In this article we’ll take a quick look at 9 things you can do to stay focused and productive.

1. Work from a To-Do List Each Day

One of the best ways to stay focused and on task is to have a list of specific things that you need to do each day. Without having a to-do list it is easy to get distracted or to dedicate time to things that aren’t important, but with a to-do list you’ll always know exactly what you need to do each day. Most of us don’t like to end the day with things from our to-do list still unchecked, so it serves as motivation to stay on task and to get things done.

2. Eliminate the Easy Tasks from Your To-Do List First

This may be more personal preference than anything, but for me it is one of the most important things I can do to stay focused. Each day will have a few siginifcant tasks that will take up most of the day, and a few smaller tasks that can be done in a matter of a few minutes. When I look at my to-do list and see things crossed off I feel good about my progress and it’s easier to stay focused. When I leave the little things till later my to-do list will look more intimidating all day, and sometimes it can be distracting. I prefer to take care of the easier things early in the day so I can get them off of my list and then I can focus completely on major tasks without distraction of having a to-do list that looks very full.

3. Keep Your Expectations Realistic

There is only so much that you can get done in one day. If you overload your to-do list you will be stressed out all day and you probably won’t do your best quality work because you’ll be feeling rushed. If you keep a smaller number of things on your to-do list you can focus more on doing your best quality of work.

4. Work Ahead of Deadlines Whenever Possible

Working on tight deadlines can hurt your focus in a few different ways. First, if you’re thinking more about the deadline than the details of the project, it can hurt your work. Second, if you have deadlines coming up you’ll have little choice about what you’re going to work on since you’ll need to rush to meet the deadline. When you’re not working with tight deadlines you’ll have more flexibility to choose what you are going to work on each day, allowing you to use your time and attention wherever you want.

You won’t always be able to avoid tight deadlines, but it’s a good habit to work ahead of deadlines whenever possible.

5. Close Out of Unneccesary Programs

Most designers and developers work in a lot of different programs throughout the day. If you have programs open that you are not using it’s easier to get distracted by something that you aren’t expecting. Closing the programs that you’re not using at the time will help to declutter and you’ll eliminate potential distractions before they can become an issue.

6. Turn Off Your Phone

Phones can be a distraction not only when you’re receiving calls. Most people receive and send several text messages each day. By turning your phone off you won’t hear notifications of new text messages, and you won’t pick up your phone to read it. Once you pick up your phone the interenet and apps can also be a distraction. Turning the phone off for a while obviously helps to eliminate these distractions as well.

7. Don’t Try to Multi-Task

Multi-tasking is one of those things that most of us have been programmed to do, and it’s often considered to be a great skill. The problem is that when you are multi-tasking you’re not focusing on any one thing, and your work will typically suffer in all areas.

Rather than trying to do several things at once, focus on one thing at a time and move through your to-do list by checking things off individually. This will help you to get things done faster and with better quality of work.

8. Have a Comfortable, Dedicated Office Space

Your environment has a lot of influence on your focus. If you’re working from home make sure that you have an area that is dedicated to being your work space and nothing else. A private room with a door is best, but if you don’t have the space for an office make sure you at least have a desk and a section of a room for your work space. This work space should be confortable (including a good chair) and preferrably in a quiet area of the house.

9. Take Short Breaks Throughout the Day

Trying to work for too long without any breaks will lead to poor focus. Just taking 5 or 10 minutes to stretch your legs, get some fresh air, or get a drink will help to improve your level of work. Breaks don’t usually need to be long in order to have an impact. If you feel like you are struggling to focus, take a break for a few minutes.

What’s Your Experience?

How do you stay focused throughout the day? If you have tips or advice for our readers please share in the comments.

With so many talented designers out there already it can seem like a daunting task to grab any exposure for yourself. In this article we’ll look at some practical ways that any designer can improve their exposure. Implement a few of these ideas and you will be well on your way to reaching your goals of landing new clients and building name recognition. Several of the suggestions involve social media and/or blogging, so if you don’t already participate in those activities now is the time to start.

1. Design Galleries

One of the best ways to gain exposure and to build a name for yourself is to let your work do the speaking. Your portfolio site is not only a place to show off your work from client projects, the design of your portfolio site itself can lead to loads of exposure. Web design galleries like CSS Mania, Best Web Gallery, and hundreds of others showcase top quality work of designers from all over the world. Being showcased on a few of the leading galleries can provide exposure to thousands of people.

Likewise, design blogs like our own often publish posts for inspiration that showcase brilliant design examples. Being showcased on a few popular blogs can bring an equal amount of exposure, if not more. Many times blogs find sites to showcase by browsing web design galleries, so having your portfolio site approved to the major design galleries can lead to even more exposure through blogs.

In addition, gallery/portfolio sites like Behance, deviantART, and Carbonmade allow you to set up a portfolio and display all kinds of work, not just web designs.

2. Guest Post at Major Design Blogs

In the web and graphic design niche there are countless blogs that accept guest post submissions. In some cases authors are paid, and other times the exposure and a link may be the incentive for the writer. Whether it is paid or not, having guest posts published on leading design blogs is one of the best ways to quickly gain exposure in the industry. This provides the opportunity to display your abilities and your expertise while teaching or discussing a particular topic.

With leading blogs that reach hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions, of visitors per month, there is plenty of opportunity here. You may think that you would only reach other designers by writing for design blogs, but that is not always the case. One of the longest term clients that we’ve ever had found us through a post published at Smashing Magazine. Those guest posts that you have published will continue to provide exposure into the future as they show up in search results.

3. Release Freebies

By creating and distributing a high-quality freebie you can pick up a lot of links to your site (where it is available for download), leading to visitors and exposure. Freebies aren’t great for directly leading to a lot of client work, but they are effective for building name recognition and for strengthening the quality of your domain through increased links to your site.

The possibilities for freebies are huge. Some popular items include PSD files, WordPress themes, icon sets, vectors, Photoshop brushes, and textures. Readers love to be able to get free items that they can put to good use, and many website owners and bloggers are happy to link to free resources. They also tend to be shared via social media.

If you’re dedicating the time to create something useful for others, you may also need to help get the ball rolling for promotion. If you have a blog with a decent following or social media profiles (like Twitter, Facebook, or Google+) with a large following you may be able to simply publish it on your blog and share it via social media. With a large enough following it should take off from there. But if you are looking for more exposure, chances are you don’t already have a large following. So here are a few things you can do to gain some momentum for your freebie:

• Contact bloggers and send them a link to your free resource
• Contact influential social media users and send them a link to your freebie
• Build a network of friends who will help each other with social media promotion
• Write a guest post for a leading blog and link to your freebie in the author bio
• Write a guest post for a leading blog with a link to your freebie in the post content
• Have the freebie distributed from a popular blog in addition to, or instead of, being distributed from your site

4. Write for Magazines, Newspapers, or Other Publications

While blogs and online publications can be great sources of exposure, offline publications should not be ignored. There are several magazines for designers that accept article submissions. Having an article published in a respected magazine would not only provide exposure for yourself, but it would also help to build your credibility when mentioned in a bio or on your portfolio site.

If you are targeting local clients and looking for exposure to business owners in the area, writing for your newspaper is a great option. Many papers are open to publishing articles in the business section that would provide tips or suggestions for business websites. This can be a great way to get your name out there to potential clients and it helps to build credibility as you will be seen as an expert on the subject.

5. Provide Training (In Person or Webinars)

Teaching others is one of the best ways to brand yourself as an expert and to pick up new clients. In a way, this is what you are doing when publishing guest posts at other blogs and writing for printed publications. Another way of doing that is through live training, either in person or online through webinars. The possible topics are endless. You could either offer training that will help other designers to improve their craft, or you could provide training to people who would fall into your target market for clients.

Offering training for designers can obviously help to improve exposure with the industry and to build your name recognition, although it likely won’t produce as many clients as offering a training session to people who would fall into your target market.

The training could be offered in person at a seminar, conference, or chamber of commerce event. Webinars are relatively easy to setup with services like GoToWebinar and AnyMeeting. If you are using training as a way to gain clients you’ll want to offer valuable information for free during the training, but have some type of extended offer or personalized services that can be purchased for those who want to go beyond the free training. The quality of the free training is then your sales tool to convince attendees that your services will truly be worth the price.

6. Write a Book

Another outstanding way to position yourself as an expert on a subject is to publish a book. Being a published author tends to give you as much or more credibility than just about anything else you can do. While published books are great for this, e-books are also excellent for gaining exposure. Anyone can produce and distribute an e-book, so it might not give you the same type of credibility as having your book picked up by a publisher. But in terms of getting people to your website, an e-book can be extremely valuable.

Free e-books are often linked to on blogs, websites, and social media. Those that are truly valuable often get recommendations and priceless exposure for the author. And the costs associated with producing and distributing an e-book are very small, with the exception of the cost of your time to write it.

7. Dribbble and Forrst

In recent years designers have flocked to new social networking sites like Dribbble and Forrst. These sites are not only great for getting inspiration from the work of other designers, but they also provide opportunities to get exposure for your own work. You’ll need to get an invite to join either of these sites. You can submit a request for an invite, or if you are lucky you may be able to get one from someone you know or from a contest somewhere.

What’s Your Experience?

What methods have you used to gain exposure? If you have advice for our readers please feel free to share it in the comments.

You can save yourself a lot of time and trouble by simply having access to a few key documents that can be continually re-used on your client projects. In this article we’ll take a quick look at some documents that are critical to freelance designers. If you’ve been freelancing for a while, hopefully you already have them. If you’re just getting started as a freelancer, make sure that you don’t overlook the importance of these documents.

1. Web Design Contract Template

Probably the most important document for any freelance designer is the contract. Most designers have learned the hard way about the importance of contracts, and if you have done any reading at all about running a freelance business I am sure you have read many times about the importance of a contract.

Although collecting a percentage of the payment up front can help to weed out shady clients, having a signed contract is really the only way to effectively protect yourself. In addition to just having the contract, it should be a contract that clearly states the specifics of the project. This includes the details of exactly what you will be providing (along with sometimes covering things that are not included), how much you will be paid, and at what stages payment will be due. You may also want to include details about what is required of the client, for example if you need to get content from them.

The cost of legal services is one of the main reasons that many designers do not use contracts, but spending a little bit to get a good contract can save you time, headaches, and more legal fees involved with trying to solve a dispute later without a contract. The basics of contracts for web design projects are often very similar, so you don’t need to get a contract custom drafted for each project. You can purchase a contract template, download one, or hire an attorney to draft a template that you can use over and over again with only minor adjustments.

2. Website Maintenance Contract Template

In addition to having a contract for providing services for designing or re-designing a website, it’s also a good idea to have another contract for providing on-going maintenance services. Almost every freelance designer provides some type of on-going services to clients, and in these cases the typical project-based contract is not likely to be sufficient.

The maintenance contract should provide a description of the services you will be providing, as well as an explanation of how the client will be billed (An hourly rate? A flat rate per month?)

3. Design Brief

The design brief is a document that is given to the client at the start of the working relationship to help the designer get more familiar with the client and what they need. It will ask some basic questions about the company and it’s products/services, as well as some questions about the project at hand. The answers to the questions will help you to get a better understanding of the client and to know how you can help them to make the project a success.

If you have a design brief template you can quickly send it off to new clients or potential clients, minimizing the time that you need to spend on this stage of each project. You may want to customize the questions from time-to-time, but generally they are pretty basic questions that could be applicable to all of your clients without requiring changes.

4. Proposal

When you are ready to make a pitch to a potential client in attempt to secure the project, a proposal template can come in quite handy. With a proposal template you can break out the details of the project into line items so that it shows the client exactly what is involved and what costs are associated with each part of the process. Most clients appreciate this transparency, and it also can help to prevent “sticker shock” that happens when a client sees a higher price than expected.

Additionally, the proposal template also provides an opportunity to present a positive brand image. Whether you are sending a PDF version of the proposal or a printed proposal, having a document that includes your logo and branding helps to present a professional image.

5. Invoice

The invoice is obviously a critical document because it is needed in order to get paid! There are a lot of web apps out there that help to create and manage invoices, or you can just do it on your own. Some freelancers use simple Excel templates for invoices, or you can use something that will look a little better with an Illustrator or InDesign file. Like the proposal, the invoice template also provides an opportunity to use a branded document.

6. Project Completion Document

It’s also a good practice to have a simple document template that can be used to get the clients approval of project completion. The purpose of this document is to show that all of the required work has been completed by you, and that you and the client both agree that the project has concluded. It is a simple document, but it can help to prevent cases where a client claims that you never finished the work or that they did not approve of the way that the project was completed.

7. Stationery

If you are doing any printing or mailing, stationery or letterhead is also important. Not all designers deal with printing documents or marketing materials, so if you don’t, stationery isn’t critical. However, if you are sending letters to clients or potential clients, having stationery or letterhead that reinforces your brand is helpful and professional.

The Freelance Starter Kit

All of the documents that have been mentioned in this post, and more, are included in our Freelance Starter Kit ($49). The starter kit is our effort to help those who are new to freelancing by offering documents and resources that can save time and help to kick start a freelance design business. Get more information about the Freelance Starter Kit.

Email is an essential communications tool, but for freelancers it often becomes overwhelming. One effective way to increase efficiency with email is to have a set of templates that can be used for common situations. Of course, you’ll want to edit the templates to fit the specific needs of each situation, but if your templates are drafted carefully they should not need extensive editing or customization.

In this article we’ll take a look at 5 specific types of templates that you may want to have on hand in order to save yourself some time. Email templates can also help to improve communications with clients, ensuring that you don’t overlook certain things and allowing you to respond faster.

1. Proposal Follow Up Email

After you submit a proposal to a potential client, if you haven’t received a response in a few days (the amount of time will probably vary from one project/client to the next) you’ll probably want to follow up.

In some cases you may even want to send the follow up right after the proposal just to say thanks for the opportunity. This is more typical in a situation where the proposal is presented in person or over the phone, rather than in an email.

The purpose of the proposal follow up is simply to thank the potential client for considering you, and to prompt them towards choosing you for the project. You’ll probably want to mention your interest in working on the project and your confidence that you can do a great job for the client.

2. Thank You to a New Client

After you have signed a contract with a new client, or at least received a verbal confirmation that the client will be hiring you, it is a good idea to send a thank you email. The purpose of this email is obviously to let them know that you appreciate their business and the fact that they have chosen you for the project, but also to set the tone for a positive working relationship.

Depending on the stage at which you send this thank you email it can be a good time to mention the things that you will need in order to get started. This could include an upfront payment, a signed contract, written content to be used on the project, etc.

An effective thank you email to a new client can help to get the project started quickly, rather than waiting around for days or weeks for the client to make the upfront payment and to get the signed contract to you.

3. Thank You After Project Completion

Another thank you email is appropriate at the completion of the project. The purpose of this email is to help to provide closure to the project, to thank the client for their business, to solicit referrals, and to offer you services on an on-going basis or for future needs (if that is a good fit for you and for the client).

If you’ve had a good working relationship with the client throughout the project and they are happy with the end result, this is a perfect time to ask for referrals. Referrals are key to most freelance designers, so be sure not to miss out on an excellent opportunity here.

Even clients who have been difficult throughout the process can become a lot more pleasant when a project is completed to their satisfaction, and thanking them for the opportunity also helps to improve the situation.

4. Payment Overdue Reminder

No one wants to think about situations where clients don’t pay on time, but the reality is that it will happen from time-to-time. In most cases it’s not a situation where the client is trying to avoid paying you. It’s more likely that the client forgot to take care of the invoice, or that it is in process with a slow-moving client, which can be the case with larger companies.

Sending a simple, polite reminder is a good way to handle the situation. If the invoice was overlooked or misplaced, a polite reminder will usually take care of the issue without irritating the client. If the client is intentionally avoiding payment, at least the polite reminder lets them know that you are on top of the situation and it gives them a chance to take care of the payment before you take the collection efforts to another level.

5. Email Newsletter

The fifth and final email template that we’ll cover in this article is different from the others, but still an important part of communication with your clients. It’s a good practice to have an email newsletter to send to your past and present clients (at least to those who want to receive it) and to anyone else who wants to stay up-to-date with what you are doing.

The email newsletter is perfect for staying in contact with your clients from the past, and hopefully when they are in need of design services in the future you will be on their mind. In the newsletter you can show samples of recent projects that you’ve completed, write brief articles, link to posts on your blog, link to your social networking profiles, or provide any other content that would be of interest to subscribers.

The Freelance Starter Kit

All of the templates mentioned in this post can be created on your own, or if your prefer, you can use pre-made templates. Our most popular product, the Freelance Starter Kit, includes all of these email templates, so you can immediately put them to use. The kit includes multiple HTML email newsletter templates, and the other templates are provided in Word and Open Office format so they can be used for emails or letters. To see more about everything that is included in the Freelance Starter Kit please visit the product page at Vandelay Premier.

Communication is a constant challenge when you are working with many different clients over a period of time. Sending out an email newsletter to your clients can help for a number of reasons. In this article we’ll take a look at 7 reasons why designs should send email newsletters to their clients.

1. Stay In Touch with Clients

After you have completed a client project how much contact do you have with that client? In most cases, probably not very much. Staying in touch with your clients is important because it’s likely that those clients will be in need of services that you offer at some point in the future, and you’ll have a better chance of landing that work if you are still in regular contact with them. Also, some clients may have a need for on-going work that you could provide, such as site maintenance or updates.

Having a newsletter helps you to keep your name in front on them, even if you are not communicating one-on-one.

2. Ease of Communication with Many Clients

There may be times when you need to communicate with a lot of your clients at one time, and having a newsletter for your clients makes that much easier. Instead of sending emails to each individually you can make announcements or provide information in your newsletter.

An example of this would be if you use WordPress for a lot of your clients’ websites. When a new version of WordPress is available you may want to make an announcement in the newsletter notifying clients and asking them to schedule a time for you to do the upgrade. Or you could include basic instructions to tell clients how to do an automatic upgrade from their dashboard.

Another example would be to let your clients know when your office hours change, when you will be away for vacation, or when your phone number changes.

3. Provide Helpful Info to Clients

Newsletters also allow you to write brief articles or provide tips that can be helpful to clients. This could include industry news, updates on Google search algorithm changes, or tips for marketing their websites.

This information could obviously be helpful to your clients, and in many situations you may even be able to use it to pick up some new work. An example would be if you were to provide information about Google’s algorithm changes to place more weight on social media, you could also offer services for social media marketing to help clients get their content shared by more users.

4. Show Off Your Recent Work

Your past clients are probably not very likely to go back and visit your portfolio unless they have a reason to. However, with a newsletter you can include screenshots of your recent projects to show what you have been doing for other clients.

Showing your work may be enough to help past clients decide to give you their business again when they are in need of a re-design or some other services that you can provide.

5. Promote New Services

Every now and then you may decide to offer new services. Maybe you’re working with a new content management system or e-commerce platform. Maybe you’re offering consulting services. Or maybe you’re expanding to offer search engine optimization or social media marketing.

In situations where you are adding a new service and you’re looking for some clients, turning to your past clients can be a good move. It’s likely that some of them will be able to benefit from the new services that you’re offering and if you’ve had a good working relationship with them in the past they would probably rather work with you rather than take their chances with someone else.

6. Opportunities for Promotions

There may be times when you are looking to bring in some new business by offering a discount on your services. An email newsletter provides a great opportunity for you to communicate that to your past clients and to others who are subscribed to your newsletter. It’s quick and easy, and you may pick up some new business as a result.

Of course, there are other ways to promote your discounts and offers as well, but your newsletter subscribers will be a targeted audience that is likely to be more responsive to your offers.

7. Opportunities for Referrals

If your newsletter subscribers see something that may be of interest to one of their friends or business contacts they may forward the email, which would give you free exposure. In fact, some newsletter management systems will include a link at the bottom of the message to encourage readers to forward it to friends.

Where to Get Started?

Getting a newsletter started doesn’t require a huge investment of time or money. We prefer MailChimp, but there are plenty of other good options like AWeber, Constant Contact, iContact, and Campaign Monitor. MailChimp is ideal because it’s free until you reach 2,000 subscribers.

Each system you use will have templates that you can select. If you don’t find one that you like you can design and code one yourself, or you can take an HTML newsletter template and customize it to use the system that you’ve chosen.

At Vandelay Premier we have 3 HTML newsletter templates that are available, and they are also included in the Freelance Starter Kit.

Elegant HTML Email Newsletter Template

Sleek HTML Email Newsletter Template

Simple HTML Email Newsletter Template

Freelance Starter Kit

Obviously, being able to get new clients on board is a big part of being able to survive and thrive as a freelance designer. However, the focus on new clients sometimes leads to overlooking the opportunities that already exist with your current clients.

In this article we’ll look at the subject of increasing the value of your current web design clients rather than focusing on finding new ones. If you’re able to increase the amount of money that you are making from your current clients you will be able to reduce the dependency on constantly bringing in new clients.

There are a few reasons why this is a productive way to look at the challenge of increasing, or stabilizing, your income as a freelancer. First, it’s typically easier to sell to those people who have already hired you and trust you. If they are happy with your services all you really need to do is find another way that you can help them in addition to the work you’ve already done.

Second, it can save you a lot of time. Landing new clients requires a lot of leg work to develop quotes and proposals, and that client could easily wind up going with another designer. Selling to existing clients will cut out some of that wasted time because you will already be familiar with each other, and your conversion rates will likely be higher because existing clients are less prone to shop around with several different service providers.

So if you are looking for ways to increase the value of your own clients, here are a few suggestions.

1. Offer On-Going Maintenance

If the bulk of your income is generated by designing new websites or re-designing existing sites, one of the easiest ways to get more value out of your clients is to offer on-going services to help the client maintain the site or make changes and updates. Even with modern content management systems that allow anyone to update a website without touching any code, many businesses find that they still have a need for a designer or developer to be available. In some cases it may be a small business and the changes or updates are something they could do on their own if they had more staff, but it’s just more convenient and cost effective for them to hire someone else (you) to take care of it. In other cases the work may be outside of the what the client could do on their own with a CMS.

The on-going work may not even be directly related to the website that you designed. For example, maybe the client needs help putting together an email newsletter each month. Or maybe they need a designer to create flyers and print materials for their marketing efforts on a regular basis. Regardless of the details, most of your web design clients could benefit from some type of on-going services that you could provide. The key is simply communicating with the client to find their needs, and then proposing a solution that would allow you to help.

2. Offer Additional Services

If your primary service is web design and you’re looking to increase your income from the average client, adding new services is a great way to help clients and to bring in more money. Not all of your clients will have the same needs, but the vast majority of them will be in need of some other service that you could provide. Possibilities could include logo design, print design (brochures, flyers, business cards, letterhead), search engine optimization, social media marketing, content development, and more.

Not every possible service is going to be something that you are interested in offering or something that you are experienced with, but there are probably at least a few possibilities for you. Since almost all of your clients will have a need for some additional services, adding income in this way is not very difficult. And it’s also a huge benefit to your clients because it saves them the trouble of going out and finding someone to provide those services. Plus, it’s more convenient for them to deal with your for multiple types of work rather than working with 2 or 3 different service providers.

If you’re not sure where to get started, first look at your own experience. What other services would you feel comfortable offering? If you don’t have experience in a particular area, is it something that you could learn fairly quickly. Next, look at the needs of your typical clients. Do you notice many clients that are hiring other people to do the same services? For example, if half of your clients are also hiring someone to manage their social media presence, maybe this is a service that you could develop for yourself.

3. Pursue Projects More Actively

Going along with the previous point about adding additional services, if there are other services that you offer, don’t sit back and wait for clients to approach you about those services. Instead, take a proactive approach to identify potential areas of need for your clients and put together a proposal. For example, if you have a web design client that you have been working with and you notice that their printed materials could use some attention, talk to them about the possibility of doing that design work for them as well. Maybe they need new business cards and stationery. That could be extra work for you and it could be a great help to them.

Almost every web design client that you work with will have other needs. You’ll just need to identify them and find a way to help. If you have been working with a client for a while and they are happy with your work, why not approach them about taking another step and adding more to your responsibilities?

4. Partner with Other Providers

Offering additional services isn’t the only way to help your clients and to increase their value to you. Not every service a client needs will be something that you are interested in providing. For those services that your clients frequently need that you do not provide yourself, why not find a provider that can become a partner? For example, maybe your clients frequently need help with writing and distributing press releases, but this is not something that you can offer. You could find a qualified professional who would be happy to help your clients in this way, and you could negotiate a referral fee for the clients that you send to them.

As long as the provider that you partner with does a good job for your clients, this will be a good situation for everyone involved. The client will get a great service without needing to dedicate a lot of time to finding the right provider, your new partner will get more business, and you’ll get a referral fee for simply helping out in this way. Of course, you’ll want to be very careful to only recommend someone who will do a great job for your clients because your reputation is on the line any time you recommend them.

5. Offer Re-Seller Hosting or Use a Private Label CMS

Every website needs a host. Unless your clients are hosting their own website, every one of them will need to pay someone to host the site for them. Re-seller hosting accounts make it possible for you to offer hosting to your clients and to make some extra money from it. Re-seller accounts are fairly inexpensive to purchase and you then set the prices that you’ll charge your clients. If you have a decent number of clients on your re-seller hosting account you can bring in some significant income each month. The downside of being a hosting re-seller is that you will typically have to provide some support, which means it may or may not be worth your time.

If re-seller hosting isn’t for you, another option is a hosted CMS that can be private labeled. An example is LightCMS, which is targeted towards designers who want to be able to re-brand the CMS as their own. This means that your clients would see your own branding when they login to the CMS and they wouldn’t even have to know that it was a re-branded version. You would also be able to make money each month off of the monthly hosting fees, which can add up as you get more clients on the platform.

6. Increase Your Prices

One of the most basic ways to increase the value of your clients is to raise your prices. Designers often get stuck in the rut of charging the same rate without evaluating how long it has been since they increased the rate, and how their current rates compare to others in the industry. It’s not uncommon for rates to increase slightly every year or every two years.

Of course, there are some risks of losing clients so be careful how you go about increasing prices for your existing clients. The best way to start and to test the new rate is to start with increasing the rates on proposals to new clients. If you see that you’re still able to land new clients at the higher rates, take a look at what you are charging your on-going clients and see if there is a possibility to increase that as well. If you have a contract with the client you will need to honor the details of the contract, but when that time is over you can consider increasing your rates.

7. Get Referrals

Referrals are the critical for many freelancers, and if you’re not already making it a priority to get referrals from your clients, this is one more way that you can increase the value of those clients. While you may not be adding a new service or bringing in more money directly from the client, qualified referrals certainly have value as well. Referrals typically convert to clients at a much higher rate than other types of leads, so by getting more referrals you could wind up saving yourself a lot of time.

Make sure that you ask your clients for referrals every now and then. Good times to ask for referrals include: 1) towards the beginning of the project when you are getting started and the client is especially excited about moving forward with the project, 2) at completion of the project when the client sees your work going live, and 3) any time the client sees results or improvements to their business as a result of your work, and 4) periodically as you are working with the client on an on-going basis (maybe twice per year).

In effort to help the client to think of people to refer it is best to be specific rather than to simply ask for referrals. You could give them a little bit of detail about the type of clients that you typically work with or provide them with some details that may help to bring someone to mind. For example, you could say that you typically work with small businesses that currently have no web presence or that need to get more out of their existing web presence. You could say that you work with a lot of businesses in the local area, but also with businesses throughout the U.S. You could even specify that you are looking for clients in a specific industry. Whatever details you can provide may help to bring someone to the mind of your client.

Conclusion:

While new clients will always be important to freelance designers, there are great opportunities available to get more value out of the clients that you already have. Many freelancers overlook these possibilities, but by putting some of these tips into action you can get more value out of your clients and decrease your need to constantly find new clients.

Since we all have busy schedules to start with, getting a real impact with the time you set aside for learning is essential. In this article we’ll take a look at some things that you can do today to improve your abilities in some way. Even with just a small amount of time available, there are things that you can do with a focus on continual growth and improvement.

1. Take a Critical Look at Your Recent Work

One quick way to identify some areas for potential improvement is to go back and look at some of the projects that you have completed in the past few months. Obviously, taking a critical look at your work throughout the design process is important to any project, but sometimes having some time away from the project will allow you to come back and view it with a different perspective. So if you’ve had a few months away from a project you may be able to see things more objectively than you could while you were working on the project.

Maybe you’ll see some things that could have been done differently or better. These types of lessons can be useful on other projects going forward, making your past experience even more of a learning experiment.

2. Seek Feedback and Constructive Criticism

While looking critically at you own work is important, you’ll also gain a lot from getting feedback from others. This includes feedback from clients, users, and other designers. Taking feedback and constructive criticism isn’t always fun, but if you look at it as a way to improve your skills and make yourself a better designer, it’s really a good thing.

Resources like Concept Feedback exist specifically to help designers get feedback on their work (also see our post 19 Resources for Getting Design Feedback). Community sites like Dribbble, Forrst, and UCreative are also great resources for getting feedback on your work.

3. Examine the Work of a Talented Designer

One way to learn is to study the work of talented and experienced designers. Observe their work and the design decisions that they have made on their projects. For example, if studying web design projects you can look at things like layouts, calls to action, white space, color schemes, typography, and even fine pixel-precise details of the design. The things you pick up could serve as inspiration for your own work.

Chances are you probably already have a few specific designers that you admire, but if not, community sites like Dribbble and Forrst are also ideal for identifying talented designers to follow.

4. Get Back to the Basics

In an industry that changes so quickly it’s easy to get caught up in trends and the newest tools and resources to use in your work. Sometimes it helps to make a deliberate effort to get back to the basics and brush up on fundamentals like design theory and color theory. A great place to start is this post compiled by Psdtuts+, 50 Totally Free Lessons in Graphic Design Theory.

If you already have a solid knowledge and understanding of design theory it’s not a bad idea to brush up on these topics occasionally. And if you have never devoted much time or effort to the basics, today is a great time to start.

5. Follow a Tutorial to Learn Something New

There are thousands of helpful tutorials available online, not to mention those that are offered in magazines and books. If you have a few hours to spare, why not find a tutorial that will help you to learn something new, or to expand on the skills that you already have? Most likely there is something that you have been wanting to learn more about, and there is probably already a good tutorial written that covers exactly what you want to learn.

Sites like Psdtuts+, Nettuts+, Webdesigntuts+, Tutorial9, and Design Instruct are excellent places to find tutorials to follow. Of course, there are countless other sites and blogs that publish design and development tutorials, so find some that you like and subscribe to their RSS feeds.

6. Start a Personal Project

A personal project can be anything that you do on your own, rather than for a client. It could be starting a blog, building an e-commerce site, developing a new community site, and really the possibilities are endless. Personal projects are great because they provide you with an opportunity to experiment in whatever way you want in a real world situation. You are the one making the decisions, so you can take it in any direction that you want, allowing you to gain valuable experience. Just about anything you could want to learn can be done through a personal project if you are able to put in the time.

Personal projects can be done at a lot of different levels. If you have only a small amount of time available there are opportunities, and if you are looking to create something major that will require a lot of time going forward, you can do that too. Another benefit of personal projects is that you also have the potential to make money to supplement your client work. Whether it is through selling products, selling ad space, affiliate promotions, or some other type of income, personal projects have turned into significant sources of income for many designers.

7. Re-Design for the Fun of It

One fun type of challenge is to re-design a popular website for the fun (and learning) of it. While your design isn’t going to be used by the company it can still help you to solve problems and make design decisions just like you would if you were actually designing the site in the real world. Of course, it doesn’t have to be a popular website. Just choose a site that you think you could improve and that you could learn from the experience.

If you want to see examples of such designs, see 18 Cool Concept Designs of Notable Websites at Hongkiat. As you can see, designing in this way can even bring you some exposure in addition to providing a valuable learning experience.

8. Sign Up for a Class

There are plenty of online courses, as well as those at local universities or community colleges that could help you to learn new skills and to build on the ones that you already have. Not everyone has the time available to take a class, but if you do, it may be something worth exploring. Even if you are not interested in working towards a degree there may be a particular course that could help you to learn something that would be valuable to your work.

9. Take Photos

Photography is a favorite hobby of many designers, and the two fields have a lot in common. Not only is photography a fun activity, but it can also be a learning experience for designers. Things like composition and colors are critical to good photography, and the lessons can also be applied to graphic design. For more on the subject, see Why Designers Should Take Up Photography at Design Instruct.

Taking up photography as a hobby is ideal because it is possible regardless of how much, or how little, time you have available. Subjects for photography are all around us. You don’t have to leave your town, or even your house, to start experimenting with photography. And you also don’t need an expensive camera, simple point and shoot cameras will do for these purposes. If you enjoy it and you want to take it further a more expensive camera can wind up being a good investment.

10. Visit an Art Museum

Most cities have an art museum of some kind. Why not take part of a day to go visit the art museum nearest to you? You can view the work of highly-talented artists and pick up some inspiration that can be put to work in your own design. Many designers rely only on online sources for design inspiration, but getting out and being inspired by other types of art can help to open up more creativity in your work.

What’s Your Experience?

When you want to learn something new or improve your skills, what are your preferences?

There are some very strong reasons for outsourcing, and likewise the are some equally strong reasons against outsourcing. In this article we’ll look at those pros and cons, which will hopefully prove to be helpful to those who are trying to decide on whether or not to outsource.

Pros of Outsourcing

1. Leverage Your Efforts

Whether you are a part-time freelancer, full-time freelancer, or you run a design agency, the business aspect of your work is just as critical to your success as is your ability to design and/or code. One of the principles that is key to growing a business is that you need to be able to leverage your time and efforts. As a one-man operation you will only be able to earn money for the services that you can provide to clients yourself. But by expanding your business, in this case through outsourcing, you can leverage your efforts and make money based on the work of other people as well.

This makes an assumption that one of your priorities is to maximize income and profits, which may not be the case with all designers. Some designers prefer working on every aspect of client projects rather than outsourcing or hiring employees, even if it means reduced potential for business growth.

2. Potential for Higher Income

By leveraging your efforts through outsourcing you are able to increase the potential income of your business. If you outsource projects, or portions of projects, efficiently you will be able to take on more projects or larger-scale projects. Also, your income potential can be increased if the cost of outsourcing the work to someone else is lower than what it would cost you (in terms of the value of your time) to do the work yourself.

While outsourcing work to others may increase your expenses, it also frees up more time for you to do other things, which should allow you to increase your income. Maybe the time that you save can be used to work on marketing your services, other client projects, developing new products and services, or administrative work related to running the business.

3. Increased Efficiency

Like any business owner, you will never have the time to do everything that you want or need for your business. However, outsourcing some work can help to free up time that will allow you to focus on the things that you determine are most important. The increase in efficiency comes when you are able to spend a little bit of money (comparatively) that will free you up to do work that will help you to make a lot of money (comparatively).

In addition to freeing up time for other work, you can also choose to work fewer hours and use that time that you gain from increased efficiency for time away from work. Most freelancers and self-employed designers work long hours, sometimes by choice and sometimes not by choice. If you’re looking at ways to reduce your hours and spend more time with family and friends, outsourcing is a possibility.

4. Allows You to Focus on Your Strengths

One of the downsides to being a freelancer is that you have to do everything for your business, whether it is an area of personal strength or weakness. By outsourcing some work that is not in your strongest areas you can free up more time to work on the things that you love, and in areas that you excel. Some freelancers choose to hire virtual assistants to handle as much of the administrative work as possible, freeing them up for more creative work. Some designers may not be as adept at coding and may choose to outsource development services while focusing on the visual design instead.

Even if outsourcing doesn’t increase your income, if it helps to make your work more enjoyable by eliminating or reducing some of the things you dislike, it may be worth doing.

5. Turn Away Fewer Clients

Many freelancers and small design agencies wind up turning away a lot of potential clients for any number of reasons. It could be a lack of time to work with all the potential clients, lack of experience or skill in a particular area, lack of desire to work on a certain type of project, or a client whose budget is too small. All of these issues can possibly be addressed by outsourcing, meaning that you could provide a solution to more clients, even if you are not doing all of the work yourself.

Turning away fewer clients also means that you’ll have more paying clients. If you can manage to outsource projects efficiently and effectively, it can result in a higher income, even if it is from projects that you wouldn’t want to accept without the possibility of outsourcing the work.

6. Segmenting Projects is Possible

Outsourcing work doesn’t mean that you have to outsource the entire project. Especially when it comes to web design, there are opportunities and possibilities for outsourcing a particular segment of the project. An example that many freelancers do is outsourcing of coding work. There are countless PSD to HTML service providers who are able and willing to take your designs and turn them into working, coded pages. The price varies from one provider to the next, but in many cases you could get the coding work done for much less than if you did the work yourself (in terms of the value of your time). It’s not ideal for all situations, but many designers find it to increase their efficiency. In this case you would still be dealing with the client directly and you would be doing most of the work on the project yourself, you would simply outsource one aspect of the project.

7. Transition from Freelance to Agency

If you are currently freelancing and you would like to run a design agency with employees at some point in the future, outsourcing can help with the transition. Very few freelancers or independent designers have the financial capability to take on an employee with a set salary and benefits without funding, but outsourcing work is much more feasible. While outsourcing you can get a feel for who you might like to hire as an employee when the time comes, and you can work to increase revenues and build the business to a point where you could hire an employee.

Cons of Outsourcing

1. Your Reputation Depends on the Quality of Others’ Work

When you are outsourcing part or all of a client project, the client may or may not be aware of it. Either way, your reputation is at stake. One of the most significant reasons that designers choose not to outsource is because of concerns over the quality. There are plenty of people that you could outsource to who would do a great job for you and your clients, but there are also others that wouldn’t live up to your expected level of quality. Finding the right people to work with is not always easy.

If you outsource work and the project doesn’t meet the deadline or doesn’t turn out as the client had expected, your reputation can take a hit. This is especially true in situations where the client doesn’t know that you are actually outsourcing, because they will think it is your own work that is lacking. Even if the client does know that you are outsourcing, they are trusting you to manage and oversee the project, in which case you are still responsible for the results.

2. More Administration and Oversight Work

While outsourcing can help to free up some of your time, it also means that you’ll have more administrative and oversight responsibilities. This includes paying invoices and added financial record keeping, finding and interviewing the right people, communication, and in some cases supervising progress. Ideally you can find people who need very little supervision whom you can trust to do quality work, but those relationships usually take some time to develop.

3. Can Make You a Middleman in Communication with the Client

In most cases, when you are outsourcing work you will still want to be in direct communication with the client, which means that you will be a middleman of sorts. Communication becomes more challenging when layers are added, so it becomes even more critical in this situation. You may be gathering feedback from a client and passing it on to whoever is doing the work, which increases the possibility for miscommunication or misunderstanding. Additionally, it means that you’ll still be dedicating time and effort to the communication rather than being able to pass it off to someone else.

In some cases you may be able to have the client and the service provider communicate directly, but this is not always possible or practical.

4. Reduced Control Over Meeting Deadlines

Being able to meet deadlines is a critical to keeping your clients happy. As you outsource parts of the project, or the whole thing, you will have less control over when the work is complete, as you will be relying on the person that you have hired. This is just one of the reasons why you need to be very careful about hiring the right person. Also, it’s a good idea to build in some time for unexpected delays by setting a deadline for the service provider that is at least a few days prior to the real deadline of the client. That gives you time to review the work and to deal with any setbacks.

5. It Takes Time and Effort to Find the Right People

Outsourcing is, of course, most effective when you are working with the right people. Ideally, you’ll have qualified service providers that you can work with on an on-going basis rather than needing to find someone specifically for each project. Outsourcing becomes a lot more practical, efficient, and profitable when you already have the right person for the job.

Unfortunately, finding the right person (or people) can be a real challenge, and you may go through some bad experiences along the way. During this time it means that you’ll be dedicating extra time for finding the right people and evaluating their work. At this stage you may find that outsourcing actually takes just as much time as doing the work yourself. The upside, of course, is that once you’ve found the right people it takes much less of your own time and becomes more profitable.

6. Potential Instability of Your Team

The challenge doesn’t stop with just finding the right people. You’ll also have to keep them as a part of your team once you have found them. With outsourcing, you may be working with different people all the time. When you’ve found someone that is good to work with, they may move on to a different path in their career and you may have to find a replacement. There is often less stability and more turnover than you would have if you were hiring an employee.

7. Clients May Not Be On Board

Some of your clients may have chosen to hire you because they are familiar with your work and they really felt that you would be great for their project. In situations like this, the client will want to work with you, not with someone to whom you are outsourcing the work. Of course, there may be parts of the project that you could outsource without having any real impact on the client, and they may not even know about it, but it’s still something to keep in mind.

As a general rule, if you build your brand around your personal skills, expertise, and experience, outsourcing work may seem deceptive to clients. This will also depend on what parts of the project you are outsourcing. As a designer, you will be hired for your creative abilities, so outsourcing the visual design would more be more likely to cause conflict than outsourcing coding.

You Must Decide for Yourself

As with just about anything in life, the pros and cons mean that there is no absolute right or wrong decision when it comes to outsourcing. You’ll need to weight the pros and cons and see how they fit with your goals, your process, and your way of doing business. If you have words of wisdom from your own experience, please feel free to share in the comments.

In this article we’ll take a look at 7 mistakes that many new freelancers make. The purpose is to help those of you who are in the process of moving into the world of freelancing, or considering it. By knowing these challenges ahead of time you’ll be better prepared to avoid them in your own business.

Mistake #1: Not Saving Enough Money Before Moving to Full-Time Freelance Work

This mistake often happens even before making the move to full-time freelance work. If you are planning to try full-time freelancing there are a lot of uncertainties about how much money you will earn, especially during the first few months while you will likely need to work harder to find clients while establishing your business. In order to avoid financial problems and more stress than needed, ideally you will have at least enough money to cover a few months of your living expenses in case things start slowly.

Many people leave a full-time job and assume that they will be able to start making enough money right away. In some cases it does work out this way, but not always. In fact. most new freelancers don’t bring in a whole lot of income the first few months, so that savings may be essential. Not only will it help your personal financial situation, but it will also prevent you from needing to go back to a full-time job right away because of upcoming bills.

Mistake #2: Lack of Planning for Taxes

Staying on the financial theme of the previous point, taxes are one of the most significant differences in working as an employee or being self employed. As a freelancer there will be no paychecks from an employer with taxes already deducted. Many freelancers underestimate the amount of taxes they will need to pay, or they simply lack the discipline to not spend the money.

You’ll have to be prepared and disciplined to set aside enough money for taxes, and you may have to pay quarterly estimated taxes throughout the year. Everyone’s tax situation is unique, so seek the guidance of a tax professional that can help you to plan. This way you won’t be surprised by owing a lot of taxes at the end of the year, and you won’t face unnecessary penalties for not doing things properly.

Mistake #3: Accepting Every Project that Comes Your Way

When you’re first getting started as a freelancer and you’re in need of client projects the natural reaction to an inquiry from a potential client is to want to jump into the project right away. However, not every project will be a good fit for you, and if you want to save yourself some headaches take the time to make sure any project is a good fit before accepting the work.

This is a mistake that I made in my early days as a freelancer and I learned quickly from a few bad situations that I needed to be more selective. This doesn’t mean that every project that you pass on is for a “bad” client, it just means that it wouldn’t be an ideal fit for you. In my case a client wanted to use an obscure CMS (content management system) that I’ve never had another request for in the years since. The price that I was charging didn’t justify the amount of time that was required to learn the CMS. I should have either charged more or used a more familiar CMS that wouldn’t require as much time. The project wasn’t a good fit for me because the client insisted on this particular CMS, and I knew it was something I would never work with again. It wound up being a waste of a lot of time that I could have used in other more productive ways.

It’s a good idea to think about the type of clients and projects that appeal to you. It could mean working with a specific industry, a certain type of design (example, web or print), a CMS, or even a specialization like e-commerce websites, PSD to HTML conversion, etc. Knowing your ideal project can also help you to know what projects simply don’t fit with your big picture goals, and when that happens it is a good idea to pass on the project. If you don’t want to completely pass on the project, make sure that you at least quote a price that is high enough to cover the loss of your time that you could be spending on other projects.

Mistake #4: Not Using Contracts

Almost every freelancer has a problem arise at some point from either not using a contract at all or not going into enough detail in a contract. This is a mistake that you probably won’t make too many times before you realize the importance of contracts, but it’s even better if you can start off by using contracts effectively to avoid any of these problems.

One of the most common problems that freelancers face (even experienced freelancers) is fighting scope creep. On many projects you’ll find that the boundaries of the project are pushed or stretched as clients ask or expect you to work on things that weren’t originally a part of the project when you provided the quote. A contract is an outstanding tool to help prevent scope creep because it allows you to clearly define what is and what is not included in the price that you are quoting for the project. This helps to get everyone on the same page, and then when scope creep sets in you’ll be protected and you can charge additional amounts according to the extra time that is needed.

Contracts are also helpful for establishing guidelines for when payments must be made, deadlines that must be met by both the designer and the client, limiting liability, and defining intellectual property rights. If you don’t have a contract that you already use on your client projects we have a few available at Vandelay Premier that may interest you:

• Web Design Contract Template ($6)
• Logo Design Contract Template ($6)
• Website Maintenance Contract Template ($6)
• SEO Services Contract Template ($6)

Mistake #5: Starting a Project Without Collecting a Percentage of the Payment Up Front

Another common mistake that involves the financial side of running a business is not collecting a percentage of the payment up front. Contracts also help with this issue. By starting on a project with no up front investment from the client you are drastically increasing your chances of having problems with payments arise later. Getting a percentage of the payment up front will ensure that you are only working with serious clients and you’ll avoid wasting your time without getting anything for your work. Plus, clients will be more committed to the project since they already have something invested.

The up front money also helps to provide you with some income that may be needed before the project is completed. Clients who don’t pay anything up front are more likely to drag a project along slowly, which only delays your payday further if you are waiting until completion of the project to invoice the client.

Mistake #6: Jumping in to the Design Work too Quickly

Although the design and creative work is ultimately what motivated you to work in the industry, before you start designing for a client project you should dedicate the time necessary to adequately get to know the client, their customers, and the specifics of the project. Each client and each project is unique, and without investing the proper time to get familiar with the situation it is impossible to get the best results.

It’s a good practice to establish some sort of process for working with new clients so that you get to know as much as possible. Some designers like to meet with clients for face-to-face meetings when possible, others conduct interviews on the phone, some have questionnaire that they ask clients to fill out, and at times you may even need to talk to customers of the client in order to get their perspective. While this does take time, it will drastically improve the results for you and for the client.

Mistake #7: Working Without Tracking Your Time

As a freelancer, how you manage your time will be critical to your success. There are many aspects to running the business aside from just doing the design work, and in many cases it can be difficult to know how much time you are spending on different tasks. By tracking your time you will have a better picture of how your time is split between the different activities involved in running the business, and hopefully you will be able to identify any inefficiencies that could be improved. Especially when you are just getting started it is important to know how you are spending your time so that you can make the needed adjustments, and for planning your time.

Tracking your time is also very helpful for evaluating your rates. Without tracking your time you won’t really know how much time you have spent on a project. But if you do know how much time you spent on a project you can calculate the hourly rate earned on that project. New freelancers often find that when they calculate their hourly rate for a project it is much lower than they anticipated. Under charging is a common mistake for new freelancers, but by knowing how much time you have dedicated to past projects you can do a better job of estimating the amount of time needed for future projects, and you can improve your accuracy for developing quotes that will pay you a fair rate.

Tracking your time is also helpful to see how many hours you are working each week. If, like most freelancers, you are working from home it can be challenging to draw a line between personal time and work time. Tracking your time will help you to see the big picture of how much you are working, and hopefully it will prevent you from falling into another trap for freelancers, working too many hours. It’s important that you have enough time away from work and with your family and friends to avoid burnout and to help you to actually enjoy your work.

This InDesign file has been created by The NetMen Corp and it can be downloaded for free.

Here are some basics details and instructions for editing the file:

• It comes in InDesign CS5 format, as well as an IDML file to convert it for InDesign CS4.
• The free font Expressway is used.
• To add your own portfolio items, save the .jpg files in the same folder as the InDesign file, select one of the existing thumbnails, open the links panel and click on re-link, then select your image.
• The social networking icons at the bottom can be linked to your own profiles. Select one of the icons and open the hyperlinks panel (Window > Interactive > Hyperlinks).
• When you are ready to save it as a PDF, go to File > Export and select Adobe PDF (Interactive). Exporting it at 300 ppi will give you the best image quality.

Download the file (13.2 MB zip file)