Graphic designers face unique business challenges every single day. If you are just getting your design business started or you have been working at it for a while now I want to share a few tips…
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As graphic designers, we have the unique problem of subjective clients. What I mean by this is that everyone has their ideas of how something should look, the process of how the creative process should work, and how to give feedback that is intuitive and helpful.
I made this video to discuss some problems I see every day as a graphic designer with nearly a decade of experience in the industry. I am now a digital marketing manager handling the brunt of client relations and I have found that there are far more administrative challenges to deal with in a design/creative oriented business than there are design challenges.
If you are thinking of starting a graphic design business, trust me when I say, the design aspect will be the least of your worries. You need to make sure you have a solid foundation that involves great client communication, a killer onboarding process, and a way to manage your projects efficiently and accurately.
When you do this right it will give you more time to do what you love. ACTUALLY DESIGN.
I want to list out 4 issues I find common for graphic designers and how to solve them.
1. My clients don’t list.
You need to listen to them first. I think a lot of times we are surprised when we have a “bad client” but chances are they were a bad client from the start, we were just so excited to have a client that we missed all of the social and verbal cues.
2. Where is that photo, design file, email address?
Disorganization is a HUGE hurdle for designers. The key to solving this problem is a proper folder structure that you commit to. If you do not commit to a rock solid folder structure than your project management will quickly get out of whack and you will be hard-pressed to recover from a disorganized mess!
3. Where is that project at?
Project Management tools, Client infosheets, calendar reminders, and assignments. (this is kind of like a high-tech version of your grammas Address Book, do you remember those?!) A Project Management suite will allow you to quickly manage your clients at a glance. This will help you increase the efficiency of your workflow which is what will ultimately allow you to scale your design business. Without scalability, your business will never grow, outside of you working 16 – 18 hours a day!
4. Are we in charge of that for the client?
Get a contract and get it signed ASAP! This is something that I find new graphic design business owners overlooking more than experienced business. You can easily be taken advantage of by a client who just wants a little bit more of this and a little bit more of that. They will say, “How about we just add this design element?” or “Can I get another quick social media asset?” This will burn through your time and energy. Leaving you underpaid and overwhelmed. It is so important to get a contract signed on the agreed-upon terms that way inf the client does want a change you can refer to the contract and offer the opportunity to “Add it to the contract”. This not only keeps you from overworking yourself, but it gives you a great opportunity to upsell the client, WINNING!
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