“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way “¦”
from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
The economy is barely recovering. Here in the UK there was an actual contraction of the economy in the last quarter of 2010. However, like Dickens’ description of late eighteenth century revolutionary Europe, this period remains paradoxically promising for those of us who have turned our backs on corporate structures and elected instead to work on our small business at home.
You notice I said “work on” our businesses, not “work at” our businesses – because that’s the point.
Why you should grow your business
It is even more important than it usually is to expand and systematize your small business. Here are some reasons:
- As a designer, for example, you are only capable of earning so much money per hour. We get tired, we get sick – dare I say it – one day, we’ll get old. We need to find ways of accruing income separately from hours worked. Systematizing work will enable you to explain to partners and freelancers more effectively what you do and what to expect.
- Market structures tend towards an oligopoly. I mean – all sectors of industry are eventually controlled by a few (3, 4, 5, 6, 7-ish) key players. Look at the banking, energy, manufacturing and retail industries! Some of the few exceptions to this rule are sectors like internet marketing and web design. It’s no coincidence that all the opportunities for small players are online – the internet is in it’s infancy and there’s lots up for grabs. Already internet search and advertising has defaulted to an oligopoly. It’s time to move fast before the big boys swallow us up!
- So while there’s a threat from up above; there’s problems down below. There are job boards, contest sites, crowdsourcing and people willing to work for free. Sure, if you’re experienced this form of competition won’t harm you. But it is a growing phenomenon and you should arm yourself against it.
If you want to grow your business you have three options:
- You get lucky (not going to happen)
- You invent some original and revolutionary product or service (possible but unlikely)
- Take what you already have, perfect it, enhance it and expand it in every way you can (do this!)
How to grow your design business
Wealth is most often linked with exclusive ownership or control. You may make a living with someone’s idea or product, but you stand a much better chance with your own. If your product saves the client time, then you can make a fortune.
Listen to your customers – first and foremost
As a website designer/developer you may start out by supplying HTML and CSS files for someone else to create a site with. This way you are just a small cog in a larger machine.
But, maybe there’s more you can do? I have found again and again that clients would rather I do as much as possible. So a small design job can become much bigger with domain name registration, web hosting, website maintenance and email all coming into play.
So, I have prepared “packages” or, more accurately, produced whole systems of web marketing that clients can purchase in one go. Added to these packages are further annual fees for website and email hosting and maintenance.
The benefits of offering these packages are many but there are two main ones:
- The client gets peace of mind that their web presence will be professionally designed, developed and maintained with all the various benefits (on site optimization, analytics, speed) clearly itemized.
- The designer/developer gets the benefit of annual fees coming in plus the website in a safe, optimized and monitored environment keeping the chances of problems or downtime down to a minimum.
People will pay a premium price for a service that takes away hard work and confusion.
Here are some ideas of one design and marketing package that could be offered to a client:
- Logo and identity design.
- Business stationery: 500 business cards, letterheads, compliment slips printed and delivered).
- Website and blog designed, developed and hosted.
- Social media: Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts set up and profile pages designed to fit in with identity.
- SEO: on site optimization plus review of search engine indexing and performance.
- Mailing list: Aweber mailing list set up and email template designed.
- Email set up.
Make sure you like it
Are you interested in offering these extra services? Or are you only interested in website design and that’s it? Personally, the whole area of marketing really interests me so I’m happy offering these services. But, if you only like creating beautiful websites, maybe this isn’t for you.
One thing’s for sure – don’t concentrate on just making money. Concentrate on delivering a better product or service. You’ll never win competing on price … so go for quality!
Conclusion
As I’ve said, I know this isn’t for everybody. What about you? Are you expanding or specializing? Have you any further ideas for other services a web designer can offer?
Thanks Rob, another interesting post. I’ve not heard of Aweber so wondered what your experience of it was like. The one I would probably plump for is Mail Chimp as I’ve heard good reports about it.
Hello Mark, I’m just about to use Aweber for a client so I can tell you more in the future.
I definitely wouldn’t recommend MailChimp as I had a dreadful experience with them. I had 3 people complain of spam on my first mailout and they closed my account. (Needless to say I wasn’t spamming – these were people who’d not only given their email addresses to me but also clicked a confirmation email (a double opt-in) but this was a lesson in list-building – leave it too long in between newsletters and people forget who you are!) MailChimp were exceedingly unhelpful once they’d closed my account – I couldn’t get any information out of them (how many complaints; how many un-subs) and I lost a bit of money. But their branding is great and their site works well, although the email building process is over-complicated.
I’ve noticed that Aweber doesn’t offer the chance to say why you’re unsubscribing, so they’re probably your best bet. Aweber and MailChimp both do sequential auto-responding but others, like VerticalResponse don’t. Sequential auto-responding being the ability to send a stream of email (4 or 5) to a new subscriber spaced out over a period of days – the jewel in the crown of email selling.
Other services, like VerticalResponse, are quite good, cheap and simple, if you don’t need sequential auto-responding. Hope this helps.
Great post Rob,
Very inspiring. Solving clients problems, saving them time and generating sales will make you indispensable.
I found I don’t have the skills to do logo work. So I have a colleague who is great at design and print work, who is also runs a small business.
I only do work on websites hosted by me because I know and can control the environment. It is an easy sell to clients as they understand having only one person to call for their website is better and less confusing.
I am finding I am doing more work in Business Process Applications. Automating some part of a clients business and integrating it into their website.
Customer Relationship Management is another growing demand. Once the website generates a lead where does it go and how is it managed.
Writing HTML and CSS is such a small part of Web Design.
Hi Rob
I’ve never really thought of actually offering a total package like that, super simple and makes a lot of sense. Do you approach people directly, wait for them to hit you up. Any cold calling or do you always have some type of “in”?
Having one of those “soul-less” freelance weeks. 🙁 This gave me a boost.
Hello David, that’s great you’ve been able to partner up with someone who’s skills complements yours. I work with other hosts sometimes and it can be very difficult. Branching out into Business Process Applications and Customer Relationship Management are two excellent examples of what I’m talking about. Thanks for that!
Hello Rob, I’ve never approached people directly nor cold called. I’m very lucky that 100% of my clients have either come from this website or from a recommendation from someone I’ve worked with – having come from this website! I’m sure you’ll get something from you’re blog because your typography skills are awesome. I’m sure the 🙁 week will become 🙂 soon!
Interesting article Rob. Thanks!
Regarding the issue of mailing lists and spam,firstly look for a mail list service that lets you send authenticated email using sender ID and DomainKeys/DKIM . This will prove the sender is who they say, and helps reduce the risk of a message being flagged as spam. After that, the only way to be sure is testing, either using a service, or by setting up a number of testing accounts yourself.
For sure there are some hassles if you are new to mail lists, but there’s good potential income for any designer, so I think it’s worth the effort. If you need help to get up to speed quickly, one good book is “Create Stunning HTML Email That Just Works”
I think another excellent opportunity are the CMS options available now. WordPress is really easy to get into, and more complex choices like Joomla or Drupal let you take on far more complex projects than are possible with static HTML. Either get into them yourself, or partner with someone who is, and it will open lots of doors.
Cheers!
Hello Dave, that’s great info about mailing lists. I wonder what list service you use? You’re right about Joomla and Drupal (and EE) – they are probably great CMSs to learn and I’m ashamed to say I don’t know much about them. Thanks for your comment.
I mostly use Campaign Monitor and have been pleased with it. They have the technical features we wanted, and a pricing structure that was a good fit for the size of our mailing lists, and the frequency we send out.
There are some other really good choices though.
Thanks for that suggestion, Dave, actually I’m setting up a WordPress membership site at the moment and the people who have created the plug-in I’m using recommended MailChimp and Campaign Monitor before Aweber – even though the plug-in integrated with all three.
I loved your post especially the last marketing trick of giving some offers to customers. Only thing is I want to know in details is, how I can offer Aweber service to client for their benefit? I already have used Aweber to promote my affiliate marketing business but for clients how can I use it?
Please explain me.
You can set up an email capture form on your client’s website. And set up Aweber for them. You could even run all their email campaigns for them through Aweber. However, most of my clients just like me to set up an email system and they take it from there. Thanks for the comment and I’m glad you liked the post.