Define your market

OK...

You've decided to become a freelancer. Now you have to define your market and what you will do.

As an artist, there are many areas that you can freelance in. As I mentioned in earlier blogs, the more areas that you can help people in (web, print, animation) the more you can earn. But you have to decide who your market is.

Is it the end user... the company that will print or post your work? Or will it be for "resellers" like ad agencies or graphic design studios?

Let's look at the end users, like the local business around the corner. 

The positives of working for the end user are:

You can bill a fair and reasonable fee.

Treat them fair and they will need your services over and over.

The negative is that they are not professionals in our field, so some of their demands or requests could be unreasonable.

You will have to educate them about a wide range of subjects that have to do with the production of their assignment

OR 

You can freelance for graphic design or ad agencies.

The positives are that their sales team will bring in the work for you.

They are professionals so they know what they are asking for.

Their account people will do all the leg work for you.

The negative is you will have to bill them a lower price so that they can make a profit off your work.

I like to work with individuals AND graphic design companies.

Thinking about becoming a freelancer?

Some of you designers out there might be wondering if you will have a job next year... or next week. So perhaps you are thinking "WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?"

Well, you have a marketable talent and skill, so you are probably thinking about going freelance.

OK.

For the next couple of blogs I'm going to discuss the Business of Freelance.

What to do and how to do it.

The first thing that you have to do is register your name or business. This is not a "I'll make a few bucks on the side" type of thing. 

IF you are going to do it you will need to do it right.

You will get a tax ID number for your business. And you will need to collect sales tax from some of your clients.... we'll go into that later.

You will also have to get some kind of health insurance... we'll get into that later too.

You will have to get an accountant that will alert you to when your sales tax is due and take care of the tax forms.... or you can do that yourself. I don't.  I like running my sales, which income was taxable and which as not, then getting a form to sign. Simple and easy. 

There are several benefits of having your own freelance business:

1- You are not at the mercy of the company for your lively hood.

2- You can earn more money. (The first month I went freelance, I earned a lot more than I did as a salaried designer... and I was making good money, but I saw the potential to earn more)

3- You can take as many vacations as you want, when you want.

4- It's a great lifestyle... I loved being able to see my kids in their school shows during the day.

5- You can write off a portion of your house or apartment and lots of other things related to your business.

6- You can work your own hours... as long as you always meet your deadlines. My work day starts at 10am. I either sleep 'till 9 or I get up early and swim. Either way, after my coffee and newspaper, I'm ready to work at 10am. I will work in the evenings late, but that's my choice and my style.

There are some negatives too... I'll get to that later.

Losing money on a project but making money....

I'm finishing up a web site and if you looked at the number of hours that it has taken me to create it you would say that I lost money on the project.

And you would be right.

I created the web site, the client loved it and then on my own time, before it was launched, I did it again.

Why?

Because I wasn't happy with the "back-end" coding of the web site. Sure it looked great. Sure it worked with all the browsers. But I wasn't happy with the coding. So I spent 4 days studying, got myself a tutor for one of those days. Hit the books, did some research online and then in one day, I completely re-created the site.

The site now loads faster, but other than that you wouldn't be able to tell that anything was done.

So again.... why would I invest all that time, money and energy to "fix" something that wasn't broken.

I'll tell you... because in the long run I will make money by being more efficient with this new, higher level of web design that I can now offer. 

Bottom line: Keep honing your skills and give your clients more than they ask for. They will return over and over again and you will earn more. Being a successful freelancer means that you can't rest on your past skills... you have to keep up and ahead of the curve. Invest your time in learning new skills. It will pay off in the satisfaction department and on your bottom line.

Honing your skills

To be a successful freelancer you must always be at the top of your game... honing your skills and getting better in all your graphic design programs.

Last year I learned that Adobe was dropping their web authoring program GoLive in favor of Dreamweaver. Adobe bought Macromedia for their popular Flash and Dreamweaver programs.

Knowing that GoLive was going to be a thing of the past, I went about learning Dreamweaver. The transition was not as seamless as many would expect. But after studying and practicing, I made the transition.

Now, I've already designed many websites with Dreamweaver, but Dreamweaver is a very deep program and I wanted to take my skills to the next level.

The reason I'm bringing this up is that the more I know how to do, the more profit I will make on a project by not "outsourcing" portions of my assignment to others.

Bottom line... keep as much of an assignment "in-house" as you can and don't rest with your skill levels. There's always something new to learn.

Grinders and Clients

I had dinner last night with some good friends. At one point the discussion turned to business and specifically some of our dealings with clients. 

My pal Carl who has years of experience with sales said to me "Rob, in this world we have grinders and we have clients".

Carl continued... "For a client we do anything they want... they respect what we do and they pay their bills without a complaint. Then we have the grinders. They are never happy with any quote, make changes and changes over and over again. Then they try to reduce the bill down even more."

I have clients that I will jump off a roof for. They pay their bills on time, and are reasonable with their demands. 

I have run into a grinder or two (or three) on occasion and at the end  of the day you can be real busy but not make any money trying to please folks like this.

What can you do when you run into a grinder?

This is what I do:

 I deliver my project on time and on budget. But I remind my "grinder" if you give me a brief and I do the work, then you change the brief... it's a different assignment. There will be an additional fee.

Sometimes I lose the account. 

But I suspect that the "grinders" are used to that. They go from person to person always trying to get more work done at a lower and lower cost. 

What they don't realize is that if they had a good working relationship with a designer, they could SAVE money in the long run because sometimes elements can be picked up from previous assignments or they don't have to "re-invent" the wheel every time they have a new assignment.

To be a successful freelancer, sometimes you have to say no to an account if the amount of time you are spending on them is more than what they are paying.

Bottom line... work with your clients. Deliver more than what you promise and they will always come back to work with you. And if a client turns out to be a "grinder" run for the hills... they won't be happy and neither will you.

a $350 web site?... a rant

I just got a call from a woman who wanted me to design a web site for her.

She's starting an online clothing company. Here's her brief:

500 photos of her products.

The photos all need "minor" retouching... remove backgrounds, clean up.

Needs a shopping cart.

Wants an e-mail to go to the shopper confirming the order.

E-mail to her with the specifics.

Budget:

$350

Now, I'm the first person to try to help someone out... especially if they are just starting out. But $350 doesn't even start to cover the retouching.

I've done large projects for clients at a discounted rate, because I know that when they have the budget, they let me know. Sometimes my clients will say... "hey Rob, throw another $500 on that project to cover that last job you did for us where we didn't have much money."

Now that's how I like to work... it doesn't matter how much I make on a single job with my clients, it's how much I earn over the year with them that counts.

Bottom line.. if you want to be a successful freelancer... be fair with your clients. They will be fair with you. 

Generating new business- 2

Use the power of the web to generate new business. There are many free sites that allow you to post your resume, bid for projects and sites designed for freelancers to promote their talents and portfolios.

Every day, I spend about 15 minutes posting ads on various sites. 

Just this week, I got 2 assignments in.  A post card mailing piece and a logo design. These two projects brought in a little over $1,000. Not bad for not leaving my home.

Most of the work I get now is through the internet. Years ago I knocked on doors and I still have some of those clients... but the bulk of my work now is through promoting through the web. 

Another way of generating business is through the "Red Book of Advertising Agencies". Many agencies use freelancers to cover themselves when they are overloaded or if they think their people can't handle the assignment.

Go to the library to look at the Red Book of Advertising Agencies... it's a reference book. You can't take it out. So bring a pad and pencil or your laptop. Inside this reference book you will learn:

The agencies in your home town.

The name of the creative director and art directors.

The names of their accounts.

The address and phone numbers.

This is info is greatly important because if you have experience with package goods and they have a roster of package goods in your portfolio, then when you contact them you can play this up... Call the creative director up... "I've done work on similar accounts, Mr. Smith, can I come in and show you my portfolio this week?" The benefit of selling your serices to an agency is that they are professionals and will do all the "running around" for you... giving you the info and direction. They in turn will add a fee on top of your costs and sell it to the end user for a higher price.

Another way to generate business is to promote yourself to the end user... the company itself and not through the ad agency or graphic design studio. The benefit of doing it this way is that there are more companies out there that can use your help and you can come in a little less than "agency" prices and still make a reasonable profit. But be prepared to "hold hands" a lot because sometimes you will have to educate your client. Done properly, you will have a client that trust you and will be a client for life.

Bottom line... everyday you have to promote yourself... get on the web and to the library and do research.