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Resourceful Designer: Strategies for running a graphic design business

Offering resources to help streamline your home based graphic design and web design business so you can get back to what you do best… Designing!
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Resourceful Designer: Strategies for running a graphic design business
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Now displaying: June, 2018
Jun 29, 2018

When Life Interferes With Your Design Business

Running a home-based design business is the best thing any designer could do. At least that’s my opinion, but I could be biased since I’ve been doing it for over 13 years now and I love what I do. But running a home-based design business does have its drawbacks. Such as when life interferes with your plans.

Running a home-based design business is great. You can set your hours and work as much or as little as you want. You decide how much you want to charge and if you wish to charge by the hour or by the job. You also get to choose what clients you want to work with or not. Meaning you have the option of turning down any jobs that don't interest you.

Plus, you have nobody to answer to since you work from home all by yourself. OK, you have to answer to your clients. But at least you don’t have a boss breathing down your neck to get the job out, or else. Yup, being a home-based designer is great.

However, there is one major drawback to running a home-based design business. And that’s when life interferes.

Life has a way of messing with you in unexpected ways. Some days are good, some are bad, and some can send you into a panic. I'm talking about the latter one. When life throws something in your path that grinds your design business to a halt. I'm talking about sickness, accidents, family emergencies, even death. There are also grand scale emergencies like natural disasters such as floods, hurricanes or earthquakes. And don't forget uncontrolled events such as power outages or having your equipment stolen.

All of these can have a negative impact on your design business.

Don’t get me wrong, not everything that affects your business is a bad thing. Marriages, births, vacations, etc. also affect your business. Life interferes, and the status quo of your business changes.

So what can you do when life interferes with your design business?

Prepare for expected breaks

In some cases, such as vacations, marriages, births (to some extent) and even things like surgeries can all be scheduled. Advanced knowledge of these events gives you an opportunity to prepare for the time your business is affected. In some cases, your business may be shut down for a few days, but it could also be affected for several weeks or months.

When you know a break is coming, you should warn your clients well in advance of these shutdowns.

To help ease the pressure, you can try to get things done before your time off. Or you can tell your clients you cannot work on their project until after a specific date.

I never start any new projects during the two weeks leading up to a break. This buffer could cause problems for some clients, but you'll have to live with your choice. Yes, you may lose some work because of it. But that’s life.

Prepare for unexpected breaks

What do you do when life interferes with your business in unexpected ways?

First things first, when life interferes in an unexpected way, notify your clients. They will understand. No client will respond with  “sorry about the death in your family, but I have this job I need you to finish by Thursday, can you handle it?”. Your clients knew you were a home-based designer when they hired you. They knew the benefits of working with you also came with some risks. One of those risks is the possibility of you needing unexpected time off.

There may be deadlines, and yes, you may feel bad about missing them, but you might be surprised how many deadlines you can miss without any ill effects. Unless there’s a firm date in place, such as for scheduled events most deadlines have flexibility built into them.

Once you’ve notified your clients, try to figure out if there’s anything you can do. Maybe it’s providing a list of compatible designers your clients can use in your absence.

In cases of natural disasters or equipment failure, you could try and find ways to get back up and running while trying to minimise your time away. Even if it’s merely so you can get the most pressing things done?

Get Help from other designers

If you are running a studio as I talked about in episode 125, you may have people on your team that can handle the work for you. If you don’t have contractors in place, you may need to turn to a friend or colleague and see if they can take on some of your work while you are incapable.

There’s always a risk any time you direct a client to a new designer. The client may like the other designer and decide to stick with them. You’ll have to take that risk and rely on the relationship you’ve built up with your client to bring them back.

If you are worried, you could try to minimise the risk with a contract between you and the other designer saying they will not poach your clients. But if you’re in a pinch due to some emergency situation, worrying about a contract is the last thing you want to be doing.

Besides, chances are if your client realises they like working with a different designer better than you, there’s not much you can do about it.

Long-term hiatuses

In the worst scenarios, you may have to scale back or shut down your design business for an indefinite amount of time.

Sometimes, when life interferes, the only option is to accept it. There’s nothing wrong with shutting down your business and wishing all your clients well.

If your situation eventually changes you can always start up again. You built up your design business once. There’s nothing stopping you from doing it again.

Life is unpredictable.

I don’t want to sound negative, but part of life is dealing with things outside our control. How you deal with those situations, and how you come out the other side will determine your success in life. Don’t worry if you have to shut down your design business for a few days, weeks, months or even longer when life interferes. You’re a designer; I’m sure you’ll find creative ways to make it through.

Have you ever had to close your business unexpectedly?

Let me know by leaving a comment for this episode.

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 Ken

I love listening to your podcast on my way to work, a lot of the topics have been really intriguing. I have always had an interest in the arts and I recently started my own design business in December designing Print Templates. I love the idea of design consulting and helping people not just make pretty designs but help their entire business using design but I'm not even sure how to really get started with finding clients. Also, in yours and other podcasts I always hear that you have to educate your clients on the importance of design, but just getting started in this kind of business I'm not sure everything to say. Can you give me some kind of idea what some of these conversations look like? Thank you for your time!

To find out what I told Ken you’ll have to listen to the podcast.

Resource of the week Google Data Studio (beta)

Google Data Studio (beta) turns your analytics data into informative dashboards and reports that are easy to read, easy to share, and fully customizable. Dashboarding allows you to tell great data stories to support better business decisions. Create unlimited Data Studio custom reports with full editing and sharing.

Listen to the podcast on the go.

Listen on Apple Podcasts
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Stitcher
Listen on Android
Listen on Google Play Music
Listen on iHeartRadio

Contact me

I would love to hear from you. You can send me questions and feedback using my feedback form.

Follow me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram

I want to help you.

Running a graphic design or web design business all by yourself isn't easy. If there are any struggles you face running your design business, please reach out to me. I'll do my best to help you by addressing your issues in a future blog post or podcast episode here at Resourceful Designer. You can reach me at feedback@resourcefuldesigner.com

Jun 22, 2018

Freelancer or Design Studio, which is best for your home-based business?

I talk a lot on the Resourceful Designer podcast about running a home-based design business. In fact, it’s why I started the podcast in the first place. Like my catchphrase says, I’m doing this to help designers like you streamline your business so you can get back to what you do best, designing.

I’ve covered many topics in the previous 124 episodes over the past few years. Things like pricing strategies, attracting new clients, coping with the isolation when working from home and many more. However, I’ve never talked about what options you have in the type of design business you run.

Deciding what type of home-based business you run is important because the direction you take could determine the kind of clients you attract and the growth of your design business. Including how much money you can potentially make.

The options I’m talking about are whether you define yourself as a Freelancer or Design Studio.

There is a third option available, a Design Agency. The reason I’m omitting Design Agency is that by definition, a Design Agency is made up of several people, all with different talents working on all aspects of client projects and usually all working under one roof. Perhaps you fit that category, but as I stated earlier, Resourceful Designer was created to help home-based designers, and I don’t think many home-based designers run agencies.

That leaves two options, Freelancer or Design Studio

Calling yourself a Freelancer

According to dictionary.com, a Freelancer is a person who sells work or services by the hour, day, job, etc., rather than working on a regular salary basis for one employer. Cambridge Dictionary defines Freelancer as someone who works on different projects with different companies instead of being a company employee. And finally, Merriam-Webster says a Freelancer is a person who pursues a profession without a long-term commitment to any one employer

I’ve never called myself a Freelancer. I’ve always found the term derogatory and noncommital. I always viewed the term as a kind of fly-by-night thing where the client will never be sure if the Freelancer will be there for them. Remember the Merriam-Webster definition was someone who pursues a profession without a long-term commitment.

Not to mention my business is registered, so in a roundabout way, I can say that I’m an employee of my own company, therefore, as an employee, I cannot be a Freelancer. But that’s neither here nor there. For this article, a Freelancer is merely a one-man band when it comes to design services.

As a Freelancer, you are everything from an art director, to a designer, to a coder, to handling accounts receivable and payable, etc. You do it all, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

When I first started my own home-based design business, I did precisely that. I handled everything. I was a one-man band. And if I didn't think I could do something in a project, I didn’t take on the job.

Defining yourself as a Freelancer, meaning it’s just you, limits the type of clients you can take on by the skills and services you offer. If you’re not a web designer, you don’t take on web clients and vice versa. Freelancers tend to attract smaller clients such as Start-Ups or the "quick" clients. Those who call you up and need something done this week, or worse yet, they need it tomorrow.

The average freelance designer takes on clients and jobs in the $500-$5000 range.

Calling yourself a Design Studio

Remember above when I said a Design Agency is made up of multiple people working together under one roof? A Design Studio is similar to an agency in that is offers a wide variety of skills and services, but some of those skills and services come from third-party contractors.

As a Design Studio, you still run your home-based design business like a Freelancer does, however, rather than offering a full range of services under one roof like an agency, you subcontract the parts of a project that you can’t or don’t want to handle yourself. Things like photography, coding, copywriting, illustration, etc. Being a Desing Studio allows you to take on larger clients with more significant projects and spread out the work to get jobs done more efficiently.

With a Design Studio, everything is processed through your business and clients deal directly with you instead of dealing with multiple businesses. You take on the role of art director and manage the subcontractors working on the projects with you.

Design Studios tend to attract small to mid-sized companies as clients. Companies that may have a marketing department but don’t have an in-house creative team. The Design Studio acts as their creative team.

Clients seeking Design Studios often have budgets ranging from $5,000-$20,000 or more.

Freelancer or Design Studio, what’s right for you?

Choosing between a Freelancer or Design Studio is a matter of choice. The difference between the two is your willingness to work with subcontractors to complete design projects. Neither Freelancer or Design Studio is a more favourable choice.

I ran my business as a Freelancer (even though I don’t use that term) for several years before switching models and redefining as a Design Studio. I still do most design work myself. But I now have a list of illustrators, copywriters, coders, etc. that I can call upon should I need their skills and talents for a project.

I don't suggest one option as being better for you over the other. It’s entirely up to you how you run your business. If you’re fresh out of school or still new to the industry, maybe you want to work as a Freelancer for a while until you get the hang of things. Perhaps you don’t want the extra responsibilities of overseeing subcontractors. That’s OK. Many designers spend their entire career working as Freelancers.

If you are comfortable handling larger projects and directing various people to complete specific tasks then maybe a Design Studio is right for you.

This article is simply to give you an idea of what’s possible depending on how you define what you do. So are you a Freelancer or a Design Studio?

Do you consider yourself a Freelancer or Design Studio?

Let me know by leaving a comment for this episode.

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 Allison

Hello, I love your podcast and have enjoyed getting some great advice on my freelance business from it. I was wondering if you had any recommendations for font subscriptions. Fonts are so expensive, I don't know how designers can afford to purchase so many unique fonts and was wondering if a font subscription would be the way to go.

To find out what I told Allison you’ll have to listen to the podcast.

Resource of the week Sharpen.design

This week's resource was shared with me by Resourceful Designer listener Naomi. It's the website https://sharpen.design. Sharpen.design produces random design prompts to challenge you to think outside the box. With over a million possibilities you are sure to find an interesting project you can tackle to grow your skills and portfolio. This website is an excellent resource for students or anyone new to the design industry who needs ideas of what they can design. Give it a try.

Listen to the podcast on the go.

Listen on Apple Podcasts
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Stitcher
Listen on Android
Listen on Google Play Music
Listen on iHeartRadio

Contact me

I would love to hear from you. You can send me questions and feedback using my feedback form.

Follow me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram

I want to help you.

Running a graphic design or web design business all by yourself isn't easy. If there are any struggles you face running your design business, please reach out to me. I'll do my best to help you by addressing your issues in a future blog post or podcast episode here at Resourceful Designer. You can reach me at feedback@resourcefuldesigner.com

Jun 8, 2018

Referral Partners 10 People to get Design Referrals From

It's confusing for wannabe entrepreneurs to start a business. Their confusion creates an excellent opportunity for you, as a designer to team up with referral partners and not only help these entrepreneurs get started, but it also helps grow your and your referral partners' businesses.

Starting a business is a daunting task. You don't just get out of bed one morning and think to yourself “What should I do today? I know, I’ll start a business.” That's not how it works. There are so many steps involved in starting a business that it’s difficult to know where to start. That’s why most people wanting to start a new business seek guidance, help and advice in their endeavour.

Since there’s no Start Here button to push whenever someone wants to start a business, that guidance, help and advice they seek out can come from anywhere and anyone, including you, their designer. If you want to help these new entrepreneurs to the best of your ability you should have referral partners that can lend a hand.

What is a referral partner?

A Referral Partner is as simple as it sounds. It’s partners that refer to each other. If someone comes to you for advice on starting a business, you refer them to the partner that would best help them, and vice versa, whenever someone goes to one of your partners, and they require design services, your partner refers them to you. That's all there is to it.

Choosing your referral partners.

A referral partner should be someone integral in the development of new businesses that complement what you do as a designer. Here is a list of 10 people you should approach to become referral partners.

Industry suppliers

Industry suppliers include printers, sign makers, vehicle wrappers, and anyone else within your industry but who don't compete with you for design. When a new startup hires you to design their new logo, you can refer them to these people to get the rest of their branding and marketing material produced.

When a client contacts one of these partners asking about their services, the partner can send the client your way for design and web work.

Lawyers

A lawyer may be the first person contacted when someone is thinking of starting a business. Partner with them and they can refer these new business people your way. When a new client comes to you at the start of their business journey you could recommend them to the lawyer.

Accountants

Just like a lawyer, some people will talk to their accountants before deciding on a course of action for their business. Team up with one and send clients both ways.

Financial Institutions

Financial institutions include banks, credit unions, financial advisors, money lenders, venture capitalists or anyone involved with financing business. Financial institutions make great partners.

Local business offices

Most places require businesses to register their name, obtain a license, submit a business plan etc. Partner with these places to get more clients.

Chamber of Commerce

Most communities have a Chamber of Commerce. They make great referral partners. You may have to become a member to partner with them, but it's well worth the cost to gain more clients.

Local business groups

Municipalities often have private business groups made up of local business people that handle specific areas of a community. For example, a Downtown Business Group, or Waterfront Business Group. Contact these groups and ask them to refer any new businesses in their area to you.

Commercial real estate agents

Partner up with commercial real estate agents and send growing clients their way when they need to expand and ask them to refer similar businesses back to you.

Business schools

Contact local schools to see if they offer business classes or workshops for new entrepreneurs. Ask to speak to the class about the importance of good branding. You can also ask them to refer students your way.

Unions

Approach Union offices and ask them to refer any union members who are thinking of starting a business.

How to reach out to referral partners

Becoming a referral partner with someone is easy. Send them an email or better yet drop in and talk to them. Explain the mutual benefit. How from time to time your clients ask for advice that they would be better-suited providing and you could refer your clients to them. In exchange, when they have a client that is in need of design services you would appreciate them giving out your name. It’s that easy.

You can have more than one referral partner in an industry

It’s ok to be referral partners with multiple people in the same industry. Give your clients various options when referring them to someone. Be sure to tell your client to mention you, so your referral partner knows the client came from you.

You should also send an email to your referral partner letting them know that you gave their name to someone. That way your partner will know you are helping them out even if the client never contacts them.

Have you ever partnered with someone for referrals?

Let me know by leaving a comment for this episode.

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 Joshua

Hey Mark, I have recently found your podcast, and love listening to it, it awnsers any and all questions that I thought I had and didn't even know I had. However I have yet to start freelancing, for I am still in school, I'm a junior in a graphic design program In the states, and am very weary on how I should start freelancing. In your opinion should I wait to finish school to start freelancing, or should I just go ahead and start? This is something I have thought about for a while, but still am 50/50 on wether or not I should.

To find out what I told Joshua you’ll have to listen to the podcast.

Resource of the week 4-Week Marketing Boost

I put this guide together in the hopes to encourage you to look at your brand and image. The daily tasks in my guide require only 15-30 minute of your time and focus on the parts of your marketing material that are often overlooked or neglected. After completing this four-week plan you will be in a better position to present yourself to, and win over new clients.

You can download the Four Week Marketing Boost by visiting marketingboost.net. Or, if you are in the U.S.A., you can text the word MARKETINGBOOST to 44222.

Improve your business' image and create the best first impression possible to attract more clients.

Listen to the podcast on the go.

Listen on Apple Podcasts
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Stitcher
Listen on Android
Listen on Google Play Music
Listen on iHeartRadio

Contact me

I would love to hear from you. You can send me questions and feedback using my feedback form.

Follow me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram

I want to help you.

Running a graphic design or web design business all by yourself isn't easy. If there are any struggles you face running your design business, please reach out to me. I'll do my best to help you by addressing your issues in a future blog post or podcast episode here at Resourceful Designer. You can reach me at feedback@resourcefuldesigner.com

Jun 1, 2018

Using Google AdWords to Attract Design Clients

Any time designers get together in person or online on platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn or Reddit, you’re sure to hear someone ask how to attract more clients. It’s one of, if not the most significant problem faced by designers.

Without clients, your business fails. It doesn’t matter how good a designer you are if you don’t have people paying for your services your business will not survive.

There are many ways you can attract new clients. Last week I shared 12 inexpensive ways for you to promote your design business. A couple of years ago I wrote a blog post where I shared 10 proven ways to attract design clients. All methods I’ve used myself to gain clients.

Today I want to talk about a great way to attract clients that for some reason, not many graphic designers or web designers are taking advantage of. Google AdWords.

How do clients find you?

Ask most designers, and they will tell you the number one way they gain new clients is through word of mouth referrals. Referrals are great. But what if you don’t have a large catalogue of clients advocating for your business? Let's look at it from a client's perspective.

Let's say you need a plumber. Who will you call? Your first choice would be to call a plumber you know, or at least one you've heard of before. Your Second choice would be to ask family, friends, co-workers and associates who they would recommend. That’s the referral part. If it doesn’t work, you would probably turn to a search engine and look for plumbers in your area.

Design clients do the same thing. They contact a designer they know or have heard of before. That’s where brand awareness comes in. Second, they ask family, friends, colleagues, associates etc. That’s where referrals come in. But when that fails, clients will turn to the internet and search for a designer online. And chances are they will formulate their search to look for someone in their local area.

That last part is a huge benefit for you, especially if you are using Google AdWords to get in front of them.

If you’re already familiar with how AdWords works, you’re probably nodding your head right now in agreement with me, but I’m going to continue with the assumption that you are not familiar with Google AdWords. Forgive me if I'm wrong.

For the record, Yahoo and Bing also have similar advertising platforms, but since the majority of people use Google, I’m going to concentrate on it.

So how does Google AdWords work for attracting design clients? Let me break it down into the simplest terms using only three steps,

  1. You figure out what keywords people are searching.
  2. You create an ad that Google puts in front of people actively searching for those keywords.
  3. You pay Google for the people that click on your ads.

That’s all there is to it. The best part about Google AdWords is you only pay when your ads are working, and people engage with them. If they don't click, you don't pay.

Now of course, “when your ads are working” is a relative term. In this case, it means when people click on your ad. Whether or not they become a client after clicking on your ad is not Google’s concern.

A deeper dive into AdWords.

I won't go into the technical nitty gritty of setting up a successful AdWords campaign. There are plenty of other resources where you can learn the ins and outs of fine-tuning your ad campaign to get the most bang for your buck.

I will, however, elaborate on the three steps I mentioned above.

Create an AdWords Account

The first step is creating a free AdWords account and telling Google how to charge you for your ads. They have to make their money after all.

Once your account set up, you can create your first ad campaign by choosing the type of ads you want to run. There are several options, but in my opinion Search Ads are the best ones for attracting new design clients.

Next, you select the campaign type. I suggest you choose website traffic and don’t include Google Search Partners or the Ad Display Network. Both are good for driving traffic to a product or resource, but your goal is to attract clients.

Set up the delivery

What makes Google AdWords such a valuable marketing tool is the ability to pick the geographic location where your ads will appear. If you live in Cleaveland Ohio, you can set up your campaign so that only people in Cleaveland will see it.

There are several reasons to limit your search to particular geographic regions. Top among them is the amount of competition you face the broader your target area. If you set your campaign to all of the USA you are competing with every other designer across the whole country. It is possible to win in that scenario, but since a kind of bidding/auction system is used to determine ad placement, it could get costly.

Of course, there's a lot more to the whole thing that I'm not getting into which is why I suggest you take an AdWords course before starting. But basically, targetting an entire country is just too difficult for someone just starting out.

By narrowing down your geographic area, you are narrowing down who you are competing with and the effort required to get your ads in front of potential clients.

Set your budget

You need to set a budget for your ad campaign. It can be as high or as low as you want. There are several options for choosing how to invest your money in your campaign. What I suggest is using the standard delivery method since it gives you better analytical data on your ads.

For the bidding method. I suggest Clicks over Views. With Clicks, you only pay when someone clicks on your ad whereas with Views you get charged every time your ad is displayed regardless of whether or not someone interacts with it.

The final part of setting your budget is choosing a start and end dates of your campaign. I suggest starting out with short campaigns until you get the hang of it.

Choose your keywords.

Choosing keywords is the fun part. You get to decide what keywords you want to target with your ads. These are the words you think people will type into the search engine to find you.

Start off with common sense terms like;

  • web design
  • website design
  • web designer
  • logo design
  • logo designer
  • etc.

You can narrow down your keywords even further by adding a location such as "web designer Cleveland."

Choosing keywords is easy, choosing the right keywords is a bit more tricky. Targetting "website designer" may bring you a lot more traffic than "web designer" or vice versa. There are tools to research what keywords are more popular than others, or how often specific keywords are searched. Google’s Keyword Planner is a popular free one. I use software called Long Tail Pro for my keyword research.

Create your ads

Finally, you need to create your ads. There is an option to create banner style ads, but for finding design clients, all you need is standard search results ads. These show up as the first few listings when you do a Google search. They have a small [Ad] next to them.

Then it's just a matter of choosing the right title and wording to attract clients to your site, launching your campaign and waiting for clients to come calling.

How to get the most out of Google AdWords.

Google AdWords is very easy to learn. However, there is a learning curve if you want to get good at it and not end up wasting money. Here are some tips to help you get the most out of your AdWords campaign.

1) Build landing pages.

AdWords campaigns work best when linked to a dedicated landing page and not your home page. Google give each ad a rank that helps determine it's placement (along with other factors) vs the competition. The page your ad is linked to plays a significant factor in your ad rank score. If your ad is for logo design. Make sure it’s linked to a landing page that is just about logo design.

2) Study what your competitors are doing

Figure out what keywords your competitors are targeting and what ads they are displaying and try and outdo them. Keyword tools like the one by Google can help you figure out the best keywords to target, but they also allow you to enter a competitor’s URL and see what keywords they are targetting.

3) Split test

Google AdWords is not a set it and forget it system. You should study the performance of your ads and adjust things on the go. If you are getting a lot of traction with the keyword “web design” but not much with “website design” then you should adjust your campaign to push more of your budget towards the keyword that is performing better. Split testing ads for a single keyword also works well in figuring out which ad copy is earning more clicks.

4) Link your Google AdWords and Google Analytics Accounts.

AdWords has some excellent tracking info, but it only tells you what happened with your ad up until the point it is clicked. By linking your Google Analytics account to your AdWords account, you can follow along and see what happens after your ad is clicked.

5) Start small and grow as you get more comfortable creating ad campaigns.

Although AdWords is easy to learn, there are a lot of things that influence the success or failure of an ad campaign. Until you are comfortable, I suggest setting short campaigns and starting with a low budget until you learn the nuances of the platform.

"Hacking" Google AdWords

I mentioned above that one of the best things about Google AdWords is the ability to target geographic areas because it narrows down the competition. But what if you live in a large metropolitan area with lots of competition? In my example, I used Cleveland Ohio. Let's say there's a lot of competition for web designers in Cleveland and the cost of running your AdWords campaign is getting high. Nothing is stopping you from targeting other areas instead.

There are plenty of smaller areas around Cleveland that you could target. Places like Bedford Heights, Euclid, Olmstead Falls, and others. Nothing is stopping you from choosing keywords targetting those smaller communities. Chances are the competition will be much lower so your budget will go much farther and clients there shouldn't be opposed to working with a web designer in Cleveland.

And the best part is if it doesn’t work out and nobody clicks on your ads, it doesn’t cost you a cent.

Give Google AdWords at try

So many designers are struggling to find design clients, and yet this inexpensive way to target exactly the people you want to work with is at your disposal. It doesn't matter where in the world you are; Google AdWords can help you attract design clients because it's putting your ads directly in front of the people actively looking for your services.

If you are not already taking advantage of search engine advertising, I highly suggest you look into it soon.

What is your experience with online advertising to attract design clients?

Let me know by leaving a comment for this episode.

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 Shaun

Hi Mark. Only started listening to your podcast recently, I really enjoy listening. You give us some really good advice and it sounds like you really enjoy your job and lifestyle. keep up the good work!

I am from South Africa and I am currently working for the government as a Graphic Designer, work is very repetitive and boring. I am stagnating at the moment and would like to make a move...I am thinking about freelancing on the side. I am currently busy learning app development. I heard you mention 99 designs and am currently doing some designs...I feel like I am lacking in creativity and skill. But this wont get me down...

What would you suggest for someone that is in a creative rut? any exercises that one can do? to get back on the horse?

Just wanted to say Thank you for your advice and what you are doing. Keep it up!

To find out what I told Shaun you’ll have to listen to the podcast.

Resource of the week BackupBuddy Deployment

With BackupBuddy’s Deployment feature, you can push or pull a WordPress site’s database, media files, plugins and active theme back and forth between a Staging Site (or Test/Development Site) and a Live Site. BackupBuddy allows you to develop on one site and then push changes to another, so you never have to develop on a live site again.

Deployment now supports setting the deployed site’s Search Engine Visibility option to either visible, not visible, or no change. A default for this setting can be set in the Deployment settings.

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Contact me

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I want to help you.

Running a graphic design or web design business all by yourself isn't easy. If there are any struggles you face running your design business, please reach out to me. I'll do my best to help you by addressing your issues in a future blog post or podcast episode here at Resourceful Designer. You can reach me at feedback@resourcefuldesigner.com

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