hired a designer to create a flyer for his clinic. I immediately called him on the phone and asked if I had done something wrong that made him look elsewhere for a designer instead of asking me? It was then his turn to be surprised. He told me no, not at all, we have a great relationship, and he loves working with me, but I do websites, and he needed a flyer. A bit of back story. Before I continue my story, let me give you a bit of history between myself and this client. I designed this client's logo almost 20 years ago. I also designed his business cards and the rest of his stationary. The signage outside and inside his clinic, that was me. I've also created rack cards, postcards, posters and probably other printed material I can't recall. That's not counting his original website back in 2005 and the two re-designed sites I made for him over the past 15 years. Back to my story. When I reminded my client of all the things I designed for him in the past, he tried to dispute it. He told me his logo, business card, etc. etc. were all created by the print shop where I used to work. Which is correct, I designed all of them when I was working at the print shop. However, even though he remembers me working at the print shop before starting my own business, he doesn't remember me being the one who designed his stuff. He remembers dealing directly with the shop owner on every project. Not the designer who worked on his projects. This admission surprised me even more. He has one of the most recognized brands in our community, something I'm incredibly proud of, and yet he doesn't remember that I designed it for him. Talk about bursting my ego. He then proceeded to tell me he's had several print-related projects designed over the years by various designers. When I questioned him on why he never asked me for any of them – I worked at a print shop after all and know a thing or two about print design – he told me he thought I left the print shop to get into web design. I didn't realize I still do print design. I'm not blaming my client for his shortsightedness. This situation falls wholly on my shoulders. In hindsight, it was stupid of me not to realize that in the 15 years I've been running my own design business, this client has only ever contacted me for his website. What kind of company goes 15 years without needing print design? So this is on me, not him. He had a preconceived notion of what I do, and I never corrected him. But you see, that's the issue. I never thought I had to educate this client because of our history together. In my mind, I had designed all sorts of print material for him. So it only made sense that if he needed anything else, he would come to me. But in his mind, I was his "web guy," and he never considered me for any of his print projects. Unfortunately, he signed a contract and gave a deposit to the other designer for the flyers. So I'm out of luck there. But he did assure me the next time he needs something he'll let me know. What's even more frustrating is he's referred several web clients my way over the years. This makes me realize how much I probably lost because he wasn't referring me for print design. I can only shake my head at the situation. Silver Linings. Fortunately, there is a silver lining to this story. When this happened earlier this week, and I knew I would use the experience to create a podcast episode, I went back and listened to that first episode I released. In it, I shared similar frustrations. But I also shared a strategy I used that helped—something about which I completely forgot. When I recorded that episode, I was used to sending quarterly emails to all my clients, letting them know what sort of fun projects I had completed recently for other clients. I would make sure to include a variety of web and print jobs, including t-shirts, trade show booths, vehicle wraps, etc. It was a way to showcase my work and inform my clients what I was capable of producing. And it worked. Clients would often contact me after receiving my email asking for information on one of the projects I mentioned. They would inquire if I could do something similar for them. Their messages would often contain lines saying something like, "I didn't know you did that." So I had the solution to this problem. And then I forgot about it. As life would have it, what started as a quarterly email became less frequent until it eventually drifted off my radar altogether. It's been a few years since I sent one out, but I now plan on reviving the practice ASAP. In the meantime, after this enlightening conversation with my client, I did send personalized emails to my clients. I personalized each one with details about the client's business, our relationship and their industry, but before editing each email, I composed a base email to use. Here's the base email I wrote. Hi [client's name] As we approach the far side of the pandemic lockdown, and life slowly gets back to the "new normal," more and more businesses are being allowed to reopen. A lot of people are wondering how their past routines will be different as we emerge from isolation. Now is the perfect time to let your clients know what to expect from you. If you require new or updated marketing material, please let me know. Here are some ideas for you to consider that may help your marketing effort. Posters postcards flyers T-shirts Signage (interior/exterior) Display stands Vehicle wraps Digital Ads (Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc.) Website updates Trade Show Supplies If you require any help designing these or any other print or digital material, please let me know. I'd love to help. I wish you all the best in your return to operation. Sincerely, Mark Des Cotes As I said, I added to or altered the content for each client. I didn't want them to think it was a blanket email I was sending out to the masses. I wanted each client to think I was writing just to them. And you know what? I already got my first hit. A website client read my email and contacted me to design a postcard for her shop. Not only had she never considered a postcard until she read my email, but she also forgot I did print design since I was her "web guy." Let your clients know what you do. All of this to say, don't take for granted that your clients know what services you offer because there's a good chance they don't. It doesn't matter if you list your services on your website, you showcase different projects in your portfolio, or you explain them in your marketing material. Because chances are, your existing clients are not looking at that stuff. After all, they already know you, or so they believe, so they have no reason to look into what you do. Unless you keep reminding your clients what services your offer, there's a good chance they'll only know you for that one project they hired you to do. So take this time to reach out and inform your current and past clients about all the things you can do for them. Who knows, you may get lucky and pick up some new work from it. How do you let your clients know what you do? Let me know by leaving a comment for this episode. Resource of the week Gravity Forms I've been using Gravity Forms for several years, and I love it. It's the easiest, most trusted tool for creating advanced forms on your WordPress website. Packed full of time-saving tools and features, Gravity Forms is more than just a form creation tool; it's a form management platform. Build and publish simple or complex WordPress forms in minutes. No coding or guesswork required. Simply choose your desired fields, configure your options and embed the form on your website. It's that easy. And with so many built-in integrations with some of the most popular partners on the internet, Gravity Forms makes it extremely easy to connect your website to platforms such as PayPal, MailChimp, Dropbox, Freshbooks and so many more. I install Gravity Forms on every single website I build. What else can I say?

Have you ever considered YouTube as a way to market your design business? Ask any marketer, and they'll tell you that if you're not doing video, your missing out on a massive part of the market. In the past couple of years, revenue generated through video marketing has outpaced all other forms of promotion. And of course, YouTube is the number one place to be if you're using video. But how do you use YouTube to promote a graphic or web design business? I'm no expert when it comes to YouTube. I would consider myself an absolute novice. But as you know, when you want to learn something, your best option is to learn from someone who's doing it successfully. In today's episode of the Resourceful Designer podcast, I'm talking to designer Col Gray, owner of Pixels Ink, a logo and brand design studio in Dundee Scotland. We discuss how he's making significant strides with his YouTube channel, Pixels Inc, as a means to market his business. In this episode you'll hear us discuss: How Col got started on YouTube. The strategy he decided to embrace. Why he chose business people instead of other designers as his target audience. How he finds topics for his videos. How YouTube is a long term marketing strategy. His experience in getting his first client through YouTube. What makes a video engaging. What equipment you need if you're just starting. The equipment Col uses to optimize his show. His video process Equipment and software mentioned in the episode: Rode Smart Lav Mic Canon G7X camera Davinci Resolve Adobe Premiere Camtasia ScreenFlow Tube Buddy Morning Fame What's your experience with video and YouTube? Do you have a YouTube channel for your design business? Please share it in the comments for this episode.