Like many of you I’m sure, when I started designing I took almost any job that would come my way. Sometimes I took 4 or 5 at a time just so I didn’t have to say no or pass up money that was coming my way. Boy, if those aren’t some classic rookie mistakes. But, you do what you got to do when you are making very little money per job. This situation naturally leads one to wonder how they get less clients that want to pay more.
While I can’t say that these methods will work for everyone, below are some of the strategies I used when re-launching Wordpress Designers. If you visit the site you will notice that it is only about half way done, yet I am getting more business than ever from the new design. So much new business that I hardly have time to finish the site!
Here are some of my secrets to getting higher paying clients!
Evaluate Your Past High Paying Clients
Obviously this only works if you have had paying clients in the past. One thing that helped me the most was to to look over my older, high paying, clients and see what I did to convince them to work with me. What was it that convinced them to work with me over the competition? Was it my website? My portfolio samples? My communication? After doing a little research, I realized that it was the clients who I spoke with on the phone AFTER a ballpaprk price was suggested.
Now that I know what was helping me get higher paying clients, it only made sense to better exploit this tool. I will mention how I exploited the ballpark price portion in the next section. For now, I just want to briefly talk about how I improved the phone calls aspect.
In the past, I never really called clients unless they asked me too. I’m just not a phone person, so I would rather chat or just send emails. But, if a few phone calls meant I could get $5,000+ clients, I was more than happy to make a few calls. Now when ever I get a quote request from a client, the first thing I do is give them a very rough ballpark figure and ask them if that is in their budget. If it is in their budget, I then ask for their phone number to do a phone consultation to get some more information to provide them with a better quote.
Since it is these phone calls where I usually “seal the deal” I figured it couldn’t hurt to brush up on my sales techniques and elevator pitches. Here are some resources I found that helped me brush up on these skills.
The Hollywood Way to Online Business Success
“This is the element of a movie and a business that makes it unique. Your USP, your elevator pitch, your remarkable benefit. Without this, the odds for success go way down.”
Perfecting Your “Elevator Pitch”
“Too many entrepreneurs try to pack too much into their “elevator pitches,” making them overly long and detailed, focusing on the wrong things, or using industry jargon that clouds or obscures what their company is really all about.”
Close More Sales: 3 Ways to Get In, Get Started and Make More Money Now—No Matter the Economy
“If you focus on building relationships and implement the sales strategies I reveal here, you’ll be able to close more deals and get more sales now. People will buy from you even in a lagging economy — no matter what your price point.”
Here are a few books I purchased as well. Many of them were recommended by others in the industry. I haven’t read them all yet, but they look every promising. the ones I have read are all extremely insightful.
Show Your Base Price Up Front
For whatever reason, we as designers don’t like to share our prices publicly. Some people are paranoid of other designers being under sold by the competition, while others don’t want to low ball them self on a high paying client. Both are logical reasons not share your price. But in my experience, publishing my start point for design work was one of the best things I ever did.
On the home page of my site, I clearly state that custom design work starts at $2000. By posting this starting point, it weeds out many of the people who aren’t willing to spend that kind of money. Thus, the people that do contact me are ready to spend at least that amount of money. But, because I said “prices start at” I haven’t locked my self into a fixed rate and am free to bid higher on jobs when appropriate. I also reiterate this price on the contact/quote request form in case the person missed the home page altogether. This helps keep my inbox free of emails from people looking for cheap design work.
Because I don’t want to completely push away those with smaller budgets, I also offer design tweaking services which I don’t share a price for. When I get emails for this sort of work, I pick and choose who I want to potentially work with. If I feel the would be clients needs could be better suited with a slightly more expensive approach, then I follow the steps above with a ballpark figure and phone consult.
In this phone consult I share with them a number of ideas that could help their business or website make more money both short term and long term. I explain the benefits of my suggestions and the cost involved with each. Nine times out of ten, I end up getting the client invest more in to their website than they had planned and feel good about it.
How much to charge for design work?
“Often I get asked this question via email, facebook or twitter about how to price yourself as a designer. The usual phrase goes something along the lines of “how much should I charge for” … web design, graphic design, logo design, etc.”
Pricing Web Work – What Should You Charge?
“The first thing that you should be aware of is that the discussion of pricing with your competitors is illegal in the US and Canada. Yes, you heard me right. It’s called price fixing, and it’s a federal offence.”
The Art of Business: Setting Rates for Your Small Design Firm
“When you’re a freelancer, setting rates is relatively simple; you fill in a few cost numbers, find a comfortable profit margin (if you can), and divide the cost of business by the number of hours you want or need to work. As a result, most freelancers have a single rate card.”
Extra Step Networking
It is no secret that networking can help your business. I think that because the design community is such and online network, that we tend to do a lot more social networking than other industries. The problem is, we seem to keep this networking restricted to the online world. When is the last time you called or met one of the people you interact with online? I suggest taking an extra step in your social networking by actually getting in contact with some of the people you interact with online.
If its possible, see if anyone you talk to online lives in your area. If so, make plans to meet up with them for coffee or drinks to just talk shop. If that’s not possible, see about chatting over the telephone, video chat, or some other way of communication that is more personal than Tweeting or comments. By making these more personal connection, the people you are networking with will remember you over their strictly online friends. They will also feel more comfortable with recommending you to people we the can.
Check out our long list of graphic design and web design conferences as a place to meet some big names in teh industry.
How to Build Credibility as a Young Blogger/Entrepreneur
“When it comes to the blogosphere it may be all about the content, but when it comes to content, credibility is king. Credibility can make or break a blog. Take a look at the successful blogs out there..”
Social Networking Goes Offline
“With MeetIn you set up a profile, which can include your photo, age, and brief sections on education and interests (MeetIn’s largest and most active chapter is in Portland, where more than 6,600 people have created profiles). Each member can post invites to events—dinners, concerts, salsa dancing, Frisbee outings—for others to join.”
Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn to Find a Job
“LinkedIn has over thirty-five million members in over 140 industries. Most of them are adults, employed, and not looking to post something on your Wall or date you. Executives from all the Fortune 500 companies are on LinkedIn. Most have disclosed what they do, where they work now, and where they’ve worked in the past. Talk about a target-rich environment, and the service is free.”
Main image purchased from Shutterstock
Great blog!!
Thanks for sharing.
Looking for job!
freelance management is a comprehensive company that lists quality Job openings.
Great post!
I’d gave me some great tips and interesting links.
Loved this post! I will defiantly put some of your advice into action. Thanks for sharing.
@Aliens Infrotech: Wtf? Is this spam? Lol
Danny, wow! I’m gonna set aside a couple of hours and study this entry. LOL
Interesting article. Good information. I couldn’t get this link to work:
The Art of Business: Setting Rates for Your Small Design Firm
Great article with lots of useful info. It’s been about one year ago that I started my own business, and am definitely guilty of taking every single job (no matter how small). I’m learning that I need to be more choosy with the projects I accept. Will definitely check out the book and links you posted here. Thanks!
Great stuff, Danny! This really puts into perspective how we engage with clients BEFORE the contract is signed, and how that interaction can affect the bottom line. Keep up the great posts.
- and already retweeted
Some great links between designing and selling, two areas most people probably don’t have expertise. Luckily, I have worked retail long enough that I understand the basics to selling, but for those of you who haven’t had the same experience as myself, these are great resources.
I’d also like to provide a link to Salesopedia, a great site devoted to the sales industry.
Clearly I didn’t give the link for Salesopedia, so here it is:
http://www.salesopedia.com/
Cheers.
Thank you for the time that you put into this post. Excellent information and some books that I definitely need to pick up.
Oh, and what’s up with the Aliens thing? Not cool to post ads in comments
Great article and one that I assume will help a lot of smaller firms and freelancers increase their profitability.
One point that I want to bring some attention to that is not correct is the notion that discussing pricing between competitors is illegal. It isn’t.
Vendors agreeing to fix prices for products or services thus removing the ability for clients to get competitive bids is illegal although very difficult to prove.
At E-Cubed.com we have hourly rates for most of our services. Most of our competitors have lower rates. We bid our design and production work on a fixed price basis and rarely on time and materials.
This way a client can see where the money is estimated at being spent up front and can follow through till final production. If our estimate is high we charge less if we overshoot the project costs then we eat the loss.
This keeps us honest not only with ourselves but the transparency with our clients is a key factor in the trust that ultimately solidifies the relationship.
Keep up the great articles!
Kyle Bailey
Great post – so nice to get insights into how other, higher profile, freelancers work, set pricing, etc. Thanks for sharing and the great advice.
Fantastic article!
Very insightful and I love the thoroughness of your explanations. Plus the resources and examples were great as well!
I’ll have to share this with my network!
Excellent advice Danny. It’s imperative to get potential clients on the phone. There’s something invaluable to most people – human interaction. Also, try to speak with owners/principals of companies. You’re looking for the decision makers. Offer them value in your design service and be genuine.
The Art of Business: Setting Rates for Your Small Design Firm
Dead Link – Goes Nowhere!
Thank you for the article. I agree with you entirely on the networking and evaluating clients, however I disagree with posting the base price up-front. More often than not I have been working with smaller, lesser paying clients for a price that would normally be lower than my own base price, simply because the repeat business and word-of-mouth because of who the client is working with or for (again relating to your networking part of the article).