#freelanceradvice

The exhilaration of having a ton of cash flowing in and the agony of hearing crickets chirping instead of client phone calls, it is the life of a designer. Countless times in my career I have had moments of panic when the phone stops ringing. “Will it ever ring again?” “Should I apply for that job at McDonalds?” “Does my Mom still have a bed for me at her house?”

What I have learned is that lulls in work can be turned to a calm before the storm if you do the right things. (And, by the way, human nature’s inspiration to have you play Call of Duty all night, watch movies, kill six hours on Facebook, or go to the pool all day is NOT the right thing. Engage in too much of those activities and McDonalds may be your only career option.)

Here are a few ideas to help you turn slow times into future work.

Update your portfolio. “The landscapers lawn is never mowed.” When times are slow it is a great time to design a new portfolio site (or update your current portfolio with recent work). Dedicate yourself to it as if you had a stringent deadline from a client because once the phone starts ringing, paying work always seems to trump polishing up your own portfolio site. While I worked at Fox during the “dot-bomb” my team knew a year and a half in advance that we would eventually be laid off. I must have launched five different portfolio sites as I panicked about my career’s future.

Get social. Take a little time to get active on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Dribbble, Vimeo, YouTube, Pinterest, or any of the other hot social networks of the hour. Update your profile pictures and other graphics. Make sure you have content in all of the available buckets. Then get active! Start posting some interesting stuff about what you are doing or what you are finding on the web. Your activity is tracked and shoved down the throats of anyone who follows you. This activity will surely help remind customers (old and new) that you exist.

Learn something new. When I first started my design career in the mid-nineties I was working for peanuts at Alphagraphics (and later a few other small, dead-end design shops) in the day and spending my nights teaching myself HTML and Flash. That effort (when I had no freelance work and a low pressure job) made all the difference in my career as I soon found myself creating websites for some of the most recognized brands in the world. Who knows where I would be today if I hadn’t made the effort to learn something new when my career was in its slow early stages. (I certainly wouldn’t be running my own digital agency creating websites for Google, Disney, NBC and the like.)

Send “Checking In” emails. Go through your contact list and send out a few “just checking in” emails. This strategy helps keep you top of mind with old clients and business contacts. It doesn’t have to be anything special or formal, “Hey Cindy, Long time no see! Hope you are doing well. Things have been going great. I just launched a couple new projects ________ & ________. I’d love to work with you again sometime soon. Shoot me a line when you get a chance. I’d love to hear what you have going on. Best, Charlie”

De-clutter. I don’t know about you, but when I’m busy my life gets cluttery. My virtual desktop becomes a mess of random files and screenshots. And my real desktop accumulates piles of paper, sketches, magazines, and Post-It Notes with phone numbers of people I’m supposed to call back. When work requests slow down, take some time to de-clutter. It is a breath of fresh air in the lungs and will help you be ready for the next crashing wave a of client demands.

Take someone to lunch. Is there a client you’d like to land? A partner you owe (programmer, copywriter)? Or maybe an old boss or ex-coworker you’d like to re-connect with? Take a look at your Rolodex and pick a couple people and shoot off a lunch invite, “Hey John! I was thinking about you the other day and thought it’d be fun to reconnect over lunch. You available later this week or next? My treat!”

Send some thank you cards or emails. Everyone loves to receive a little appreciation and recognition and kicking out a “thank you” message to a client, coworker, or boss can go a long way toward building a strong relationship. They don’t need to be overly gushy (unless that is appropriate). Sometimes a simple message like, “Hey John, I was just reviewing some past projects and wanted to thank you for letting me work on ___________ project. It is one of my favorite portfolio pieces. I’m really proud of it and hope it is helping you achieve your marketing goals. On top of the awesome work, it was a pleasure to work with you and your team. You have some super people at your company! Best, Sally” can help put you back on the radar with a potential client or job lead.

Archive old projects. Take a little time to clean off your hard drives and backup storage. If you still have projects on your computer from five years ago, you are likely victimizing yourself with slower than necessary computer performance. Get that junk off your computer. Put everything on a backup drive that you are not currently working on (or that you won’t likely need in the near future). Open up your scratch disk space and let Photoshop stretch her legs for a change.

Do a postmortem on a few recent projects. Pick a handful good, bad, and ugly projects and do an honest assessment of how they went. What went right? What went wrong? What did a I learn to do? What did I learn not to do? How would I rank each project on a scale of 1 to 10?

Improve your process. Your postmortem analysis can help guide you in some process improvement. But also take a look at the often overlooked things like: Design software palette management: Are your palettes in the right places? Can they be moved around to be optimized for faster production speed? Project management software: Is it time to finally sign up for Basecamp? Or switch to something else? Taking the time to do this when times are slow can help you be ready for the future.

Polish up your résumé. If you are a freelance designer, the worst case scenario is that the phone really will never ring again and you will be forced to go find a job. Might as well update your résumé while you have a minute to breathe.

“We decided to go with another agency,” once again we weren’t selected for the project. “Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!! We thought we had the project in the bag. Why were we not chosen?” Every freelance designer or agency owner has been there, and probably more than once. The reality is that, as the adage states, “You can’t win ‘em all.” However, you can improve your chances of winning pitches for new work with a few smart techniques.

1. Discuss the client’s needs. Most designers have decent enough skills at presenting their work. And, as a result, they do an admirable job of walking a potential client through their portfolio of past projects. This has become the default culture for designers. Unfortunately, it is a flawed strategy. You must resist the initial urge to talk about yourself and first discuss the client’s needs.

Potential clients are only interested in what you have created for others as it relates to what you can create for them. WIIFM? (What’s In It For Me?) is on their mind with every page you turn in your proud portfolio. Before you present one piece of work take some time to ask a few questions.

“What is it that you are wanting to create?” 

“What is the message you are trying to communicate with the project?”

“What are the results you are hoping to achieve?”

“Have you tried creating something like this before? How did it go?”

“What are some of the concerns you have about the project?”

“What has your past experience with other designers been like?”

Take careful notes and plan to address their needs in your pitch. It is helpful if you gather this general information prior to the pitch meeting. However, it is not uncommon to have to do it on the fly.

2. Present your plan to execute on their project in detail. Now that you know what the potential client is planning to create it is time to prove to them that you are the best choice to do the work. Lucky for you, you now have an opportunity to strategically show off your fancy portfolio. To help illustrate how this conversation should flow, here is an example assuming the potential client needs to create a brochure…

“Thanks, for the info. I think I have a clear understanding of the brochure you are hoping to create. I’d love to take a few minutes to explain to you how your project will go and to show you a few examples of similar projects.”

“First, I’ve learned over time that it is important to embark on an in-depth discovery phase for a project before we design anything. So we’ll start by gathering all of the text and images you want to include in the brochure. We’ll organize this information and prepare some wireframe layouts to establish the size of brochure necessary for all of the content you are hoping to include. Here are some examples of what that will look like.”

(Show off examples)

“Next, we’ll begin designing the look and feel of the brochure. This is the fun part when things really start to come to life. We’ll present you with three initial comp ideas and discuss your feedback. You’ll be able to tell us what you like and what you don’t like for each comp. Your feedback is critical because ultimately this is your project and we want to make sure you are happy with the design. We’ll take your feedback on the initial comps and refine them into a finished comp during two more rounds of comps and feedback. Here are some examples of past brochures we have done.”

(Show off and discuss portfolio examples that prove your capability to execute on their project)

“Finally, we will prepare your final design for press and we will coordinate everything for the printing. If you have a printer you like to use, we will be happy to work with them. Otherwise, we can get some printing quotes for you. We’ll also go to the printer and do press checks to make sure the colors and print quality meet expectation. All in all, we’ll take care of the printing coordination to make sure this part of the project goes smoothly.”

(Share testimonial about your abilities from a printer you use)

Obviously I have shortened up the actual conversation a bit for the sake of this blog post, but take careful note to the tone and presentation strategy. Several other items from the questions in point 1 could also be addressed while discussing your execution strategy. Your focus should be on addressing your potential client’s needs and answering their “WIIFM?” questions they are likely asking themselves as you speak.

3. Discuss results. The final items that should be discussed are results. For a designer, creating a cool design is result enough. But your clients will want more. As appropriate to the project, share with your potential client your thoughts about how the work you create for them will:

improve their brand image

drive traffic to their company

increase customer retention

drive sales

This is also a great time to share with them the results your other clients have achieved with projects you’ve created. It never hurts to share things like…

“I designed this brochure for a client to hand out at a trade show. They generated $X,XXX of sales from the show.”

Ask past clients for their results or a testimonial to share in your pitches.