Something I learned from working with designers and creative businesses is that many of them usually share similar challenges marketing their business. In this post today I’m bringing five common challenges shared by many clients and industry professionals.

Challenge 1  /  Finding Your Uniqueness

One of the biggest problems in the design industry is the over-saturation. There are so many designers out there that makes it really hard to get noticed.

People always have the same question about your business: “why should I hire you over thousands of other businesses in your industry?” Having an answer to that question is vital to your business.

Solution: If you want to stand out, find a specialisation

There two simple ways to find what makes you unique and different to everyone else:

• Find a niche – take a look at your clients and see if you can identify anything in common, at least in some of them. It could be the same age range, same interests, same lifestyle, etc. If you offer services to other businesses, see if some of them belong to the same industry. If you find a pattern you can claim a specialisation in a particular niche and focus your marketing efforts on it.

For example, I focus on designers and creative businesses, as many of my clients belong to that industry. Having experience on that particular niche offers an immediate competitive advantage to new clients: they can benefit from the lessons I learned working with other similar businesses.

• Find an area of expertise – As you cannot be an expert for everything narrow your offer to only those services that you know best. This focus will bring clarity to your business, and help you identify the skills you need to develop and master that particular area of expertise.

When I talk about specialisation, many clients get concerned. They think by claiming a specialisation they may lose business opportunities. Specialising yourself doesn’t mean that you wont be able to provide other services or work with other industries, but it will help you stand out in this over-saturated market.

In this other post I explain how offering a wide range of services was one of my own first mistakes and specialisation was one of the lessons learnt from my first year in business.

Challenge 2  / Finding New Clients

Another common struggle for many small businesses is finding new clients. Again the market oversaturation makes it difficult for many new businesses to build a portfolio of clients. Tight start-up budgets makes it hard to invest in marketing and advertising which also minimises the opportunities to gain new clients.

Solution 1: get new leads by word of mouth

Family and friends can help promote your business by word of mouth. Also target your local community, small businesses like supporting each other. And above all leverage your existing clients.

Finding a new client is the result of many hours of work, communication efforts and meetings with prospects. It’s easier to sell a new product/service to an existing client than find a new one. Focus on giving your clients the best possible service, as chances are that they will use your services again in future or even refer some new business to you.

In this other post I explain how building relationships can help grow your business.

Solution 2: Share information and help others

Many of those who use Internet everyday are looking for answers to resolve a problem. Sharing your knowhow through your website or blog can help others resolve problems and help you build relationships with potential clients, while positioning yourself as an expert in that particular area.

Having a blog, writing a free ebook, creating video tutorials or offering free e-courses are different ways to share your knowledge with others in the Internet.

In this other post I share some useful tips to treat your blog as a business and make it profitable.

 

Challenge 3  /  Keeping the cash flowing

Many small businesses constantly go from very busy to very quiet times. Unfortunately money stops coming during those quiet times and you never know when it will start coming back again.

Relying on selling only customised services to clients can be a risky strategy for a small business. Situations like not being able to find enough clients to support your business, losing some clients or needing some time off could have a negative impact in your cash flow.

Solution: Diversify your offer

If you find a niche, explore every business opportunity within it. Find other needs that this niche may have and that can be complimented with products.

Sell products, not just services. Those products can be physical or digital goods (i.e. anything downloadable), courses or subscriptions.

For example, I support my business by selling different types of digital products in third party websites. In periods of low activity I focus on producing new designs to add my catalogue.

Challenge 4  /  Publishing Your Pricing

When someone looks for a design professional the first question in their minds is “how much is it going to cost me?” If you don’t have pricing in your website, many people might assume your price range is above the average.

However, quoting design services is a complex exercise that needs to take many different things into consideration. Every project has different specifications that need to be discussed with the client before you can quote their jobs.

On the other hand, charging your clients on an hourly basis can end up being unfair for the client. Experienced designers can come up with ideas quicker and can complete a job faster than a junior designer. Even if the hourly rate of a junior designer is cheaper you could end up paying more for their services.

Solution: package your services

Packaging your services as if they were products will allow you to set a fixed price. You can always re-calculate the price of any project that requires some extras or add-ons but at least the client gets an idea of how much your services can cost. It will also save you time quoting jobs and replying enquiries about your rates.

 

Challenge 5  /  Being Over Capacity

This might actually be something very positive for a small business. The problem is that if you don’t have a team to support you in busy periods, you may struggle to keep up with everything on your plate.

How to manage several projects at the same time, look after existing clients, promote your own business and find new clients without losing your sanity? The answer might be ‘outsourcing’, but before thinking of hiring some extra help you can try something else more cost-effective.

Solution: build production processes

Organise your job in steps that can be repeated in every project. To do this, you can use the quiet periods to create templates of proposals, emails, etc that you can customise quickly for every new client. This way when you are overcapacity, you can save time in managing clients and projects to spend some more in providing a good service.

This other post by Lauren Hooker of Elle and Co. explains how to use 17Hats to organise your process and client workflow.

Here is also another interesting reading found in Mighty Deals blog with six ideas for increasing your customers to your design services.

Surely, these are not the only challenges that designers and creative business have to face, or the only solutions to the problems above, so feel free to contribute! Leave a comment and share any particular challenge that you face or/and any solution that you came up with for them.

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I'm so thrilled to bring my very first guest post to my blog this week. I had been thinking for so long about ways to connect and collaborate with other creative businesses in Perth and the idea of starting a guest post series on this topic had been in my mind for a few months already.

Then, I found Jay, of Crisp Crow Communications, through a Facebook group a few weeks ago. I visited her website, felt in love with her words and thought to myself "how amazing would be to have her as a guest in my blog". Jay, who kindly accepted my invitation to write a blog post, has put a lot time and care in creating this smart and inspiring post on the business of beauty making.

Mood board inspired by business dedicated to create beauty, from photographers, to designers, artists and fashion business. Image sources: 1. Wild Grasses; 2. Peonies; 3. Yao Cheng's Watercolours;4. Ladies

When I was small I wanted to be a lawyer, a newsreader and a roller-skating waitress. Yes, at once. I think I wanted to be a lawyer because I loved my legal-eagle uncle most of anyone in our family but the other career options had a gloss and a glow to them that drew me in. I was a hunter of glamour and beauty from a small, suburban life and these were the most dazzling careers I could dream of at seven. My life plan did not involve children.

At seventeen I was well on my way to stage stardom. Still a beauty maker: I worked as a singer, did some plus size catalogue modelling and wrote a drama curriculum for models. I was a Musical Theatre student at WAAPA and followed glamour and beauty wherever it took me. By then I had realised that being a beauty maker was decidedly hard work but I was immersed. My plan did not involve children.

Fast forward fifteen years and my stage career is all but forgotten with the arrival of three of the most divine children in the universe. My beauty hunting is relegated to the non-priority pile with the consistent demands of homework, sport, school and a long stint of single parenting. The costume of mother – that old cardigan I thought I’d never want – had turned out to be the best fit.

But underneath, there’s something aching to be acknowledged.

My day job is valuable and I work with people I admire. No doubt it’s missing something but the grind gets the best of me for the better part of a decade. Then, I begin to tweak my job to involve more creativity. I talk my boss into changing my job description and giving me a budget for marketing, design and rewriting our promotional material. Last year I begin to help a business-owning friend who is at a loss with her online presence and she successfully relaunches her business completely comfortable with her new digital content. Finally, I realise my beauty making is back and I bite the bullet. My business is born.

Just like that, our lives change. I am no longer the frustrated artist stuck in a day job that’s mostly about paper-pushing and sales. I have morphed my days into a balance of what it was and what I love – my creativity plus family. I am exhausted, but content. My children are inspired; one is editing video, the other starts her own blog. My husband is fairly exploding with pride. Honestly, why didn’t I do it sooner? Twelve years this evolution took. If you are a closet beauty maker – I encourage you to get a move on.

Life is short. Beauty is necessary. Seek it out and sing about it.

So, let me tell you what I now know about creating every day. About being a creator and a beauty maker. My mind is alight with thought. Every minute of the day – speaking to people at a tour, salvaging someone’s porridge, in the shower (actually mostly in the shower!) ideas and inspiration whisks it way into my already amped up brain. I find this courtesy Google:

“Creativity does not involve a single brain region or single side of the brain. Instead, the entire creative process– from preparation to incubation to illumination to verification-- consists of many interacting cognitive processes (both conscious and unconscious) and emotions... many of these brain regions work as a team to get the job done, and many recruit structures from both the left and right side of the brain. In recent years, evidence has accumulated suggesting that “cognition results from the dynamic interactions of distributed brain areas operating in large-scale networks.” Depending on the task, different brain networks will be recruited.” (source: Scientific American, The Real Neuroscience Of Creativity)

My concept of my left brain/right brain battle is shattered. So, instead of the understanding that I am either a beauty creator or a professional money maker, I realise I can be both. More importantly, I start to think that if our understanding is incorrect about how the brain works to create beauty, perhaps soon we will also be surprised that the soul is involved. If the brain is collaborating with the emotions and the soul then what higher calling can there be than to be creative?

I am discovered. This is my ‘why?’ This essentially soul-food motivation of creating something beautiful for someone else, or myself using my entire creative self – head, heart and hands. I am not a farmer, I am an artist. And it’s not just about being pretty. It’s about translating a message from the heart of someone’s story into something that the world can appreciate. That’s why I love to write copy. It’s not about the words and grammar for me. It’s about the singularity of a heart of a matter, carefully communicated. That’s my philosophy. That’s why people want to work with me. That’s why they trust me to guide them and to speak for them.

Now, if I, a thwarted musical theatre star with a tribe of children in the backwaters of Perth can find that bridge between beauty and business – you can too.

Of course, not everyone will love you. Not everyone will appreciate what you do. It doesn’t matter if it’s copywriting or editing or graphic design or mural art. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder so find the right platform to attract your perfect ‘beholders’. This is why I work with social media – I love the platform. The endless twists and corridors your art can take to land right in the lap of the right beholder for you.

And like all artists; be prepared to change. You must evolve in this market to stay current. For although you may begin this journey planning to be a childless roller-skating waitress, just imagine what you would have missed out on if you’d never considered a life full of family delight and writing.

“Art makes life bearable. It isn’t a luxury. Like our capacity for understanding, and our experience of love, it is a vitally important part of life. ”

— Gillian Pederson Krag

About The Author Jay Crisp Crow is a talented copy writer from Perth, Western Australia. Through her business Crisp Crow Communications, a boutique communications agency, Jay helps other small business owners clarify and communicate their own unique message by creating content and using visuals in a way that draws potential client in with warmth and authenticity.

A logo always seems like an easy thing to do for any designer. However, although a good logo may be simple in its construction, it’s not in it's concept. Behind every professional logo there are many hours of research, sketching and testing. Understanding the process behind a logo design can help small business owners to know:

• what makes a good logo and what doesn’t
• what to expect from your designer when they design a logo for your business

I’ve been recently working on a logo design for a new business in Perth, WA Mortgage Advice (website coming soon) and I thought this work could be a perfect opportunity to take you through my logo design process.

My logo design process has five stages:

1.    Discovery

The first step of any design work is getting as much information as possible about the client’s business. This information can be obtained through a conversation with the client, through a design brief questionnaire and by researching their market.

By way of example, my latest client is a mortgage broking business, a completely unfamiliar professional field for me. Learning as much as possible about my client’s business was my first mission. To do this I first held a one-to-one meeting with my client.

During the meeting I gave my client a list of descriptive words to select the three that best describe the business personality and core values. My client used words like trust, knowledge and honesty that would give me some clues of what design elements I should consider to visually describe this business.

I get the information I need from a few carefully crafted questions in my design brief questionnaire. This questionnaire helps structure my meetings and formalise the information gathered in a document. When I cannot meet the client face-to-face, I send the questionnaire by email. I could skip the meeting if necessary, but I cannot skip the design brief questionnaire.

A good brief cannot just rely on the information obtained from the client; you also need to research their market. This is always a good chance for me to do visual research, reviewing logo designs of my client’s competitors and seeing how their brands look.  
 

2.    Sketching

During this phase I sketch dozens and dozens of logos. I start conceptualising the business in a few simple ideas, then I play with the business name or the acronyms, and mix ideas and concepts with letters and shapes.

When someone talks about “mortgage broking” you immediately think of homes, banks, and approval processes. But my client highlighted ideas like offering guidance and giving clarity, security and confidence to people to make lifetime decisions. Listening and understanding clients to give this advice was one of the core values of this business, what gave me the idea of using speech bubbles in one of my logo designs.

3.    Designing

After a few hours sketching concepts, I eventually picked the three best concepts that I came up with and drew them in Illustrator. Why only three concepts after sketching dozens of them? Because something I learned about clients is that the more ideas you present the more difficult is for them to make decisions.

At this stage I don’t add colours or anything else just yet. I present the logos to the client in black and white to focus on the concept rather than on the style.

Here are the three concepts presented to this particular client:

4.    Polishing

This is my favourite part: the client picked the concept, so now I could go back to Illustrator and refine my logo design. I measured every distance; made every size proportional and every angle identical.

5.    Development

Now that the logo is finalised I can complete the entire visual identity with colours, fonts, logo variations, etc. To do these final selections I can go back to my design brief and use the descriptors that the client gave me.

For WA Mortgage Advice I picked a light orange as the primary colour. The client highlighted the importance to communicate a very genuine intention of helping people in the best professional way. According to studies on the emotional meaning of colours, orange is the most suitable colour to communicate friendliness and client care. Orange also would give the brand a modern, young and energetic edge.

During the development phase it's important to test the logo in different media. To do this I create a few mock-ups of business stationary, advertising or other marketing materials that the client may produce in the future. This way I can see how the logo will look and whether it's necessary to make any final changes.

The objective of my design process is to ensure my logos always meet the five principles of any logo design: simplicity, memorability, versatility, timelessness and appropriation.

Now, that you know the different steps involve in a professional logo design and what makes an effective logo, you can put your own logo under test.

Is your logo right for your business?

1. Is your logo simple?

Good logos are uncomplicated. The more detail a logo has, the more information the viewer has to process and retain. Simplicity will make a logo easy to recognise and to remember.

As explained in stage 3 (Sketching) I design my logos just with a pencil first, in black and white, to ensure effectiveness in its simplest form. Colour should be left to the end of the design process.

2. Is your logo memorable?

A good logo is easy to describe. What's difficult to describe, is also difficult to remember. Recognition brings familiarity, which assists in building trust and loyalty in your brand.

3. Is your logo versatile?

As I mentioned in stage 5 (Development) a well-design logo will translate well across different mediums. When printed in small sizes, a complex design will lose detail, making it harder to recognise. A good logo must be simple in order to reproduce well on small scales, such as favicons.

For this reason, logos should be always designed in vector format, that is Adobe Illustrator, never Photoshop.

4. Is your logo timeless?

An effective logo should endure the test of time. A good logo designer doesn’t follow any design trend. Trends come and go and ultimately turn into cliches.

5. Is your logo appropriate?

A good logo design will be relevant to your industry, clientele and target market. Even though your logo doesn’t have to describe what your company does, it has to reflect your business essence and values (as I illustrated in stage 3, Sketching).  

Sources:

• Logo Bird,  The Principles Of Good Logo Design
• Smashing Magazine, 10 Common Mistakes In Logo Design

I like hearing stories about how new businesses were started. I always find it interesting and inspiring to hear about how intrepid start-ups chased dreams, followed their own paths and managed to do what they love for a living. Some of them succeeded, others failed, but every single one made mistakes and learned lessons along the way.

Now that my business has survived it's first year I thought I would share my own story too. This isn't exactly about how I got started, but about the mistakes I made and the invaluable lessons I learned during my first year in business.

Lesson 1: It takes time to build a business

My first mistake was to think I could have my business up and running in three or four months, when it took me almost an entire year. I completely underestimated the amount of time it would take.

Why did it take me so long? Because before I could even start looking for clients there was a lot of pre-work and preparation that had to be done beforehand around two essential areas:

1. Understanding my market

After working for more than a decade in marketing for large international corporations I thought I was ready to help small businesses with their marketing activities. However, just because I learned a lot about marketing and design during all those years in the corporate world, I didn’t know anything about small businesses yet.

I had to take time to research my target market and understand specific small business owner’s motivations, needs and challenges.

2. Differentiating myself from everyone else

I also had to understand how competitors were already helping small businesses with marketing/design solutions and what I could do for them that others weren’t already doing.

So by way of differentiation, I decided to target creative businesses. I studied how photographers, designers, artists and lifestyle bloggers work, the insights of their businesses, the reasons why they do what they do, and so on. And I finally found a clear direction for my own business: a design studio specialised in lifestyle clients.

Once I had a good understanding of my market and a clear direction for my business, I was ready to build a brand and a website to appeal to this market. I was also able to find opportunities that I hadn’t initially considered, like selling online workbooks and planners to help those creative businesses plan their marketing activities.

In conclusion, knowing how to “do the job” is not enough to start a business. Having a deep understanding of your market is key to avoid important mistakes that can make you waste money and time. This understanding requires a lot of pre-work before you can even register your business name.

Lesson 2: Simplicity is key

Over a decade I worked in different areas of marketing, covering branding, digital marketing, event management, etc, I was confident I could help small business owners with their marketing activities in many ways. So this one was my first business description on my website:

“Grafika Studio is a full service agency that provides comprehensive branding, design and online marketing services in one-stop shop so that you only have to work with one agency.”

That description was followed by a long list of marketing and design services that covered many different areas of my own expertise.

After a few months I changed my website description and reduced the number of services to Branding and Web Design only. Why? Because the wider the offer is the more confusing the business gets.

So after a few months offering help with different marketing areas I decided to focus only on the services I know best. This way I can ensure the best quality in everything I do.

Top quality restaurants usually have very brief menus; they don’t offer a bit of everything, but only their very best dishes, the ones that set them apart.

Does this mean I cannot work with clients from other industries or help them with other areas of marketing? Of course I can, but branding and design services for creative businesses are my specialties.

Lesson 3: Relationships are essential to build a business

When I started my business I thought about so many ways to promote myself, but I overlooked the most important one: networking and relationship building. Until I realised that word-of-mouth and referrals were actually the way in which I was finding my clients.

In the professional service industry, people choose small businesses because of whom they know, and because they think they will make a great team working together. People want to know you before working with you.

So if you’ve just started your business, launched your website and are relying just on, for example, some SEO marketing to find your first clients, you may be about to learn the same lesson than I did: relationship marketing must be the priority in your marketing agenda.

Even if an SEO guru manages to take your website to the top of the ranking, this may lead more traffic to your site, but your website may still be failing to convert visitors into clients.

A relationship-oriented website could improve your conversion rate and get more visitors enquiring about your services. What’s a relationship-oriented website? They're websites designed to engage visitors by starting conversations – through blog comments, social media, chats, etc, and to stay in touch after leaving the website – through newsletters, social media pages, and more.

In this other article on relationship marketing for small businesses you can find more information about how to build a relationship-oriented website.

Every small business owner is in a continuous learning process since they start a new business. Learning from mistakes and improving your business on a daily basis is vital for any small business to survive.

Are you a small business owner? What lessons did you learn from your first year in business?

People are the foundation of any business. The most successful business entrepreneurs are those who better understand people’s needs and provide solutions to them. So us, small business owners know that our success depends a lot on our capacity to build long-lasting and positive relationships with different groups of interest.

Building relationships requires time, effort and a mutual benefit for each part. As in any relationship, you must be willing to give, share and support, not just take or receive.

In today’s post I’m sharing some of my best practises to build relationships and how they impact on my business.

Who are those groups of interest

1. Clients. Most small business owners find it easier to sell a new product or service to an existing client than finding a new one. For this reason, keeping in touch with my clients after delivering a project is one of the priorities in my agenda.

Also a happy client can become a referral.  There is nothing I love more than someone contacting me and saying “Hi Rosa… { name of a previous client } has referred me to you to build my new brand or design my new website...” My clients are the most powerful marketing strategy to get new jobs, by word-of-mouth. Meeting and exceeding expectations and staying in touch on a regular basis quite often brings repeat business and new clients.

2. Suppliers. Good vendor relationships will carry you through challenging times or tight deadlines. As they’re also part of my business industry, they are quite often connected to many potential clients and can also refer some work to me.

Employees and business partners also come into this group. I think the main reason why I’ve seen many small businesses to fail has been due to internal issues between business partners.

3. Local community. People who are geographically close to your business could be your best potential clients. Local businesses with a similar target audience, but not competitors, usually offer great joint venture opportunities. For example, if you have a sports clothing store, you can offer exclusive discounts for members of local gyms.

4. Media and bloggers. They may not be your target market or potential clients but they can be excellent influencers. Research has demonstrated that 81% of blog readers trust the advice given by their favourite blogs, and 61% of them made a purchase based on a blogger’s recommendation*.

Getting interest or attention from this group can be challenging as their mailboxes are always saturated with press releases and feature requests. I found the best way to approach to bloggers is by giving a product for free to write a review on it or hiring them to write sponsored content on your brand and products.

5. Competitors. Sharing information, struggles, resources and best practices with other industry fellows can also be a very important factor to build success.

A few years ago, I used to attend industry events, join professional organisations and even be part of their committees. Now I’m a mum and don’t have as much time as I used to before having my baby, I found that a simple coffee with other creative entrepreneurial mums with similar businesses in the area is the best networking activity that I can do on a weekly basis.

I'm honestly surprised by the amount of emails that I get everyday from web design and seo companies asking me if I want to partner with them and outsource some projects. I feel as if someone just sent me an email asking me to marry him and I don't even know that person. I prefer a slower business approach that allows my potential clients and myself to get to know each other and ensure we'll make a fantastic team.

Three ways to build business relationships

1. Social Media

Social media is designed to help people build relationships of any kind, and almost every business uses these platforms for that purpose. People make friends, fall in love and stay in touch with long-distance friends and family members through social media channels. Why can't clients fall in love with your brand or your products through those channels too? They certainly can.

When you have different social media channels you can use each of them to connect with a different group. For example, I found Facebook and Instagram great channels to connect with clients and prospects, Twitter is great to build relationships with suppliers, Pinterest is excellent to be found by bloggers and LinkedIn perfect to connect with industry fellows.

2. Events

Social media is an easy way to connect with your audience but it's not even close to having a face-to-face conversation with someone. An event can offer the perfect opportunity to build relationships with any of the groups mentioned above by meeting and talking to people face-to-face in a relaxed context and friendly environment.

In this other post I offer some event marketing tips for promoting local businesses.

3. Relationship-oriented websites

Yes, that’s right, your website can also be a great opportunity to start long-lasting relationship with potential clients if it’s being properly designed and oriented to build those relationships.

To design a relationship-oriented website I try to think about what my clients would do if it was an event: people come into the venue – your website –, you meet and greet them and introduce yourself – your about page – , then you offer free refreshments – downloadables, discount coupons, free advise and tips – and start different conversations with your guests  - that can be done through your contact page or your blog comments - . And finally you get their business cards for future communications while in your website you can collect contact details through a sign-up form to stay in touch.

This other article on relationship marketing by Sharon Fling published on Business Know-how offers some more useful tips to use your website and email to build long-lasting relationships with your market.

* Source: Quicksprout, How To Develop A Solid Blog Outreach Strategy

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Perth 3d visualisation master, Peter Castagna, along with his wife, Kristie, who is a talented interior stylist and blogger, have recently launched their brand new business, living 3d. I was honoured to be chosen as their designer to bring their brand and website to life. Today, I'm thrilled to add this new project to my portfolio, and excited to walk you through my creative process in this post.

During our first client meeting, we discussed the vision for their business and the direction of the new brand. They had already pulled together images and colours on an inspiration board, which acted as a starting point of my design process.

During the first week I came up with three separate concepts for their logo. The chosen logo, the one in the image below, was the result to take the "L" for 'living', create a 3d effect, isolate the shadows and round the corners. This concept explains the heart and essence of this business: transforming 2d drawings into 3d interior designs.

A lower case informal typography and a 'happy' feel was also part of the design brief. That's why we agreed on a light green colour that in brand psychology represents 'life'. This concept is also aligned with the company motto: bringing plans to life.

The website had to continue that soothing and restful feel. It had to be a reflexion of how they do business. They create functional and stylish spaces, so that's exactly what I've tried to achieve here as well: a functional but stylish website design, uncomplicated and relaxed.

Going with a simple design allows my client's portfolio to shine with no distractions and the message to be delivered with clarity.

“From the first meeting with Rosa for a coffee, we knew she was the right “woman for the job”…. From brand development, electronic stationary, business card design right through to a fantastic website she has exceeded all of our expectations all at fantastic prices, making this the perfect one stop shop for your next project.”

— Peter Castagna, Creative Director of living 3d

Are you interested in working with me for the design of your brand and website? Visit my Branding and Web design pages for more information on design packages and pricing, and my Contact page to get in touch!

There are two ways to blog: for fun, having your blog as a hobby, and for money, treating your blog as a business.

The fact that you’re blogging for fun doesn’t mean that you cannot make any money with your blog; and if you blog for money doesn’t mean that you cannot have fun blogging. The difference between having a blog as a hobby or as a business is that different rules apply to blogging depending on the main objective of your blog.

If you treat your blog as a business there are two major things that you need to consider:

1.     Investment

Investment is a scary word for many of us; it means that you have to spend money out of your own pocket without knowing for sure whether you will get it back. It’s almost gambling. However, no business can work without investment and blogs are not an exception. To make money with your blog you have to spend money first.

But it’s not just money that you need to invest on your blog. Time is another important expense. If you treat your blog as a business you need to dedicate time for it, plus look after many other areas of your business.

Another important investment is expertise. When you run a business you won’t be able to do everything yourself. You will need to hire people with the right experience to help. You can also take courses to learn or improve different skills and save money in hiring help, but then again, you still need to invest money and time in getting that knowledge.

2.     Profit

When you’re blogging for fun you don’t need to worry about audiences, statistics, advertising, client management, etc. When your blog is your business you need to worry about everything that can have an impact on your return on investment. Surely you won’t want to lose money you've invested in your blog, neither waste your time, so you need to focus on making your blog profitable.

I blogged for fun for over four years and three years ago I quit my day job to become a full-time blogger and make money with my blog. How did I manage to make my blog a way of living? Here is my checklist which I consider to be the essentials to turn your blog into a business.

1.     Sell stuff

Your blog is a great promotion platform to sell your own products or services, not just to promote others. Define clearly what you sell through a ‘Hire me’ or ‘My services’ page on your blog, or have an online shop to sell your products. The majority of my income comes from selling design services and digital products in my online shop.

The money made blogging can come from direct and indirect resources:

• Selling advertising (Google AdSense, banners, affiliate programs, etc)
• Selling sponsorships (sponsored content)
• Selling knowledge (webinars, seminars, workshop, e-courses, etc)
• Selling services (design, consulting, etc)
• Selling physical or digital products (like ebooks, content subscription, etc)
• Selling expertise (books, speaking opportunities, media contributions, etc)

2.     Allocate a budget to invest In your blog

As I said before to make money you have to spend money first. How much is up to you. I usually allocate a percentage of my total earnings during the previous month to promote my blog the following month. The more money I make the more I can invest the next month.

3.     Set a marketing strategy

Identify who your potential (or ideal) client would be, and what they may find interesting, useful or inspiring in a blog. Write content for that specific client type and find the right channels to reach your audience (email subscriptions, social media posting, search engines, etc…) A marketing planner can help you set a clear strategy for your blog in an easy and effective way.

4.     Hire help

You cannot be an expert in everything. Identify the areas of your blog where you need some help. They typically are design, marketing, accountability or legal advice.

5.     Brand your blog

Find a way to differentiate yourself from everyone else in your market and create a brand that talks about what makes you unique. Design a blog consistent with your brand and organise all necessary stationary (like business cards, tax invoices or media kits). To do this you may need some help from a graphic and web designer.

6.     Organise your finances

Invoice your clients and keep records of your expenses and earnings. To keep your finance under control you can use some free tools. I use Easy Books App and Grafika Studio Finance Planner.

Know your tax obligations for your country. You may need some help from a taxation accountant.

7.     Create a client database

When you run a business it's important to look after your clients. For example, I make sure that everyone who has worked with me along the year gets a Christmas e-card in December. To keep records of your clients and their activities you can use free CRM software. I use Really Simple Systems to manage my client database.

8.     Connect with your community

Whether they are clients, advertisers or other bloggers, staying connected with my community has been a key factor of my own success as a full-time blogger. The best way to be in touch with so many people and on a regular basis is through social media. Following people, blogs and brands, as well as participate in their conversations, has been a fantastic way to build relationships with my industry and to amplify my market.

9.     Acquire relevant expertise

The more you learn to do by yourself the more you can save in hiring specialist help. For example, taking a basic course on web design will allow you to do simple updates in your blog template without having to hire a web developer for it.

10.   Track results

To measure my business success I pay attention to two main aspects:

• Statistics – the more visits I have the better my blog becomes as an advertising platform for external brands. But also statistical information helps me to understand my audience, refine my marketing strategy and improve my blog performance.
• Return on investment (ROI) - that is the money that I make minus the money I spend.

An event can be an effective marketing tool to promote an small business. Unlike your social media, an event gives you an excellent opportunity to connect face-to-face with customers and prospective clients.

When it comes to organise an event there are three questions that commonly pop in any business owner's mind:

- "What sort of event could I have?"

- "Who is going to come to my party"

- "How much is going to cost me?"

In today's post I'm trying to answer those three questions as well as providing some guidance on how to use event marketing to promote your business.

Defining your event

Before organising an event, business owners must ask themselves five simple questions: what (format), when (date), where (venue), who (audience) and why (purpose).

The opening of a new store, the launch of a new product, your business anniversary o any other special date in the calendar (like Christmas, Chinese New Year, etc) can be excellent reasons to host an after-work cocktail party, if your store has a good capacity for it.

If there is no special reason other than showcasing your business to the public, an open house day will be the a good option too.

Before setting the date for your event, check a what's on calendar to find any other industry events or popular events of general interest that could clash with your event. Avoid public holidays, long weekends or school holiday periods.

Targeting your event

Targeting means deciding who and how many people will be appropriated to invite to your event, as well as identifying the best ways to do it. The length of your invitation list will depend on your budget and room capacity, and who to invite will depend on your event objectives.

1. Clients and suppliers - your event is an excellent opportunity to thank your existing clients and suppliers for their support. The best way to invite this target group is by electronic invitation (by email). Keeping a database of clients and contact details is an essential tool for many marketing purposes, including events.
2. Local community - if you’re opening a new business or a new store to offer services or sell goods to your local community, it's a good idea to organise a small event to introduce yourself and showcase your business to your community. To invite this group you can advertise your event in local newspapers, send invitations by post and promote your event on your own store.
3. Media and bloggers – industry bloggers could be also interested in attending your event. If they find it interesting, they will write about it after the event, giving a good promotion to your business.
4. Potential clients or prospects - an event is also an opportunity to bring new costumers to your shop and showcase your business. However, reaching people who are not clients or part of your community can be difficult.

Although many large events use social media and advertising to promote themselves, a small business usually doesn't have a big capacity and budget to host a big event. Open invitations can also have the risk of losing control on your target list. More effective ideas to reach potential clients are:

• Through clients and suppliers, as they can help you to promote your event by word of mouth. Allow your invited clients to bring a guest or forward the invitation to a work college. To not lose control on your list you will have to set an online registration form for acceptances, or ask anyone accepting your invitation to confirm the name of their guest by email.
• By partnering with a local business to co-host the event, so that they also invite their existing client base. For example, if you have a sport-clothing store, you might want to partner with local gyms so that they invite their members to your event.

Budgeting YOUR event

even though you may hear that sponsorships or ticket selling are usually a good source to finance many events, I personally can't see this as an option to pay for a promotional small business event. The cost of your event may have to come entirely from your marketing budget unless you find a co-host who is willing to share expenses.

Having a structured budget can help you to decide what you can afford, track your expenses and ensure that you stick to your budget and don't overspend.

Here  you can download an event budgeting template to help you manage your event budget.

managing your event

I managed hundreds of events over the time that I spent working in the corporate world. Whether those events were seminars, cocktail parties, conferences or workshops, I always used the same event template (you can download this template in .pdf in the link below)

An event plan has five different parts:

1. Event pre-planning (setting budget, objectives, date and time, and deciding on venue, speaker or special guests)
2. Event communications plan (creating invitation list, save-the-dates, invitations, reminders, online registrations and thank you emails)
3. Event marketing and promotion plan (if you don't have an invitation list you may want to advertise your event through social media, blogs, press releases, advertising, mailing and other channels)
4. Event logistics (catering, entertainment, audiovisual equipment, name tags, gift bags, staff, etc)
5. Post-event evaluation (collecting feedbacks, getting attendance numbers and debriefing co-hosts)

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Sources: Small Business Trends, 42 Tips For Producing A Memorable Small Business Event, by Jamillah Warner


 

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Time management sounds like a complex concept aimed for business executives and senior managers. Many people fill their blackberries and laptops with complex organisational tools aimed to maximise their productivity.

However, time management is a basic skill that everyone can learn and use in their day-to-day life. No matter if you are a senior executive or a small business owner, everyone needs to make the most of their time.  

Today’s post is not about advanced time management tools, but about the most simple and easy-to-use organisational systems that everyone can utilise. There is no need to use complex applications, not even technology.

Organising yourself with any of the tools below will significantly reduce the stress levels, increase your chances to success and bring balance to your personal and professional life.  

For me there are five simple ways to organise my own personal and professional time:

1. Lists

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Things-to-do lists and checklists are the simplest organisational system. Before shutting down my computer and going home, every day I make a list of all pending tasks that need to be done the next day. And every day I start my morning by going through my list of things to do.

Lists are essential tools to establish priorities, and ensure you don’t forget anything important.

2. Calendars

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Printable monthly calendar. Click on the image to download pdf

Calendars are used to allocate times during the day to perform tasks that cannot be interrupted, like meetings, appointments, classes, etc. They can be shared with others to let them know your availability, as well as agreeing times with someone else to do something together (i.e. having a meeting with a client).

However, calendars don’t allow you to prioritise your daily tasks; things have to be done during the time assigned, even if there are other important and/or urgent things to do first.

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Printable weekly calendar. Click on the image to download pdf

List and calendars are very basic applications that any computer or smart phone has, but there are many professionals that don’t spend the entire day in front of a computer, and they may find easier to use a notepad and printed calendar to organise themselves. Paper calendars are also a much more family-friendly tool to share with kids.

3. Project plans

Project plans divide big projects in steps or tasks that need to be done in order to complete the entire project, as well as setting up timeframes and deadlines for each of them. They can also be shared with other team members and are a great tool to distribute the workload, assign responsibilities and work with other team members.

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Printable Workflow page. Click on the image to download pdf

4. Workflows

Workflows help manage different projects at the same time when every project has similar tasks, making sure not to miss a step or something important. However, it’s harder to specify timeframes for each task even though you can set a deadline for each project competition.

5. Planners

A planner is a document that combines the five tools above in one. The objective is keeping all the information together in one place. If you go to a meeting you can end up writing notes on your notepad, telephone numbers on post-it’s and the date of your next meeting on your mobile calendar. If you have a planner all the information will be in the same place.

A planner can help you organise your personal life, professional activities or an important event in your life, like a wedding, a holiday, or the arrival of your baby.

As everyone isn’t the same, it’s important to find the right planner that suits your specific needs best. To do this you may want to start by buying a kit that already has general calendars, checklists, an address book, etc. and then complete the planner with other personalised pages.

Printable planners give you the flexibility to print as many pages as you need of each tool (and only the ones you really need) and put together different kits to manage different aspects of your personal and professional life.

You can see same examples of planners at Grafika shop in Etsy.

Client: Collected Interiors
Project: Art Direction, Photo Editing, UI/UX, Web Design and Development
Date: Launched in September, 2014

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Collected Interiors website designed by Grafika Studio

I am a big fan of Perth interior designers Collected Interiors, so when I was asked to re-designed their website I immediately felt excited about this project.

The briefing was to create a sleek and modern new website, to display bigger images and to incorporate some interactive tools.

I created a custom-made design – no templates were used here – carefully thought to let the images shine. Full screen images in almost every page allow the visitor to get a taste of the designers' talent before even visiting their portfolio.

The design is simple and clean so that visitors can enjoy the beautiful photographs with no distractions. Condense typography, combined with serif fonts for a classy elegant touch, and a lot of white empty space achieve a modern and professional look & feel.

 

INSIDE A RESPONSIVE DESIGN

One of the major improvements made on this website was the responsive layout. The full-screen images made a fluid design necessary, so that they could automatically adjust to every screen size without being deformed.

The portfolio pages have a responsive slider with an advanced touch / swipe support built-in to facilitate the navigation from image to image on small devices.

 

THE USER EXPERIENCE

Every image was edited to achieve the perfect lighting in each interior space, and carefully selected so that the internal pages could flow from one to the other keeping a consistent feel across the entire website.

Every image gives a sense of tranquility to make the visitor want to stay longer on the site. Link effects were also eased to reinforce that sense of calm aimed to retain visitors and let them visit the site with no rush.

THE RESULTS

After the new website was launched Collected Interiors experienced an overwhelming success in social media, getting more than 300 Instagram followers in less than 24hrs, or more than 100 Behance followers in less than 24hrs, and many other successful stories. A SEO friendly website along with a link building strategy put this site at the top of the search engine rankings, busting visits and customer enquires.

“Working together was easy and fun. Rosa is an intuitive and highly professional designer, who always figured out how to translate our ideas into a digital experience. ”

— Lisa Ewart, Creative Director of Collected Interiors -

Five simple tips for designer websites

1. Invest in high quality images

Images are the most important piece of marketing for any designer, not just for web design, but also for press, link building strategies, social media marketing and much more. Style your photographs, hire a professional photographer with the right equipment – and experience – to photograph interiors, and edit every image to correct small imperfections and lighting.

2. Keep a simple colour palette

A minimalistic colour palette will achieve an elegant, sleek and modern look in your website. A clean look & feel will let your images speak about your work and the way in which you do business with no distractions.

3. Learn to love the white space

Let the space breathe. Against what many people think, empty space is not a lack of design, it's actually an important design element, essential to achieve a polished and professional look in any website.

4. Apply a visual storytelling to your website

The entire website must tell the visitor your story and every page must conceived as a chapter of that story. The storyline must flow through an intuitive navigation, powerful images and a compelling message. Every aspect of the website design should be carefully and consciously selected to help to support the thread of the story.

5. Create an emotional connection

Design is an emotional business and your prospects will only become clients if they connect emotionally with your brand. The challenge is to create that emotional connection in a few minute visit to your website.

Call to actions will get you newsletter subscribers, blog readers, social media followers, etc, that will stay connected to your business after visiting your website. Use all these platforms to continue working on that emotional connection with them. Many visitors won't get in touch in their first visit but will be ready to work with you after a few interactions with your brand.

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Are you interested in working with me for the design of your brand and website? Visit my Branding and Web Design pages for more information on my process, design package and pricing, and my Contact page to get in touch!

At the end of last year I looked for a simple printer-friendly planner to organised my own work in the New Year. However, everything I found had excessive design elements and colours, being quite distracting. I always thought that good design is as little design as possible so I decided to create my own planner with a clean and simple design.

My first planner was quickly sold out through my Etsy shop in less than a month, so I designed a whole collection of printable planners with a minimalistic, functional and stylish design, and no fuss or distractions. The collection covers three professional planners: a small business marketing planner, a photographer's planner and a blogger's planner.

To this new collection of professional planners launched in January I'm adding now in February a new range of personal planners to help you organise important life events: a wedding planner, a pregnancy and baby planner and a travel planner. These planners have a softer and more delicate design, and still in consistency with Grafika Studio signature style.

So, what's exactly a printable planner for?

My printable planners are organisation tools intended for specific professionals and creative jobs like bloggers, photographers, etc, and cannot be easily found in conventional shops. They contain calendars, checklists and other documents that can help organise your every day professional activities.

What does "printable" mean?

"Printable", in this context, is a digital document, usually a PDF, which is intended to be printed by the final user at home or at a print shop. After printing, they can be punched and organised in ring folders or be bound.

What size are they?

The printable planners have been designed for A4 sizes but can be easily adjusted or re-sized to proportional sizes (like A5 or American sizes like 8.5x11) by any standard printer.

Can a printable be edited?

No, a printable document is not intended to be modified by the final user. However you could edit the document with Adobe Acrobat.

What can I do if I need to edit the document?

If the printable document doesn't exactly suit your specific needs you can request some edits to Grafika Studio. Edits will be charged at a rate of AUD $10 per 20 min. time block.

Can I get the original editable file?

To be able to open and manipulate the original file you need certain design software and family fonts installed in your computer, as well as some design skills. It's usually easier to request changes to Grafika Studio instead of trying to do it by yourself.

Your brand is the soul of your business. It's what identifies and differentiates your business from others. It's what makes you unique and special. Branding a business is not just about creating a logo, it's about creating perceptions in people's minds and love in customer's hearts.

A brand is represented by the branding, that is, all those visual elements that allow people to identify a product or a company. This can include the logo, colour scheme, typeface and other elements, and can be formalised in a document called style guide. Below is an example of my style guide.

It's difficult to describe the entire process to build a brand. It starts with soul searching: find your strengths, your passions your vision and your personal style. Then set a sole goal: to get paid for doing what you love. And finally come up with a step-by-step plan to make it real. Start small but dream big.

Here are my five tips to build a unique, memorable, and timeless brand that reflects your style and represents you and your business for years to come:

1. Find Your Own Unique Brand Style

There are no two identical businesses, so you must explore and find what makes you different. Understanding your own distinctness is the first step to build memorable brands. Once you find it, write down your brand statement, that is a short sentence that states your uniqueness.

I found my own distinctness in the concepts of beauty, simplicity and style. They define what I do and how I do it, and I have summarised this in my brand statement: beautiful brands, stylist websites.

2. Deliver a Consistent Message

Letterheads, invoices, business cards, everything talks about you and the way in which you deliver your work. It's important that all your brand elements are well-coordinated across every channel and that message is clear and consistent. The style guide helps you achieve that consistency.

3. Build Brand Name Recognition

People must know who you are and what you stand for before becoming customers. Just delivering a consistent message won't be enough, make sure everyone "gets it". In a world that’s overloaded with information, only creative, unique and special brands can stand out and be easily recognised and remembered.

4. Invest In Brand Quality

Quality is a reflection of your business personality and how much you care about every project, every product and every client. Make sure your brand also reflexes your quality standards. Invest in professional photos, print in high-quality paper and proofread everything that you write, even if it's on your blog or social media pages. 

5. Communicate your brand and brand your communications

Take your brand online and communicate with your people, ask and answer questions, and participate in conversations that help you build the emotional connection with everyone in your market