It’s a milestone worth celebrating! The Profitable Graphic Designer Podcast is proud to announce its 100th episode, marking a journey filled with design inspiration, business insights, and creative success stories.

Over the past 100 episodes, we’ve had the privilege of hosting some of the sharpest minds in the creative industry. Our guests have shared their experiences, tips, and strategies that have empowered designers not only to create stunning visuals but also to run profitable design businesses.

We’ve explored all the ways a designer can build a successful, sustainable, simple, and profitable design business! None of this would have been possible without YOU, our incredible listeners. Your support, feedback, and dedication have fueled our passion to bring you the best of the design world.

We’ve received hundreds of messages from designers around the world who’ve found inspiration and practical advice through our episodes, and it’s these stories that motivate us to keep going.

As we virtually celebrate our 100th episode, I personally, as your host, want to thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you 😊 The journey to 100 episodes is just the beginning. We’re excited to continue providing you with valuable insights, expert interviews, and a platform to thrive as a creative business owner.

In this podcast episode, we have a fantastic guest, Chris Do, and we’ve touched on many different business topics that will help design business owners improve their business.

Chris Do shared how he started his business, how he got some of the first clients, when he started outsourcing, hiring, and how he grew his business into a successful creative agency in LA. Chris also touched on how you can start getting high-paying clients that you would love to work with! And not just that but how to get a lot of them so you can expand into an agency.

Having an agency might not be for every freelance designer, but he talked about how an agency serves the clients the best and why many design clients prefer to work with an agency. He also helped us understand why clients choose the designers they choose and how you can position yourself and your business as the best possible option for those dreamy clients. It’s very easy to understand and implement in your business, so I would encourage you to go through it.

And, Chris Do also talked about how you can start creating content that will attract design clients who want to work with you. Really, the whole episode is full of value, and I know you will find it super valuable if you are a brand, graphic, or web designer trying to build a sustainable design agency.

 

Listen to the episode here:

Spotify  –  Apple Podcasts  –  Amazon Music

 

Here’s what you will learn:

• Discover the work-life balance of a busy entrepreneur, including hobbies and family time.
• Learn about Chris’s journey from a freelance designer to building his agency, Blind.
• Gain expert advice on transitioning from a solo designer to building a team and agency.
• Find out how to overcome the challenge of hiring when you have limited resources.
• Explore effective marketing strategies in today’s world of social media.
• Delve into the importance of personal branding in the creative business world.
• Get insights into content creation and social media management.

Thank you for being a part of our journey, and enjoy this milestone episode with Chris Do & your host, Kady Sandel.

 

Resources:

$12k Client Attraction Masterclass: https://aventiveacademy.com/attract-clients-workshop/

The Wealthy Client Blueprint: ⁠https://aventiveacademy.com/wealthy-client/

12-Week Business Program for Designers: https://aventiveacademy.com/make-money

The Creative CEO Accelerator: https://aventiveacademy.com/accelerator

 

About Chris Do:

Chris Do is a self described loud introvert, recovering graphic designer, middle child, serial entrepreneur, Emmy award-winning director, educator and founder of The Futur. He has an audacious mission of teaching one billion people how to make a living doing what they love. Mr. Do has given talks and conducted workshops on: Negotiations, Pricing Strategies, Branding, Typography, and Content Marketing. He has served: as the chairman of the speaking-intro-letter.rtf board for the SPJA, advisor to Saleshood, advisory board member for AIGA/LA, Emmys Motion & Title Design Peer Group, Otis Board of Governors, Santa Monica College and Woodbury University. He has taught Sequential design for over 15 years at ArtCenter and Otis College of Art and Design. Additionally, he has lectured all over the world including: EO GLCx, Pinterest, Dribble, AIGA National Design Conference, Adobe MAX, Birmingham Design Festival, Awwwards New York/San Francisco/Amsterdam, AIGA Miami, The Design Conference Brisbane, Hulu, Creative South, Digital Design Days Milan/Geneva, Lu Xun Academy Fine Art Dalian, Motion Conference Santa Fe, VMA Design Conference, MIT Boston, Bend Design Conference, Graphika Manila, Create Philippines, Rise Up Summit Cairo, RGD Design Thinkers Toronto, California Institute of the Arts, LA Art Institute, UCLA, MGLA, Cal State Los Angeles/ Northridge/Dominguez Hills, Post speaking-intro-letter.rtf Production World, Adobe Video World and San Diego University.

 

Connect with Chris Do:

Website: thefutur.com

Get a copy of his book Pocket Full of Do

 

Coaching communities:

1. Accelerator – For early founders & freelancers seeking a step-by-step blueprint on building a thriving creative business.
2. Pro Group – For established creative service providers, coaches and consultants who are ready to scale.
3. Brand Lab – For founders ready to create their personal brand, build thought-leadership, and innovate their businesses.

 

Follow him on:

Twitter

Instagram

Linkedin

TikTok

YouTube (1500+ videos)

Futur Podcast (Top 10 ranked for Marketing)

 

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TRANSCRIPT:

0:00

You have to ask yourself, are you like a Costco, a Target, a Macy’s, a Nordstrom’s, a Neiman Marcus, or are you a Louis Vuitton?

And you have to kind of figure out who you are in that marketplace and how you want to position yourself so that you attract better clients.

0:20

It’s a milestone worth celebrating.

The Profitable Graphic Designer Podcast is proud to announce its 100th episode, making a journey filled with design inspiration, business insights, and creative success stories.

Over the past hundred episodes, we’ve had the privilege of hosting some of the sharpest minds in the creative industry.

0:43

Our guests have shared their experiences, tips, and strategies that have empowered designers not only to create stunning visuals but also to run profitable design businesses.

We’ve explored all the ways a designer can build a successful, sustainable, simple, and profitable design business.

1:02

None of this would have been possible without our incredible listeners.

Your support, feedback, and dedication have fueled our passion to bring you the best of the design world.

We’ve received hundreds of messages from designers around the world who found inspiration and practical advice through our episodes.

1:23

And it’s these stories that motivate us to keep going as we virtually celebrate our 100th episode.

I personally, as your host, want to thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

The journey to 100 episodes is just the beginning.

1:39

We’re excited to continue providing you with valuable insights, experts, interviews, and the platform to thrive as a creative business owner.

Now to quickly introduce myself, I’m your host, Kady Sandel.

I’m a brand strategist, designer, creative director, and the CEO of successful 6 Figure Design agency based in Austin, TX, serving clients worldwide.

2:01

After mastering the art of building a profitable and sustainable design business, I decided to help you achieve the same success.

I teach brand graphic and web designers how to attract more clients, increase their pricing, and develop design businesses that provide the financial freedom and time flexibility you’ve always dreamed of.

2:22

We offer online programs, courses, and templates that you can use along with our Coaching Accelerator and Mastermind High-Touch Experiences for creatives.

You can learn more about starting and growing your design business at aventiveacademy.com, but for now, grab a cup of coffee and join me in today’s podcast episode.

2:53

Today’s episode on the Profitable Graphic Designer podcast is truly special.

It’s our milestone episode, it’s our 100th episode, and we have a fantastic guest to celebrate this milestone.

Chris Doe is a loud introvert, A recovering graphic designer, and Amy award-winning designer, and the founder of The Future, an online education platform.

3:17

His mission is to teach 1 billion people how to make a living doing what they love.

So hopefully, we’re going to have a billion listeners on this episode.

Welcome, Chris.

Thank you so much for being here.

I’m so excited to talk to you again.

And before we start, I know that many creatives already know who you are, and I did a quick intro.

3:39

But I would like you to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Sure.

Thanks for having me.

And congratulations on your 100th episode.

In case you don’t know me, my name is Chris Do.

It rhymes with.

It just rhyme with anything.

3:56

You can think of it as like cookie dough.

All right, So we have this really big mission, which is to teach a billion people how to make a living doing what they love.

And this is born from my own introspection and the gratitude that I have.

I’ve been the beneficiary of some amazing high-level coaching and I’ve been able to capture some part of that American dream, to do the things that I love and to make a good living for it.

4:18

Now as I’m entering the third act of my three-act career, I want to be able to pay that back and to help others achieve the same kind of success, doing whatever they do in defining success the way they want to.

And some of that is helping them with mindset.

Maybe it’s with sales and marketing or content or branding.

4:35

Those are the kinds of things I love to help people with.

I love that.

Thank you.

Now, I know that you work a lot.

I see you being active on Instagram, on YouTube, on podcasts, doing all these workshops in person, like you travel, you do a lot of different things, and they’re all related to work and business.

4:53

But I’m just curious, do you have a hobby and do you have time for your family and friends?

I have lots of hobbies.

Maybe too many hobbies.

I like to go fishing.

I like backpacking.

I like reading, watching movies, reading comic books, playing video games.

5:10

And.

But part of that has to take a second seat to my bigger mission, which is to make sure that before my time is up on this planet that I’ve done as much as I can to help others in their pursuit.

And that does come with lots of compromises and sacrifices.

And you asked about like family time.

5:27

Family time is kind of difficult, as you can imagine.

As I’m working lots of hours, I in a traditional definition of family time, people might find that maybe I’m not spending as much time, but I’m spending a different kind of time.

So I believe in this idea.

5:44

Instead of trying to have work-life balance, I believe in work-life integration, how we can have the circles of our lives overlap.

And so a lot of times what people think of is there’s work and I must do work, and then there’s family time, and then there’s personal time, and then there’s leisure time.

And those circles or squares tend to be very separate.

6:02

I’ll give you an example of work-life integration.

So there’s a period of time in my life when my youngest son was homeschooled.

And so he came to work with me every single day.

So five days a week, he would go to work and he would meet my employees and he would see what’s going on.

6:19

He would have lunch with us as a team.

So he was as integrated as possible.

And that was for about two years.

He would also travel to me when I’m going overseas.

He’s been with me to Amsterdam, to the Philippines, to New York, San Francisco.

And he gets to see what the world looks like from my point of view.

6:36

And then he gets to pick dinner, like where we go and to help plan out our travel itinerary.

He didn’t do a great job.

I’m just going to say that out there.

But we got to do this thing.

And I think I’m going to cherish that time.

What kind of impact it’s going to have on him, I don’t know.

But only time will tell.

6:53

Yeah, I love that.

That’s how I’m trying as well, ’cause.

Well, first of all, my first daughter was born during the pandemic, so there were no daycares.

And so we simply had to figure out how to manage that and how to, you know, integrate that family life into business.

7:10

So yeah, OK.

So today we’ll talk about growing a design business and Chris will really help us discover like what steps a solo designer/slash freelancer needs to take in order to become to really become an entrepreneur and grow into maybe a design studio.

7:30

Now I would like to ask you, Chris, how did you build your agency?

Not the future, but the blind.

Like where like were you a freelance designer at first and started bringing on people?

Like what were your steps?

I was just coming off the second job I’ve ever had as an adult professional creative person.

7:51

I was working at a record label and I was thinking, this is not right for me.

So I left, and the timing was really good because I was starting to get inquiries for work and it came from my work being included in the After Effects CD-ROM that was sent out from Adobe.

8:08

And so people in town were reaching out to me and saying, hey, are you in town?

Do you do work?

And that’s how I got my first, I think, 2 to 3 leads, and I happened to be in Hollywood in Los Angeles where this kind of work was being done.

So being at the right place, the right time helps out a lot.

8:25

So I’d started freelancing, I got 11 clients and it’s for a company called Focus Productions and his name’s Gary Breece, I’m still friends with him today, 20 plus years later.

He had me designing his stationery, his identity, his logo, and then asking me to do motion graphics pieces and things like that afterwards.

8:42

So that wasn’t a freelance gig.

That was more like, that’s a client.

But I did work as a freelancer as well, working at a place called Novacom in Hollywood, where I was doing motion design work.

And when I decided to start my own business, some of the people that I worked with at Novacom decided to subcontract work out to me.

9:01

They had a lot of opportunities.

They didn’t have that many people to give that work to.

So I was just one of the contractors that they hired.

So now I was working in my own studio in downtown LA, and I have now more work than I can do.

And so naturally, my inclination is I don’t want to do this work by myself.

9:16

I’m going to bring in some people to help me.

So I brought in my former college roommate, and I said, hey, why don’t you do some of this work and we’ll do it together.

And it made it more enjoyable for me.

And I could pay him what he wanted and make a little bit more money between what I paid him and what the clients paid me.

9:35

And that worked out really well.

So that was happening within the first couple of months of working.

Yeah, I love that.

And then from there, I’m assuming you were getting like more and better clients and started hiring more and expanding, right?

Yes.

And so I kept getting more opportunities, working with more studios, and now you know you can’t be in two places at the same time.

9:54

So this is naturally now.

I needed better people to be able to do the kinds of jobs I was getting.

Now I was doing motion design jobs, so I just reached out to my friends who had graduated before me, asked them about if they were happy doing what they were doing and would they consider leaving.

10:09

And so I’m like, you know what?

I don’t like this place anymore.

I’m going to quit.

I’m going to come work for you.

And so my friends started joining.

So before you know it, a solo operation myself grew into like a four-person operation.

Then I hired a project coordinator just to help wrangle information and coordinate with the client.

10:27

Yeah.

So many of our listeners here are designers who are, you know, looking to scale their business.

And as mentioned before, we start the recording that there’s so much advice online on how to start a business, which I believe is very easy.

But growing a business is, you know what’s usually harder?

10:45

So what advice do you have for someone who wants to transition from being a solo designer to building a team and agency?

Like, where does it even start from?

What is the first step?

The first step is to have more work than you can possibly do by yourself and to realize that if you’re able to get a certain amount of money, ask yourself this question.

11:05 Is there someone within my network of friends, colleagues, coworkers, classmates that I can get in to help me who I like, enjoy the company of who?

Who have a skill set that I can utilize and be able to market their services?

And by doing so, you’re able to make money in the spread between what you’re paid and what you pay others.

11:25

And for me, that’s really how you start to build your business.

So if you have more opportunities, if you have two jobs and you don’t want to work 16 hours a day, which I don’t think anybody should, you can bring people in to help you and make sure you’re charging more than would have cost you to pay others to do the work, and then you can manage the work.

11:43

When I say manage, some people are going to bristle and say so you’re not doing the design work anymore.

You can if you wish to, and that’s your option.

But what I like to do is to be able to teach people how to do the work the way that the clients have come to expect, and then to art direct them to close that gap between where they are and what kind of promises I’ve made.

12:03

So if the logos weren’t good, I would come in and say, OK, let’s change these things, let’s work on this.

We’ve kind of missed the client brief here.

Let’s redirect and refocus and let’s try to iterate on these two ideas that I think are really, really good.

That’s called our direction.

And by doing that, then you can present the work to the client and if it meets their expectations and your standards, no one cares.

12:24

No one cares if you did it or if 300 other people did it.

It needs to meet your professional standard and expectations of the client, and I think that’s a hurdle that a lot of people have trouble getting over.

Yeah, and a lot of people are afraid of losing the thing that they started their business for.

12:41

You know, they wanted to be graphic designers, web designers, brand designers and then all of a sudden they’re going to become managers or creative directors versus being in the software, you know, designing the logos and then they’re like, but I I don’t really want to be a manager.

12:57

Can they still stay designers?

What would you say?

They can, but it’s OK First of all, I just want to be clear about this.

It’s OK to be a solo operation to manage the work that comes in and do the work yourself.

There’s a lot of personal joy and satisfaction gratification that you get from that.

13:14

And I don’t want to say any different.

Sometimes when I’m sitting down designing things mostly for myself, I do feel that same sense of joy.

But if your aspirations are to build a business, to have a team of designers to look at a bigger idea, which is, if I were able to pay some really talented designers who had skill sets that were better than mine, different than mine, would the work we do as a studio be better than the work I would do individually?

13:41

And the answer is absolutely yes.

So in that spirit of collaboration and bringing people in, I was able as a studio to produce work better than what I could do alone, better than what any individual could do alone.

And I think there that’s an idea that’s really exciting to me, it’s how we grow.

13:58

So to give it a point of reference, when I started I did mostly animated type, so type was moving.

It’s called dynamic topography, something like that.

And that was very exciting.

But I couldn’t do character animation.

I couldn’t do 3D animation or visual effects integration with live action.

14:16

So only in the pursuit of this idea of collaborative creation I can do work that’s bigger and better than what I can do and each person is individually rewarded for that.

But as a studio, we started to build a reputation for doing really high quality work and then we can solve most kinds of motion design related problems.

14:34

And that was very exciting to me.

So at the very beginning, like I said, we would animate type.

Then we got into animating logos.

They’re called end tags.

And by the end of my motion design career, so to speak, I’m directing live action commercials with very little animation and type involved.

14:51

So it’s this beautiful arc of growth and development.

Putting yourself into deep waters, doing things you don’t know anything about, being super scared and learning through that process, that excites me more than the idea of my hands on the work.

There’s an expression that I think a lot of people understand conceptually but don’t understand in their heart, which is are you working in your business or working on your business?

15:15

So working in your business is I have my hands on the mouse or the tablet, the stylist, and I’m doing the work and I’m constantly chasing new leads, managing clients and then doing the work myself.

I’m doing all of it in a vertical way.

And you could be a very famous and successful designer with no employees, just one employee like Paul Rand was.

15:37

Or you can grow an agency, But they’re two different paths, and you have to decide which path aligns with me.

And don’t do it because you’re afraid of one or the other.

Do it because intentionally, like that’s what you wanted to achieve in this lifetime.

Yeah, I love that.

And I know you mentioned that if someone wants to grow and go from being a solo designer to building a studio or agency, they will need to focus on bringing in more people.

16:02

So what would you say?

Do you have any suggestions in terms of marketing strategies?

Like what is the most effective these days?

How do people really get clients?

I know it’s a big question, but where?

Where would they start from?

I want to make one more analogy before we move on to this new question that you have.

16:20

OK?

Because I know people are going to hear it and they’re like, yeah, yeah, whatever.

I don’t know.

I’m going to suggest doing the work.

Here’s the thing, Let’s make an analogy in a slightly different field so people can understand.

Let’s say you’re a really amazing cook or a chef and you can, you can make beautiful dishes, right?

16:38

And in order to serve your clients or the people in the restaurant, you’re going to have sous chefs and sous chefs.

What they do is they do a lot of preparation work and based on your cooking methodologies, your formulas, your recipes.

So they do.

They prep the meat, they’ll prep the fish and the vegetables, and they’ll get all that stuff.

16:56

So you’re the person who brings it all together so that you are the creator of the dish.

And you can say, I get great joy in doing the prep work.

So you’ll serve fewer people.

I get great joy in combining the ingredients together.

So you’ll still serve fewer people.

And then some really entrepreneurial chefs decide, well, you know what?

17:16
I want to run the restaurant.

I want to build a brand around my name, not be the person on the line either as the expediter is usually.

Typically what happens, the chef becomes the expediter and says you know we need three orders.

It is 2 orders of that and they do quality control.

17:32
Or you can say I’m going to step into an entrepreneurial role, teach people how I make the food, have very high standards and make sure it comes out consistently the same way as if I had made it.

In fact, I don’t want to be the expediter.

I’m going to hire a person so that I can then think about the recipes, the vision for the restaurant, and also develop relationships with the patrons and the press and do media stuff.

17:57
I want to build the brand.

So what they do is they go out into the dining hall and say, hey, it’s Chef Doe.

I just want to make sure that the food is up to your expectations.

Are you having a good time?

How it’s prepared?

Is there anything that you need?

Because I’d love to make sure that you walk away feeling really happy and then each one of your patrons like, well, my dad, Chef Doe, came out and said hello to me and I’ve never had that kind of feeling before.

18:20
I’m going to tell my $10 friends also.

In the meantime, I’m asking different critics and and and reviewers and entering into competitions to make sure we win this city’s award for best fill in the blank kind of food.

And that helps to drive more customers in and so the team can grow.

18:38
I can pay them more money and we can do upgrades to the kitchen and to the decor of the restaurant.

I can release cookbooks.

I can create cooking demonstrations on Instagram and on TikTok.

So people are like, wow, this food is amazing.

I can’t wait to try Shea Dos, you know, restaurant, whatever it is, Dos Bistro.

18:57
So those are the different ways you need to look at this, right?

So if you’re so in love with all the prep work and being hands on cook, that’s the business model.

Or if you’re like, you know what, I want to build a brand around being able to do the things that I love to serve as many people as I can.

You take the entrepreneurial model.

19:13
Does that make sense, Katie?

Yeah, definitely, totally.

OK.

All right.

Now we get into like, how do we get clients as a solopreneur?

There’s a lot of different ways to get clients.

Number one is it has to be built on you knowing what you’re doing.

So you have a skill set that you’ve trained and you put in your $10,000 hours either through formal education or yourself taught.

19:34
You’ve done the practice, you’ve been mentored.

You know how to do this really well.

So the first thing you need to do is to be able to find a client, any client.

This is where you’re going to lean in on your friends and family network.

So if you’re starting from zero, this is what I would do.

I would just reach out to friends and family, say, hey, I’m in business for myself now.

19:54
I design identity systems for fast growing companies in the food and beverage sector.

Do you know anybody?

Uncle Joe and Aunt Mary?

Oh, you do?

Oh, OK Can you put me in touch?

And I’m willing in this stage to do it for less money so I can prove that I can do this for someone.

20:14
I have to have proof.

I need to take the first risk.

There’s a lot of designers out there who don’t have any proof.

Who are waiting for the clients to take the risk themselves and that’s the reason why they don’t get work up until the point of actually doing the work for free because I would even do that.

20:30
So if I want to break into a space, I would find anybody.

It doesn’t really matter who it is and say you know I’ve been a big admirer of your your company, what you do.

I happen to be an identity designer.

I noticed there’s some opportunities potentially for maybe what you’re doing today or something that you’re planning to roll out.

20:46
If you’re in need of this, I would love to help you And and I don’t want money to get in the way.

So if it’s if money’s a challenge, let’s sit down and talk about we can be really creative just so that I can help you.

Because I would love nothing more than A having evidence of doing this and B having a positive testimonial from you and you would work that way.

21:05
So you just keep doing that until you get two or three pieces.

And then now that you have evidence that you can do this, you can then say, hey, I just finished this project for XYZ brand.

If you know somebody in this space who would like this kind of quality work, please reach out to me.

21:22
I’m available, happy to jump on a call.

So you have to do some of the marking, You have to talk about the project, talk about the transformation, you want to show the before and the after, and also ask for referrals with the people that you’ve already worked with.

If you’re happy with the work that I did for you, I’m curious if you know someone else would benefit from this brand identity design work that I do.

21:43
Do you know two people?

And they were like, yeah, OK.

And then you would just work off that and you keep building off that.

Yeah.

And people can also go to networking events.

That’s you know, another option because when I first got here, I was in Las Vegas and I didn’t have many family and friends.

21:59
Actually I didn’t have any family, but I didn’t know many friends.

And even the people that I did know, they were not in the business world and what not.

So I had to focus on going to networking events and that’s what really helped me grow my business.

But then from there I was using the advice that you just mentioned, like talking to people and asking for more and more.

22:18
Yeah, you know, for a lot of introverted creatives, going to networking events is almost like sad me in the eye right now.

They don’t want to do that and I can’t empathize with them ’cause I don’t want to do that either.

Often times we think networking event is events are full of alpha type personalities or extroverts and it’s often true.

22:38
They’re loud, they move around, they socialize a lot and like.

I love that.

That’s me.

Well, that’s why you mentioned that.

OK.

That is not me.

And I would dare to venture a guess that most of the creatives that I know are not that way either.

22:53
So those kinds of events don’t really produce anything for us in any real meaningful way.

So we have to do something different.

That’s not going to work.

So this is where I think, and I’ll I’ll share a story with you.

If you frequent a restaurant, a cafe, a bowling alley, a pool hall, and you, you think you can help them and you’re a patron, like you’ve given them lots of money, Get to know the people, right?

23:17
You you want to interact with people, not network with people, but interact and learn with them.

So when I visited this fishing lodge and I’ve shared this story before, I asked them for work it because I’m a fan of what they do.

And so first part is I’ve given you money and anytime you give anybody money, they already said, OK, well it’s worth a conversation now because you’re not just some random person trying to take money from me.

23:44
That’s when I get into a conversation with them to say, I’m wondering how your business is going.

Are you getting more customers than you know what to do with?

And if the answer’s yes, then you have nothing else to to, to chase down and you say, well, congratulations, I I wish you many, many continued years of success, many years of continued success and that’s it.

24:07
But most people will say, well, actually we have a, we have a challenge.

We don’t have as many customers as we’d like.

Then you would say, well, tell me more about that, what’s going on and to genuinely be curious and learn about what they’re doing so that you can then have a sense like do you, can you solve this kind of problem.

24:25
And it’s just conversation with, with people, right.

So that’s another way.

Wherever you spend money and time, look for opportunities there where you can actually help them improve.

But don’t go into the conversation insulting them and say I’ve no notice.

Your identity is terrible.

It’s pretty trash and pretty inconsistent.

24:42
I do that.

You want me to help you?

Well, it’s kind of really hard to ask for something when you insult the owner of the business and you’re you’re smiling, Katie, but you you would be shocked maybe at how many people approach me this way saying, well, you know, your engagement isn’t very good or your videos are pretty kind of cookie cutter and I can help you with that.

25:01
I’m like no delete block, yeah report as spam.

I get those as well on Instagram.

Hey, you’re not as consistent as you should be.

I’m like, what do you mean?

I think I’m feeling.

Yeah, you know, it’s like it’s like you’re not paying attention and you’re insulting.

25:18
It’s like that’s not who I want to work with and I don’t know where that works.

Yeah.

And on top of that, they don’t even follow me.

There you go.

So, you know, they’re literally just playing a numbers game and you’re just a sales target for them and they don’t really care about you at all.

So I just delete those people pretty quickly, yeah.

25:36
Yeah, so for introverts, I know that some of the strategies would be social media, blogging, maybe LinkedIn, Instagram.

What would you say that the best like marketing strategy these days for introverts would be them?

Before we continue with this podcast episode, I just want to quickly remind you that if you’re a design business owner whose dream is to have a successful and profitable career so you can enjoy the freedom and flexibility that comes with it, then I have something for you.

26:09
The Profitable Designer program is my signature 12 week system that will help you improve your business, sign amazing high paying clients and truly achieve your financial and lifestyle goals.

Visit eventiveacademy.com/profit to check if you can join us now or if we are currently not accepting more designers into the program.

26:31
In that case you will be able to join the wait list and be the first to know when we open the doors again.

Now we’ll go back to the episode in a second, but I just want to add that designers who completed the program were able to sign 5 figure design clients 10 times their pricing reach, 6 figures and beyond make $20,000 per month while working only a few hours a week and more.

26:57
Here is what Julia.

Said it really has everything you could ever ask for to build a six figure business that will allow you to have financial freedom and that’s why I personally did it like I wanted that flexibility.

So if you want to be my next success story and achieve results like these, visit aventiveacademy.com/profit.

27:19
Now let’s go back to the episodes.

OK, it’s pretty straightforward formula and there’s a couple things you have to have.

One, you have to identify who who are you going to help, and you have to be very clear.

If you can’t visualize a person or type of person in your mind, then it means you’ve cast too wide of a net in terms of who you’re looking for.

27:39
Who do you want to serve?

Be as narrow as possible, Be as specific as possible.

Ideally, who you want to serve is hungry for a solution for a problem that you actually solve.

So those are the core components.

Next is you have to have an offer in terms of something that can be clearly communicated.

27:58
It has a value proposition.

It’s unique in its offer.

It has tremendous amounts of value with very low risk and and it’s an easy thing for them to say yes to.

It’s called like writing an irresistible offer or or Mosey says an offer so good they’d feel stupid for not saying yes.

28:14
So you have the right components.

Now the next thing you want to do is to create some kind of lead magnet and it can be a sample of what you do.

It could be a tool or resource that demonstrates what you do or it can be a trial.

Like I will give you a step one through one and two of a ten step process.

28:36
And if you like this you might want to go down the rabbit hole with me.

So now that you have that clear, I would then go on a social media platform, let’s just use LinkedIn for example.

And what you want to do is talk about this idea or insight that you have and say if you’re interested in getting a trial or a tool or resource or something like that, comment below some phrase like free tool, right.

29:02
And then that way only the people who say, hey, please contact me by by commenting, will you then get in touch with it’s not spam anymore because they’ve invited you to send them the resource, Send them the resource.

If it’s a good resource, they try it.

They’re going to become very curious about going to next step.

29:20
There should be a clear call to action at that point.

If you enjoyed steps one through two, let me know.

If you’re interested in enrolling in a program or something where I do steps eight through 10 or, I’m sorry, three through 10, and if they are, that’s the smoothest way I know how how to do that.

29:37
Yeah, so I heard you already two times mentioning like going really narrow, having a niche.

So does that mean that every designer should be specialized in something to be like that, narrow?

Or can they still be a designer for business owners?

29:54
Not every designer has to do this thing.

I don’t.

I don’t believe in absolutes like, oh you’re if you don’t do this, you’re going to fail.

Some people can be successful being journalists, but I think the vast majority of people who are looking for work suffer from the problem of not being specific enough.

30:12
I had Ayman Al Abdullah on our podcast.

He was the former CEO of AP Sumo, and he said something like not knowing who your target audience is is akin to writing a love letter and starting off with to whom it may concern.

30:31
It sounds very broad.

It sounds super generic.

It sounds like you don’t really care If you’ve ever had a challenge of writing content or creating a resource for someone, it’s most likely because you don’t know who that person is.

You don’t know what what they what their struggles are, what their fears and hopes, dreams, desires and challenges are.

30:50
So you don’t have the right to that.

But if you, say, write a letter to your mom, you know how to write that.

Write a letter to your cousin, or to your spouse, or to someone that you truly admire.

Very easy for you to write.

And if I say write a letter to people, write a letter to business owners.

It’s too broad.

That’s the problem.

Yeah, definitely.

And I can totally relate to that because in the past I was a graphic and web designer for everyone and anyone who would hire me.

And then every time and I didn’t have a client, I didn’t know where to start from.

31:24
I would write a ton of Instagram posts.

No results, blog posts going to networking events.

Nothing would happen until I found specialization, until I decided to focus on the type of client that I truly wanted to work with.

So it wasn’t just a marketing strategy, like, oh, I really want to get, you know, lawyers to work with me because they have the money and because I will know how to market to them.

31:46
But I just found something that I would truly do, even for myself.

And then from there, everything basically took off.

So we talked about like getting more clients, but how can we start getting better clients?

I know that pricing is a challenge for many designers and there are many exceptional designers who are still charging way less than they should and they simply don’t know how to find those like better clients.

32:13
So how can designers determine like where the better clients like hang out?

How can they find them?

So when we ask questions like that, your audience needs to sit down and define what better means to them.

And higher paying is relative to the person asking too.

32:29
If you get paid $100, $400 sounds like a lot, but for me that sounds like a terrible amount of money.

But we it’s all relative to the person.

OK, so make this contextually relevant to your audience, dear audience.

OK, so if you want higher paying clients who who who allow you to drive well, there’s a couple interesting things.

32:48
And so if we step back and say, well, who are the best types of customers and and why does this make sense?

OK, so when when you go to a a bazaar, a swap meet, a flea market where there’s an open air market and they’re selling goods, there’s this implied thing where you must negotiate and it can be ruthless.

33:10
I’ve witnessed these things.

I’ve been on both sides of it where somebody’s trying to sell something like no, and they give you a super lowball offer and they they haggle over it for a long time.

Neither party feels good about the transaction and they walk away kind of having worn each other down for about 30 minutes and they get the goods and they walk away.

33:28
There’s no relationship, there’s no bond.

It’s very transactional and it actually feels really gross to me.

That’s one type of transaction.

And then you go into a premium or luxury space and you go in, there’s no haggling on the price.

33:45
I hear people asking this question.

It’s kind of funny.

I’ve been shopping at Louis Vuitton.

I I hear a customer asking the clerk, is there any room on this?

Do you guys ever go on sale?

And they politely smile.

It’s like, no, we actually never offer sales.

34:00
And they’re like, oh, OK, that ends the conversation.

And then the customer has to make a decision.

Do they want this thing from them?

And you know what’s really interesting to me as I’m kind of exploring luxury goods is the way they treat their customers is very different than the open air mark and everything in between.

34:19
Often times you have to wait in line.

There’s a queue outside.

And the reason why they do this is because they want to make sure the ratio between sales clerks and customers is right.

They don’t want a sales clerk trying to serve 10 people and that’s important to them because they want to maintain a level of service.

34:35
And when you walk in, first of all, they, they kind of weed out all the kinds of people who are not that interested.

They’re like, I’m not going to wait 10 minutes for it.

This is stupid.

They leave so they only get people who really want to get inside, who are willing to wait, who are willing to sign their name and their e-mail address just to be able to give the business money.

34:55
It’s wild.

It’s a wild concept, right?

And you get in there.

Can we get you some water or do you want some champagne?

Like, damn, I haven’t bought anything yet and you’re offering me this kind of service.

And then when you pick things out, they’re very patient.

They are also trained to make certain recommendations based on what they think your preferences and styles are, and they show you a bunch of things there’s never an obligation to buy.

35:19
They don’t even care or they act like they don’t care.

And they give you their business card and say if you need anything, if you’re travelling through here and there, please get in touch with me.

And then you actually decide I want to buy something.

They’ll go, OK, let me go and take care of this.

35:42
And they disappear for for like 5 minutes because they’re pulling out a new one, wrapping it up for you in three layers of packaging.

And they come back out and it’s all like white glove experience.

And they hand it to you and I thank you so much.

It was a pleasure doing work with you today.

And then you leave and it’s a whole experience for you.

And you walk out with this ginormous bag.

You might have bought a belt, but you’re going to walk out with a really big bag.

And there’s a reason why because there’s status that you’re buying there.

36:02
Then when you walk out with a big trademark Louis Vuitton bag, throughout the mall or throughout the streets, everybody’s like, damn, you know, Katie’s successful.

I wonder what she bought.

That girl’s got things going on.

She got taste and she got money.

She must be successful.

She Is she a celebrity?

36:18
I wonder, have I seen her movie or did she sing a song?

And then you carrying the bag like you, you’re walking a little lighter today, you’re feeling a little bit more special and your skin’s glowing a little bit more, all because of this experience they’ve created.

Now our audience is sitting there thinking, Chris, you’re just sitting there talking about luxury brands.

What does this got to do with me?

OK, you have to ask yourself, are you like a Costco, a Target, a Macy’s, a Nordstrom’s, a Neiman Marcus?

Or are you a Louis Vuitton?

And you have to kind of figure out who you are in that marketplace and how you want to position yourself so that you attract better clients.

37:00
OK, Now it seems absurd for many people don’t do luxury good shopping.

It seems absurd that you would wait in line to give people money.

It seems counter intuitive.

But I tell you right now, you wait in line all the time.

You wait in line to go to the movie premiere.

You wait in line to get into the restaurant that you want.

37:16
And the better the restaurant, the longer the line you’re willing to wait in such that they’re like, well, we don’t have any reservations.

Open for three months, they’re like, Oh my God.

So going to eat there is a privilege for you.

It’s an occasion.

So let’s let’s peel away some of the layers because I’m assuming most people would rather be the Louis Vuitton of the design space and then to be the open market haggling for prices or the Costco version where it’s a pure volume play.

37:44
OK, now what do you have to do?

Well, there’s a couple of things.

One is you need to make sure you actually do something really good that’s different than most people because if it’s all the same, then your commodity and people don’t really care.

And it starts with customer service.

38:02
So do you have a system and a process in place where you onboard clients in the most elegant, easy way possible, the most professional way?

And then do you communicate to the outside world that there’s finite capacity of what you can do?

38:20
I can only take on three clients a month and I have to be very careful.

I can only service 10 clients a year and opening is coming up or you better get in the queue.

So what you want to do is you want to create greater demand than your ability to serve those clients and you want to communicate that externally as much as possible.

38:40
So now there’s this anticipation and desire to work with you.

The next thing that you need to do is you need to be able to talk about the kinds of clients you’ve worked with in the past.

Because what we do is we export a lot of our decision making, our research to other people.

38:56

So if I’ve worked with Nike, which I have Microsoft, Sony, PlayStation, then you as a customer are like, well, my God, he’s worked with the biggest brands and companies in the world.

If he’s good enough to work with them, well, who are we?

So there’s this herd group mentality.

39:13

So if you can display prominently on your website and talk about how you’ve helped these other bigger brands, then all the other companies will say, well, it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for us.

This is what Louis Vuitton does.

Louis Vuitton makes sure the right kinds of people are holding their bags, wearing their glasses, such that they create this aspirational quality to it.

39:37

We aspire to be like these movie stars or the rich and famous.

And so we think by buying this one item, we have that one thing in common.

So it’s just that kind of social proof that you need to have.

OK now, now once they get to your website, it needs to look premium.

39:56

Not only does it work good, but the way you present it is like top notch, like chef’s kiss.

The photography is great, the presentation, the copywriting’s in Macca.

There’s no typos.

As far as they know, English has always been your language and you’re a master at writing and presenting things.

40:13

So this is akin to the window display, the merchandising, all that kind of stuff creates this feeling that this is worth more.

So you’re creating the perceived.

Like perception of intrinsic value, it’s like wow, this is really, really good.

And you’re also going to be self.

40:31

You’re going to allow people to self select.

This work is so good, it’s probably expensive if you only have two openings.

I need to get in that queue and it is so good that this is where we need to be as a company, as a brand.

And so you’re elevating the taste level.

40:48

So only the clients who can see and appreciate this, the ones who are going to be like, we need to trust this vendor to take us from A to B because what they’ve done for XY and Z brands and companies is what we want done.

So now they’re pretty much willing to pay you more money to allow you to drive and accept what you do.

41:08

That’s how you do it.

Yes, it’s all about building that brand for yourself so that you stand out when it comes to providing like better service and people choosing you over others.

And I know that you talk a lot about building a personal brand.

41:23

And I also know that this episode is now I’m going in like a lot of different directions.

But is it really like that important for a designer to build a personal brand if they want to build a design studio or they can just go behind their business’s name?

41:40

I mean, I’ve seen both, you know, designers that go by their name and it’s all about their designs, their faces.

On Instagram Stories, they show what kind of coffee they drink in the morning and all of that.

But then also there are many companies who are successful that we almost never see their founder.

41:57

So what do you say?

What it What would be maybe the right approach for creative business owner if there is one?

Let’s take it very simply, like you’re an illustrator.

If you’re an illustrator and you do work on Commission, you’re going to work at a certain level.

But if you’re an artist who happens to illustrate the demand and the perception of the value that you create is much, much higher.

42:18

So now they’re not just looking to get an illustration made, they’re looking for an illustration made by Katie or made by Chris because that brings more value.

So there’s a couple artists out there like say, Banksy to say, like, oh, Banksy did our campaign, which he doesn’t do, or Andy Warhol design our shopping bags.

42:36

You’re like, Oh my God, people don’t even care if it’s any good.

The fact that Andy Warhol did it brings value to it.

So this is not so much about personal brand, It’s about being a person that has positioned themselves.

That’s when they do something, their name creates value for the thing.

42:57

There are people in the design space who have achieved that level of notoriety, at least more so in the past.

Maybe maybe some today, but like if you got Paul Rand or Saul Bass or Massimo Vignelli to design your thing, it’s kind of like within the corporate circles they can brag like we got Paul Rand to do this.

43:16

You know, Steve Jobs hired Paul Rand to design the next logo.

Anyways, because Steve Jobs is such like a patron for like high quality design work.

He just knew.

It’s like Paul Rand, that’s the guy you go to and he he does what he wants and you just say yes and that’s all you can do, right?

43:32

So that is the person transcending the category and they make this very important yet subtle distinction.

They go from becoming a designer to the designer a suggest any the means one and only.

43:49

And if you can achieve that, that would be great.

How you achieve that is through thought leadership, through the writing, through judging shows, through lecturing and being professors and achieving whatever accolades that you can as a professional such that people are like, wow.

44:08

I saw a post earlier today from one of my friends who was the author and he quoted A testimony from from Brian Collins, from Brian Collins to say like the Brian Collins said this about my book and he never says anything about books in this category.

44:28

And that is a big deal because Brian has elevated himself to a point in which just his name brings amount of prestige to it and that’s pretty cool.

So I I don’t think anybody here was like, I don’t want that.

I don’t want that kind of level of prestige to my name.

Well, how you do that is you got to do the things I mentioned.

44:46

Now when it comes to companies who are very successful just presenting their work, that’s fantastic.

It’s because their work is really, really good and people are buying on the perceived quality and aesthetics, but they could easily elevate that to the next level.

But we’ll talk about that in a second.

45:01

And then you said there are kinds of accounts where they’re probably smaller business, a smaller practice where they’re sharing.

I’m having a coffee, I’m playing with my daughter today.

I always question that because that stuff doesn’t excite me at all.

45:19

I really don’t care if you have coffee and and in fact I will unfollow you because you’re sharing things about your kids or your dogs.

Unless you happen to be a designer who works with dogs and it’s part of your story.

OK, because you want to tell something about your life doesn’t mean that you should because there’s lots of things that I do that I don’t think are relevant to what I’m trying to do, how I want to position myself that is probably not of interest to anybody.

45:47

But if I talk about the creative process of how we came up with a solution or how I was inspired by a walk in the woods and came up with this logo and I can make that story relate, I think that’s very relevant.

So that’s bringing in a little bit about your creative process, your world, your hobbies and your interests, such that we can see the intersection between those two things.

46:09

Like when I want to work with outdoor brands and I don’t share anything about me being an outdoors person, outdoorsy kind of person, then people with eyebrows will go up, right?

But if they see me shredding on the Alps and and constant bombing and and fresh powder, they’re going to say, wow, when this person reaches out, we need to work with this person because this person gets this culture.

46:31

I think it was Simon Sinek who said something like this.

He says we don’t buy what you do.

We buy why you do it.

We trust people who do things like the way we do them like that, that share the same beliefs and values.

And and he has an example where he’s like if you had a choice to pick a babysitter for your kids, which is our most important thing, right?

46:53

It’s like the most important thing to us are children.

Would you hire Katie, who’s a 16 year old girl who you’ve known all her life in the neighborhood or would you hire a professional nanny from from the UK?

Most people would pick the neighborhood girl, not the professional nanny.

47:11

And it’s against our logic.

It’s an emotional decision that we’re making because we’ve known Katie’s parents.

She goes to church with us.

We’ve seen her in school, we’ve seen her in the supermarket.

We know her.

We can trust her because we believe what she believes and she believes what we believe.

47:28

Professional nanny.

We know nothing about her except for she’s highly trained, great credentials, and is probably 100 times better babysitter than Katie, the 16 year old who’s probably chatting with her friends on TikTok or with her boyfriend and neglecting little Timmy.

But we pick Katie the neighborhood girl, ’cause we know her.

47:47

So what you want to do on a marketing, brand building level is to make sure people know what your values are as they relate to your service or what it is that you do.

This is really important.

So when we have a choice, and we do have a choice, we choose products and services from companies that we feel most aligned with.

48:07

There’s Onalopy, who said something like this.

Every dollar that you spend is a vote for the kind of world you want to live in.

So if there are two bakeries, one is a mass international chain, mass market international chain versus the the the mom and pop business that I’ve known all my life, who would I give my money to?

48:31

Some people say, you know what I want that precision, I want that consistency and I want that international global brand.

They vote that way.

That company is Starbucks.

Or if they want the mom and pop who sources their beans from this local farm or whatever, who makes sure that Bob and Jacob are paid, ’cause they’re they’re they’re paying for college by working at the at the coffee shop.

48:54 And I know them.

It’s not always great, but I love being a becoming.

They know me by my name.

It’s not a giant factory.

I’m not a number in a line.

Well, I’ll vote that way.

And I’m not saying one decision is wrong and one decision is right.

You can vote either way, but we are making those decisions all the time as to how we spend our money and the kinds of businesses we want to support.

49:16 So you want to make it easier for people to understand that part of your story.

So it’s not just about the coffee, it’s not just about the logo.

There’s something more.

Yeah.

And I don’t want to interrupt, but for example of it, there are brands who are highly successful because they are sharing their morning routines.

49:34 They’re sharing their kids.

Like we can use Jana Kutcher for example, but her target audience is different.

So just want to add that for everyone who’s listening to this, that you know, there are different people that share different things and can relate to their target audience on a different level.

49:50 But as designers, you know, sharing kids and sharing coffees is not so valuable and useful for the right target audience.

Yeah.

Is Jenna Kutcher the host of the Gold Digger Podcast?

50:07 Yeah.

So Jenna’s stories really wrapped in that.

She’s a mom, a working mom, and she’s a business professional, so sharing things about that for our audience means a lot to them.

So when you’re trying to help other women, other moms grow their business, it they need to know you’re a mom too, and that you have things that they can relate to and and they can jump in on that story.

50:30 So that’s why it matters to her.

But if she were talking about washing cars, for example, or something that has nothing to do with this, people are like, what?

Why?

Why?

Why are you?

Why are you sharing that?

It feels a little off.

So you do need to be more, more editorial and curate what you’re telling.

50:48

So the way we look at it too is like when I go to the store, the bookstore, and I pick about magazine.

There’s like home interiors, there’s Entrepreneur magazine, there’s tech magazines and each one gives me more of what I want.

51:04

I find it strange if they start to crossover where my tech magazines give me like healthcare secrets and it’s like, unless it’s tech related, I was like, what is this doing in here?

It’s a mismatch with content and audience.

So what you want to do is you want to give your audience more of what they came for and not to start to distract them with other things.

51:23

The, the the classic example of this is when you see something in your feed and you’re like, whoa, that’s really cool.

It’s like woodworking videos, right?

And they’re just sitting there ASMR just working on a like a like a piece of furniture for like 30 minutes and you’re like, wow, this is so satisfying for me.

51:41

Then I go on their thing and they’re like one minute’s coffee and then it’s a dog.

And then it’s make up secrets, like I’m not following this account.

That’s the same thing that’s happening when potential customers are looking at your body of work and your feed.

Are you consistently showing up and not consistently like posting every day at a certain time?

52:02

Yeah.

So can you just talk a little bit about content now that we already touched on that, Tell us like, what do you think, how much time and how often should someone be on?

Like, how often should designers be on social media and posting and creating content?

52:19

And tell us also like, how much time do you spend creating content?

Because I’ve seen you like you’ve been all around, and how can you even be so much on all the social media?

OK.

If we look at a healthy company and there’s some data that backs us up through studies, right, where the most successful companies that are listed on NASDAQ or Wall Street are the ones who spend the most amount of money for research and development, makes a lot of sense.

52:47

The most innovative companies, the most valuable companies tend to spend a lot relative to their revenue.

So they might spend 20%.

Some companies will spend 30% of their operating budget on R&D, research and development.

The some of the companies are very successful because they send a large portion of their revenue on marketing.

53:08

So at a minimum we’re looking at 10% on marketing.

At a minimum, if you happen to make a commodity like a credit card or water or some something where there’s hardly any difference between the products, you have to spend more on marketing to create that differentiation point in the marketplace in the mind of the consumer.

53:29

So now we look at design practices where like how much are you spending on marketing?

Now you’re saying, well, I spend no money on marketing.

It doesn’t have to be 10% of your budget, but it needs to be at least 10% of your effort, 10% of your energy and your resources.

53:45

And so we can easily say so one day and every 10 days that you work should be spent doing marketing.

So I’m going to give everybody a moment here to audit their own schedule.

Are you spending at least this is the minimum is 10% of your time and resources against this towards building your brand and marketing And the chances are probably no.

54:07

And it has to be not just a random post or random article that you write.

It has to be an intentional effort.

It’s the same as saying, well, I did some sketches today, that’s not the same as working on a logo.

You know, I drew some boxes.

That’s not the same as I mapped at the UX for one of my clients.

54:24

It’s intentional effort with a specific strategy.

And so it’s just 10%.

And if you don’t do that, what will happen ultimately is you’ll run out of leads and you’ll run out of them really quickly.

And so the pattern that most creatives get trapped in is they get work and they’re super excited.

54:43

They bid on the work and they get the project and they do the project and they forget about the marketing aspect.

They actually don’t even do great customer service.

They just do the work and then they deliver the project and they’re like, OK, I have no.

Money.

And then they wait and then they go back to doing the marketing again, right?

54:59

And so there’s going to be these massive peaks and valleys.

The peak is when they do the work and then they see troughs into the valley.

And sometimes the valleys can be deadly because as much as I can say this, marketing and branding, you can’t 100% predict when the next peak is coming.

55:15

You’ll see blips in the radar or on the timeline, But you can’t just say, well, if I do this, I’ll get 10 new clients.

I mean in some industries you can do that, but most creative industries, it’s very hard to say because I I made a post, I got 10 new clients, doesn’t really work like that.

So what you have to do is you have to maintain a consistent energy in terms of you creating content, doing marketing and branding.

55:38

There’s a term, I, I don’t know if anybody’s used it before, but I call it value marketing, where the kind of content that you’re creating is a marketing thing wrapped in tons and tons of value for the audience, right.

And some people get the ratio wrong.

It’s like all marketing, very little value.

55:55

That’s just marketing.

OK.

So when we think about that, Ark, all right, well, now you have a gauge, 10% is the minimum.

And then your question is, Chris, how much do you spend in marketing or building your brand, ’cause you’re seeing me everywhere, quote UN quote, like Omni channel, Omni media, that kind of thing, omnipresent.

56:13

And it’s because most of my waking time is spent on thought leadership, writing, lecturing, recording or doing lives or podcasts or media.

Because I know that for our company to grow, for the perception of the value in the differentiation point of who we are, this has to be done.

56:31

So I would say 80% of my time on any given day could be 100% or it could be as little as 50, but it’s going to be a significant amount of my time building that brand.

Now here’s the thing, when will this ever pay off?

Because you’re like well and and there’s a friend of mine who’s who likes to say like followers don’t equal dollars, followers don’t equal dollars.

56:53

And I said no, they do.

You’re mistaken.

They don’t equal dollars today.

Dollars today, right.

But when I I’m launching a product, guess where all that goodwill is going?

It’s going towards a product.

So when I say, hey, I got a new book coming out, I can pre sell it for $70,000 and via a Kickstarter campaign I have a new workshop I’m doing up in Vancouver, which is literally what’s happening. 60 or 70 people will show up.

57:23

That’s where you get to capture the return on the value marketing that you’ve created.

And if you really look at the long arc of it, at some point you’ll see me launch something or be associated with something that people like.

We want to support.

Chris, we love this thing.

57:39

We love the future.

We’ll buy this thing sight unseen.

If we have a choice to drink this water versus that water, we’ll buy your brand of water and then that’s a multi $100 billion, billion dollar play and that’s the long game that.

We’ll play, definitely.

And so specifically now for design business owners, is there a platform that works better over the others or that you would recommend over the others or you think that they should focus on the platform where their target audience is the most?

58:08

I would stay with the target audience, but oftentimes people don’t know where their target audience is spending.

So they’ll say, “I’m comfortable here this must be where my target audience is,” and it’s not true at all.

So I think there’s a lot of untapped potential on LinkedIn.

It’s a business audience, it’s professional.

58:23

You can do write long-form posts.

Their click-through rate is much stronger, their engagement is much stronger and the algorithm is very generous today.

So for every person that interacts with the content, it’s served up two more times.

So if you’re good at creating content that engages with people, you’re going to get really good organic reach.

58:41

It’s all free.

I just want to add that on April 10th I’m hosting a master class called Getting Design Clients on LinkedIn for brand graphic and web designers.

In this master class, you will learn the key to consistently landing amazing design clients through LinkedIn while using it only one to two hours a week.

59:04

Proven strategies for posting and commenting on LinkedIn to boost engagement as well as how to optimize your LinkedIn profile so high paying design clients can easily find and book you without even considering your competition.

I know you’re tired of posting on Instagram.

59:22

TikTok, Pinterest, hoping you’ll start seeing more leads.

Well, that can happen.

Using LinkedIn is way more predictable and building real relationships is where it’s at.

So join me on April 10th.

59:38

You need to register to be able to attend and you can do that by going to aventiveacademy.com/getting-Dash-Design-Dash-clients-Dash-on-Dash-LinkedIn.

I know it sounds complicated, but it’s basically getting design clients on LinkedIn and you can find the URL in the show notes of this episode so it’s right below.

1:00:00

LinkedIn is something I leveraged in my branding and design agency, and my first $10k client came through LinkedIn.

So if you’re still chasing high paying design clients, I promise they are there.

I know it’s not as visually appealing platform as Instagram and Pinterest, but all the business owners are already in that business mindset when logging in, so it’s very easy to start that conversation about your design services again April 10th and I hope to see you there.

1:00:31

Link is down below.

The other platform I think people are sleeping on and not paying attention to because it’s one of the more established ones is YouTube.

YouTube is strong with search.

It’s got a great shelf life.

1:00:47

It will live much longer.

We have people who are watching our content from 7-8 years ago still coming on it today because that’s what they’re looking for right now most and and and YouTube is not a social media platform per SE.

It’s a video search-driven platform, whereas all the other social platforms, easy to share, easy to get that initial spike.

1:01:10

But then the shelf life is very short.

People don’t see it kind of disappears.

They’re not really used to interacting with it in any kind of meaningful way.

TikTok is the epitome of this, where people are used to interacting with you for 30 seconds at a time and that’s kind of the extent of the relationship you have, not super strong.

1:01:29

So when there’s a call to action on TikTok, not a lot of people show up because engagement is just 30 seconds long.

It’s not a deep relationship, whereas with podcast and with YouTube videos, you have somebody in there for 10/15/20 minutes, maybe an hour long.

That’s a wonderful opportunity to have a relationship or conversation.

1:01:46

Well, thank you so much.

I have just one more question, like final question, like what resources, books, or courses do you recommend for designers who want to improve their business?

Feel free to include your website and the courses that you guys offer.

OK, let’s go with books.

1:02:05

I love books, and books are probably, pound for pound, the greatest investment you can make in the highest ROI.

So if you’re relatively new and you’re still trying to figure out this whole business thing, a great book on positioning is The Win Without Pitching Manifesto, written by Blair Ends.

1:02:22

I highly recommend The Win Without Pitching Manifesto.

It’s the go-to and most people read it.

I’m very happy with that.

A book on sales is Socratic Selling by Kevin Daley.

It’s an excellent book and the more contemporary version of that book because it just came out maybe like last year.

1:02:39

It’s called Sell How You Buy and it encapsulates lots of different concepts from many books and it brings it together.

It’s well-researched, well-written.

I think you’ll enjoy that book if you need help with selling, if you want help with marketing, there are probably two or three books I would recommend.

1:02:55

They’re all written by Seth Godin.

This is marketing, permission marketing, and All Marketers Are Liars are a pretty good place.

That’s a triple combination there from Seth Godin.

In terms of resources outside of books, I would say that you can consume a lot of our free content, our YouTube videos where I’m doing whiteboard sessions, long-format interviews.

1:03:17

It’s on our YouTube channel called The Future and the future is spelled with an E So it’s FUTUR no E Somebody asked me where the E go.

I said we dropped the ego.

That’s why there’s no E So it’s thefuture.com.

We have a coaching community.

If you are a lonely entrepreneur and you don’t know who to turn to, how to get advice and you can’t afford one-on-one business coaching, I strongly encourage you to look into some of our programs or coaching programs.

1:03:42

It’s group coaching.

Just keep that in mind.

The pro group and also the Accelerator group designed for two very different people in terms of their business journey.

If you’re still struggling to make your first $100,000, the accelerator is a great place for you to be.

If you’re in that mid, you know mid $50,000 to $100,000 to $150,000 and beyond.

1:04:01

The Pro group can help you there.

And then finally, if you’re looking to grow your personal brand and you have resources and you have the financial runway to do so, the small mastermind that everyone is called the brand Lab and I hope I see you.

1:04:17

And I’m going to include the links in the show notes here below.

Well, thank you so much, Chris, for being here.

And I’m so happy that I got a chance to collaborate with you again and hopefully we’ll do something together soon.

Again, it was really a pleasure talking to you.

Thank you.

1:04:33

Thanks for tuning in to the Profitable Graphic Designer Podcast, but wait before you go, if you enjoyed this podcast episode and want the chance to access one of our online courses for free, simply leave us a review on Apple Podcast Each month.

1:04:49

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1:05:14

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1:05:34

Until next time, be sure to connect with us on Instagram at at Aventive Academy where we share valuable business tips, stories and resources for brand graphic and web design business owners.

Bye for now, your host, Kady Sandel.