Klassen Communications Blog

I want to introduce you to Jeremy Tuber. I found him through Twitter and glad I did. Jeremy is a freelance graphic designer and author. I’m going to talk a bit more about him after this article. Jeremy and I did a “blog exchange” where he used one of my articles and I’m using one of his. But after today, you’re going to want to bookmark his site and follow him closely.

So more on Jeremy in a moment. For now, here’s what he has to say about why you’re not making as much money as you could…

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From talking with designers over the years I’ve found a direct correlation between how much they make and several undeniable factors – many of them aren’t related to their design prowess. Recently I’d see a post on another blog that listed the “Top 10 Things They Don’t Teach In Design School“, it inspired me to put this together.

If you asked 10 designers if they aren’t making the money they want to be, 9 out of the 10, or in some cases 10 out of the 10 are going to say, “No”. This got me thinking, “If they’re not happy with the money they’re making why don’t they do something about it? Do they not have the talent? Are they just lazy, or are they uncertain what to do about it?“

In this post I’ll address the later: designers that want to bring in more money but aren’t sure why they aren’t. For those designers who really (I mean really) want to start to bring in more money, the process starts with looking at what’s going on now. Here are my non talent-based reasons why designers don’t bring in the money they want:

They:

1. Weren’t taught, don’t care about or are scared how to market and sell their services. Can’t market or sell? Better learn to do something else.
2. Don’t understand that being an expert in Photoshop won’t by itself bring in business. They don’t get that clients don’t care if you’re a Photoshop expert.
3. Mistakenly feel like everything they need to know about freelancing they learned in school, can learn online for free or will just be able to figure it out themselves.
4. Invest way too many resources in “fun” things: picking up the latest Adobe CS, checking out the latest free tutorials, IMing, Twittering, etc… instead of focusing on expanding their business. They are unwilling (not unable) to invest any time, money or energy in growing their business…but they’ll spend an extraordinary amount of resources if they are being entertained.
5. Don’t have a mentor or someone that is willing and able to provide sound advice for the specific situations, challenges the freelancer runs into (no, buddies and freelancers on the chat rooms don’t count…if the chat room freelancers were that good, why aren’t they working on projects instead of wasting time in the chat rooms?)
6. Weren’t taught and don’t know how to communicate with clients in an effective, compelling way, so they end up working with the wrong clients, spending way too much time on them, not getting fairly paid for their talent and giving away free services.
7. Have difficulty understanding what clients truly want from them (it’s not “good design”), so they end up talking about things clients don’t care about…and the client decides not to hire them.
8. Fool themselves into thinking someday “it’ll just happen”. Here’s an exact copy of a tweet I pasted directly from a designer on Twitter, “Being poor sucks, but… it… builds character????? I’m a “starving artist” myself. 1 of these days I’ll be tattooed & rich!“ What do you think his chances are?
9. Bonus one here that happened after I initially wrote this entry – on the 15th I had a user (both in the figurative and literal sense of the word) systematically went through every single page of this blog trolling for free information. Not only is this a snarky thing to do, it’s really not going to help him/her become successful. In doing my own research on what’s out there I’ve just found the free information I stumbled was stuff I already knew…and overly simplified as well. If freelancers really think they’re going to find the secret to their success by rummaging the Internet for free tidbits are just fooling themselves…I should know, I tried this approach early in my career. I went through a marketing expert’s blog and copied all of his entries, thinking I hit the jackpot…in the end, I didn’t spend a lot of time on them and they didn’t do a damn thing for me.

Pretty harsh stuff I know, almost like getting a cold bucket of water tossed on you. But for those of you out there that are thinking about freelancing, just starting out or in need of a boost, I would rather be honest with you rather than try to sugar-coat it, I hope that makes sense.

I know that most freelancers that read this will ignore it – that’s cool. Over 75% of freelancing businesses don’t make it after 2-3 years…and someone has to make up those statistics. But I also know there are a few of you who will see some wisdom in this and take action.

You can listen or you can ignore, the choice is all yours, my role is just to show you where the water is…your role is to decide to drink it or not.

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Thanks, Jeremy.

For the rest of you, head over to Jeremy’s site, Being a Starving Graphic Artist Sucks.

Once you’re there, bookmark the site. Next, do I like I did and spend a few hours pouring through all of the past articles. I like that Jeremy is brutally honest about things. I appreciate straight talk. But more important than reading the information is finding ways to apply it.

There are plenty of designers out there with blogs, but not so many have content that we as direct market design freelancers can relate to. Quite a number come from designers and artists who seem to be in the word of agency work and projects that are outside the realm of some of things followers of this blog are into.

After you’ve seen Jeremy’s blog, do what I did… buy his book, his iTunes “album” and any of the other items that you feel will help you at this point. I just started reading Being a Starving Graphic Artist Sucks which I ordered from Amazon.com. It’s 500 pages of good information, especially if you’re totally new or relatively new and not sure what to do next.

As soon as my Kindle arrives this week, the first purchase is going to be Jeremy’s book, Verbal Kung Fu for Freelancers. (You can also buy a non-Kindle version.)

OK… it’s up to you now. If you’re serious about building your freelance graphic design business, you’re going to look into what Jeremy is offering and find ways to apply his advice to your own situation.