[sc name="pod_ad"]For your design business to succeed, you must set goals for yourself, and for those goals to be reached you need to break them down into micro goals.
I've talked on a previous podcast episode about setting S.M.A.R.T. goals for your design business, goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Related. But even S.M.A.R.T. goals fail sometimes. That's where micro goals come in.
You need goals to measure your personal and professional success. Without them, it's much harder to know when you’ve reached a milestone or level of success. There’s a certain satisfaction in accomplishing goals. It has even been scientifically proven that accomplishing goals releases dopamine, a bodily chemical associated with happiness.
Unfortunately, plenty of goals go unaccomplished. Mostly due to a lack of urgency. This happens when a person concentrates too much on reaching an end goal and not on the steps required to get there. Micro goals are the day to day steps needed to achieve those loftier end goals.
For example, a person wanting to lose 100 pounds may feel like it's a daunting task. However, it will seem much easier to accomplish if they set micro goals to lose two pounds per week throughout a year.
The path to reaching a future goal isn't always clear. Micro goals act as stepping stones that help you along the way by showing what needs to be done tomorrow, today, or even right now. Since they are easier to concentrate on, there’s less chance you’ll lose focus on your micro goals.
If your goal is to start your design business within three months, what will you do between now and then? Perhaps some of your micro goals will look like these.
These micro goals act as reminders of the steps you need to take each day until you open your design business.
Because micro goals are small and easy to accomplish, they encourage you to start doing things now that may otherwise get pushed off. They act as reminders that these things need to get done to make progress towards your end goal. Micro goals are also reminders of the progress you are making as you complete each one.
Without micro goals, you may fall victim to procrastinating. You may feel that a goal that is still months away isn’t a priority and you may delay working on it for another day, week or month. Micro goals keep you on track and help build momentum.
Do you want to hear something funny?
That momentum you gain by completing micro goals makes you feel good about each accomplishment and pushes you to do even more. That's the dopamine effect. Your body releases dopamine whenever you experience a pleasurable sensation, such as completing a micro goal. This effect is associated with your body's reward system motivating you to crave it even more. And that means a greater motivation to tackle the next micro goal to feel good again.
According to Psychology Today, “everything from making your bed to doing all the dishes will give you the ‘ding-ding-ding’ feeling of having completed a task. Neurobiologically the satisfaction of completing a task creates internal rocket fuel that energises you to keep working towards your larger goal.”
And according to Teresa Amabile and Steven J. Kramer of the Harvard Business Review "The more frequently you experience that sense of progress, the more likely you are to be creatively productive in the long run,”
It doesn’t matter how much is left to reach your end goal. Making these little strides can make a huge difference in how you feel and perform today. Isn’t the human body a fantastic thing?
Most of us have more than one long term goal. Sometimes those multiple goals compete for our attention, and it’s hard for us to prioritise them. With our limited time available each day, on which goals should you concentrate?
Because Micro goals have small time frames associated with them, they allow you to cut through that confusion by letting you work towards multiple end goals at once. Spend an hour or two on one, a few minutes on another, and an afternoon on yet another goal. By the end of the day, you will have made progress on multiple end goals, and you’ll feel good about yourself.
To get started with micro goals you need to ask the question "What individual steps, once accomplished will bring me closer to my end goal?" Write out those steps and start working on and checking them off. You’ll quickly learn to appreciate all these minor accomplishments, and you’ll feel good about the progress you make towards your end goals.
If your goal is to double your design business revenue, here are some micro goals you could try:
These are just a few examples of micro goals you could use to double your revenue.
What goals do you have for your future? Break them down into the smallest possible actionable units and get working on them. Pick a micro goal, finish it, and move on to the next one. Repeat this over and over, and before you know it, you will be reaching the goals you’ve set for yourself and your business. And don’t forget to enjoy the dopamine hit along the way.
Let me know by leaving a comment for this episode.
Submit your question to be featured in a future episode of the podcast by visiting the feedback page.
This week’s question comes from Vincent
I am just starting to get my business going and already have some good traction with some local churches that have asked for quotes. I am encountering a decent amount of questions about these services like ChurchCo (thechurchco.com) that will create a custom (on demand) website for you and are charging $20-40 per month for the service.
I would assume that you have come across some of these. Do you have any advice on how to show the value proposition of going with a true web designer vs. a service like this?
To find out what I told Vincent you’ll have to listen to the podcast.
Resource of the week remove.bg
Remove.bg is a free service to remove the background of any photo. It works 100% automatically: You don't have to manually select the background/foreground layers to separate them - just select your image and instantly download the resulting image with the background removed! Currently, the resulting image is limited to 500px by 500px but they say they are working on increasing the size.
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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
Since launching Resourceful Designer in 2015, one of the biggest struggles I’ve seen from my audience is starting a design business and finding clients. I realise that I've never actually said what I would do if I had to start a design business from scratch. Until now.
Over the past 148 podcast episodes and via countless conversations on Facebook, I've shared plenty of advice on growing and starting a design business. This is advice I’ve garnered through my own experiences and what I’ve learned from other’s who have gone through a similar journey. Every week I receive messages from listeners thanking me for that advice. They tell me how I’ve helped them start their own design business. Some even credit me with giving them the courage to leave their full-time job to pursue their dream.
I'm glad that they find my advice helpful, but I also know that I’m far removed from where these listeners are in their careers. I have a successful design business. I don’t need to go looking for clients; they come to me. I’m at a point where I can turn down projects and clients that don't interest me.
I don’t even have a website for my business. And yet, I’m prospering. That’s because I’m 14 years into this. Plus I have another 15 years before that working at a print shop. All these years have helped me build my brand, my reputation, and the client loyalty that I talk about so often on the podcast.
I know what I did to get to where I am today, and I share a lot of that with you. But I also know that I started at a time when "social media" wasn’t a common phrase. When most people hadn’t heard of Facebook. When YouTube was just getting off the ground and wouldn’t become mainstream for several years. And talking about podcasts would be met with blank stares. Things were different then.
When I decided to start a graphic design business I never dreamed that I would have clients all over Canada, the USA, some in Scottland, Australia, Hong Kong and more. Back then, I was just hoping to get a handful of good local clients to keep me busy. I built my business on that principle.
But what about today?
I’ve been thinking a lot recently. What would I do if I had to start a design business from scratch today, without the benefit of 30 years experience? Here are the steps I would follow if I were starting a design business today.
Please keep in mind that I’m talking about starting a design business, not becoming a designer. In this scenario that I already know how to design.
The very first thing I would do while starting a design business is launch a website. I know it's ironic considering I don't have one for my current business. But a site is crucial to growing any business today. It’s the hub where people can find out about you and your business.
I’d Start small with just the basics and a small portfolio, and build upon it over time. But I would launch a website ASAP.
The next thing I would do is start spreading the word that I’ve started a design business. I would tell my parents, siblings, aunts and uncles. I would reach out to cousins I haven’t seen since so and so’s wedding a decade ago and tell them that I've started a design business.
The purpose isn't to get business from them, although if I did it would be nice. I would reach out hoping they will spread the news. You never know when one of your relatives may know of or hear about someone who needs a designer.
I would then go through my email contact lists, my Facebook friends etc. and send them a message, even if I hadn’t spoken to them since high school. Again, I just want to spread the word. The more people who know I’m running a design business, the better the chances of me picking up clients.
I would say something like this.
Hi Lisa,
It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I hope life is treating you well.
The reason I’m reaching out is to let you know that I’ve started a graphic and web design business. Here’s my website (URL).
If you or anyone you knows needs a graphic designer I would be grateful if you would pass on my name.
Thanks and take care,
Mark
After contacting family and friends, I would join my Chamber of Commerce. Not only would I join the Chamber, but I would set up a meeting with whoever the director is and get to know them. I would inquire if they have any events or projects coming up that may require my services.
Then I would go through the Chamber's membership directory and reach out to every person on the list, introducing myself to them, and once again. Asking them to pass on my name if they know anyone that needs a designer.
Once my business was set up, I would visit every printer, screen printer, design agency, sign company, trophy shop, promotional marketing supplier, embroidery shop, etc. and let them know who I am and what I do. These types businesses sometimes need a designer but not enough to have one on staff. I would try to get my name on their contact list for when they do.
Next, I would reach out to my local tourism bureau. The purpose of a tourism bureau is to attract visitors to your area, specifically to the events and attractions of the tourism bureau's members.
I would ask the tourism bureau if they need any help in promoting the area. I would also ask them to pass on my name should any of their members need a designer.
I wouldn't stop there; I would look at the tourism bureau's calendar of upcoming events and contact those people directly to see how I could help them.
Almost every community has at least one theatre company who needs to attract spectators to their productions. I would contact whoever was in charge of my local theatre companies and offer them my services.
This is a trick I actually did use when I started my business 14 years ago. I attended as many networking events, trade shows, get-togethers, or anywhere with a crowd of people and walked around with a T-Shirt that read "Hi, I’m a graphic designer, Let’s Talk".
It worked in 2006 and I know it still works because DaJaniere, one of my listeners sent me a photo of herself in her own “I’m a graphic designer, let’s talk” Tee and told me how she wore it to a women’s empowerment conference in Detroit, and people were going up to her and inquiring about her services.
It works and I would do it again.
It's not the most glamorous option but it is tested. I would pick an area in my community, do a bit of research on the businesses there and then approach them asking if they need help improving their marketing material or website.
I would especially target any business with an unsecured website, those with an http:// instead of an https://. It's a great conversation starter. I would explain to them how Google is penalizing unsecured website and what it does to their search engine ranking. I would also make sure to offer my services as a solution.
Once I exhausted one area of my community, I would move on to another until I’ve gone door to door everywhere I wanted to.
A lot of designers swear by Instagram, and of course, there are the popular Twitter and Facebook. The problem with these social media platforms is most people visit them to get out of a business mindset. They’re there for the social connections and camaraderie.
Except for Linkedin that is. Linkedin is a very business-oriented social platform. Most people use it with business purposes in mind, and it's a great place to pick up new clients.
I would start off by writing a few short articles about how design affects business decisions. Perhaps topics such as: How to use colour as a marketing strategy. How a rebrand can boost a businesses exposure. How most businesses fail when it comes to their brand.
Once I published these articles on LinkedIn I would start reaching out to people, probably people in my local area and once again, ask if they need design services. Those articles will act as social proof that I know what I'm talking about when they view my profile.
Do you see the pattern here? Ask family and friends to refer you. Ask the Chamber and Chamber members if they need your services. Ask printers, agencies, supply shops if they need any help. Ask the tourism bureau. Ask theatre companies. Attend networking events wearing a T-shirt asking if people need a designer. Go door to door asking businesses if you can help them. Finally, reach out to people on LinkedIn asking if you can help. It all comes down to the ask.
When you are starting a design business, you can’t simply sit back and wait for clients to come. That may happen later but not in the early stages. No, you have to persistently ask people if they, or if they know anyone who could use your services. It may seem daunting, but that’s how you grow.
Keep in mind that all these steps are geared toward landing your first clients. You don't need many clients when you are starting a design business. In 2006 when I quit my job at the print shop and went full-time on my own, I had less than 10 regular clients. Those few clients were enough to help me get started and grow to where I am today.
So there you have it. What I would do if I were starting a design business from scratch in today’s market. I hope if you are still new to running a design business that this episode gave you some motivation and some ideas that you could try right now in order to grow your business. If you stick with it, I’m sure you’ll do fine.
Let me know by leaving a comment for this episode.
Submit your question to be featured in a future episode of the podcast by visiting the feedback page. This week’s question comes from Steve
Hi Mark, you often refer to your "Virtual Assistant" who helps manage your websites on a monthly basis. Can you tell us more about using a "virtual Assistant" and where we should look to hire one?
To find out what I told Steve you’ll have to listen to the podcast.
Resource of the week Trim View in Adobe Illustrator
A feature in Adobe Illustrator that many have been asking for for years, is finally available. Trim View (View>Trim View) hides the part of any item or element that hangs off the artboard in Illustrator. Anything that touches the grey area around the artboard is hidden from view when Trim View is turned on. This allows you to view only the "active" part of your design. No more making masks or special layers to hide those items.
Thank you Adobe for finally implementing this long sought after feature.
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I would love to hear from you. You can send me questions and feedback using my feedback form.
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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
[sc name="pod_ad"]Every skill you try to learn has a learning curve to it. Sometimes that curve is small, and sometimes it’s very long. And in some cases, that learning curve is never-ending. Such as with design skills.
The title of this episode is Progress Over Perfection. That’s because perfection is an unattainable goal, which is a good thing. Think about it. What if you designed the most fantastic logo or website, one that every single designer in the world acknowledged as being perfect. How would you follow that up? How can you improve on perfection? You can’t. And that’s a good thing. It’s what keeps us creative.
If you attained perfection, there would be no more motivation to carry on because everything after that point would be a step-down. That’s why I choose the title Progress Over Perfection. Because perfection is unattainable, your goal should be to make progress instead by continually improving your design skills. You do that by practising. There will never be a time in your life when you don’t need to improve your design skills.
Even famed designers such as Michael Bierut from Pentagram or Kate Moross from Studio Moross continue to practice their skills. Carolyn Davidson designed the Nike swoosh when she was a student at Portland State University. It’s one of the most recognisable brands on the planet. But do you think Carolyn stopped learning or trying to improve her skills after that success? The answer is no.
These designers, as well as every other designer around the world, continue to improve their design skills by practising their craft. And by practising, I mean doing things over and over again with the intent of becoming better. It’s a long road. I’ve been in this business for 30 years and the skill level I want to be at as a designer is still far beyond the horizon. That’s why I continue to practice my craft every day.
Have you ever watched an Aaron Draplin teaching logo design? He doesn’t merely pick up a pencil or his mouse and design an amazing logo. No, he tests out idea after idea, discarding some and expanding on others. He keeps doing this 50, 100, 200 times until he begins to narrow down the ideas to one concrete logo design. Even then, that final logo design may get discarded for something completely different.
That is practising. Call it brainstorming or brain-dumping or experimenting or whatever you will; it’s still practising.
When my daughter was a young teenager, she played on a competitive soccer team. One day, they had one of the women from Canada’s Women’s National Team help them out at practice. She was one of the players from the 2012 Olympic bronze medal team.
She told my daughter’s team that if you want to get good at soccer, you need to touch the ball over and over. Not kick it, or dribble it or bounce it on your knee, although those do help. Just keep moving it with your feet over and over and over again, and you will become a better soccer player.
Every time a soccer player touches the ball, the ball reacts. They touch the ball with their foot one way the ball behaves in a certain way. They touch the ball another way, and it responds differently. Every time the ball reacts to their touch, they are learning what to expect. After doing it a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand times, they will come to know exactly what to expect from the ball.
That is called practising. It’s not as glamorous as practising penalty or corner kicks. Or as fun as dribbling the ball through an obstacle course of orange cones but it’s practising nonetheless. And the more they do it, the better they will be on the soccer pitch because that practice will help them understand how the ball reacts to their touch.
To stay at the top of their game, they need to continue practising. Amazing players such as Renaldo or Messi or Canada's Christina Sinclair don’t stop practising just because they’re at the top of their game. If anything, they need to practice even harder than before.
The same goes for design.
Every doodle you make, every sketch you make, every ill-conceived design concept you come up with, every logo, poster, banner, or website that gets rejected by a client should be considered as practice in the journey to make you a better designer.
Every design you make will help you better understand how certain elements interact with each other, how things align, how colour combinations work or don’t work, how fonts complement each other. What things create flow and what things break it. Every design you make is practice to become a better designer.
There are no fast solutions. There are no books, tutorials, online courses or school programs that will magically make you a great designer. The only way to become a great designer is by learning new skills and practising those skills over and over and over again. This goes for both new and veteran designers. We all need to keep practising. The better you get at design, the more you’ll understand the importance of practising. Remember, Progress over Perfection.
Don’t be discouraged if you’re design skills are not improving as fast as you would like them to. Or the critiques you receive from your designs are harsher than you expected. Renaldo didn’t become a superstar of soccer overnight. He spent years and years honing his talents. Practising every chance he got. If you do the same, if you devote your time to practising your design skills, there’s no reason you can’t become a superstar of the design world.
You can’t get worse by practising.
Let me know by leaving a comment for this episode.
Submit your question to be featured in a future episode of the podcast by visiting the feedback page.
This week’s question comes from Victor
You mentioned before how it's good to get to know designers in the community so you can hire or pass work on to them. Do you think it would be a good idea to introduce myself to studios in my community as a freelancer? My thought was that if I could do this with freelancers in the community, why not studios?
To find out what I told Victor you’ll have to listen to the podcast.
Resource of the week Squoosh.app
Squoosh.app is a website that allows you to drag and drop images you want to optimise for web use. The image appears in a full browser window with a slider in the middle. Your uploaded image is on the left and the optimised image on the right. You drag the slider left and right to compare the two images. Options allow you to resize the image as well as reduce the colour pallet. You can also adjust the type of compression and quality of the image until you are satisfied and are ready to download your newly optimised image.
I don’t know how they do it, but I’ve been able to take optimised images out of Photoshop and cut their filesize in half without any noticeable degradation of the image. Check it out; I'm sure you'll find the site useful.
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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
Whether you are running your design business full-time or part-time, you probably started it with a vision of how your ideal business should look.
How does it measure up? Are you exceeding your expectations or are you falling short? If you are exceeding your expectations, do you know how you're doing it? What is contributing to your success and can you sustain it and continue to grow your design business?
If you’re falling short of your vision of an ideal design business, do you know why? Knowing why your falling short is a significant step in rectifying your situation.
I’m publishing this during the first week of 2019. I know it’s cliché but the beginning of a new year is the perfect time to look at your design business and see if it measures up to what you imagined it would be. It’s also the perfect time to make any needed changes to realign and get back on track if it isn't.
For most people, the beginning of a new calendar year also means the beginning of a new fiscal year. If you've been in business for more than a year you can take some time and compare the past year over the previous ones to see how things stand. A new year also means you have a clean slate to build upon going forward.
Taking measure of my own business, I see that I didn’t grow in 2018. I made about $2,000 less in 2018 than I did in 2017. In the grand scheme of things, $2,000 isn’t that much, so I’m not worried about it. But it is the first time since I started my design business that I haven’t seen growth from the previous year.
So what went wrong?
I invoiced for more design work in 2018 than I ever have. So that’s not the issue. Looking at my accounting books, I see that revenue from the print brokering service I offer declined. Design revenue went up, while print brokering went down. Please don't take that the wrong way, there’s still a significant amount of money to be made in print brokering if you’re thinking of getting into it.
I believe I can pinpoint the decline in print brokering revenue to three clients. I had two clients who went completely digital and decided not to have printed versions of their annual report last year. A third client, a yearly festival had some financial difficulty and drastically reduced the number of booklets, pamphlets, posters and other printed material I handled for them.
Between the three of them, I lost several thousand dollars in printing revenue. Considering this, I need to take the time to figure out how I can make up for the decline in print brokering revenue going forward should the trend continue. Should I concentrate on promoting my print brokering service more, or should I focus on getting more design work? That’s up to me to decide.
What you need to decide is what it is you want to accomplish with your design business this year. I don't know your particular situation so I can’t tell you exactly what you need to do, but I can offer some suggestions that may help your business grow.
Touchpoints are the avenues potential clients come in contact with your business. They consist of things like your business cards to your website to the way you answer your phone. My free guide, the Four-Week Marketing Boost can help you with this. As the old saying goes, "You only have one chance to make a first impression." so why not make it the best first impression you can.
Take a few minutes to review your contract and proposal templates. Do they protect both you and your clients as thoroughly as they should? Make sure any new services you offer are listed and remove anything that is outdated.
The beginning of a new year is a perfect opportunity to raise your rates. Especially but not limited to anything you charge for by the hour. Raising your prices not only increases your income, but it can elevate the quality of clients who seek you out.
Did you learn anything new last year that you could add as a service you offer? SEO, Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, Print Brokering and so much more can become new services that can increase your income.
Have you considered specialising in a niche? Narrowing your focus and concentrating on one industry is a great way to be seen as an expert in your field. The beginning of a new year is a perfect time to start targeting a new niche.
Of course, January is the perfect time to set goals not only for yourself but for your design business. Determine what it is you want to accomplish this year. Having a goal makes it much easier to track your progress, and it becomes much more satisfying when you reach it.
No specific time of year is best for reviewing your design business, but January seems like the most popular time for taking measure of things in your life. However, even if you are listening to this episode in April or in July, you can still take a bit of time for taking measure of where things stand with your design business and make whatever course corrections you need to make.
Let me know how things are working out for you by leaving a comment for this episode.
Resource of the week Four Week Marketing Boost
The Four Week Marketing Boost!is a free guide I created that will help you strengthen your marketing position, boost your brand’s awareness & social presence and ultimately ensure you are in tip-top shape to offer a best first impression to potential new clients.
This guide is divided into 20 short actions that comfortably fit into your regular day and are designed to take as little time away from your client work as possible. Although you can complete these exercises quickly, it is recommended you tackle only one per day, spending no more than 30 minutes per task. 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 for free by visiting marketingboost.net.
Or, if you are in the U.S.A., you can text the word MARKETINGBOOSTto 44222.
Improve your business' image and create the best first impression possible to attract more clients.
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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
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