Crushing Competitors With a Niche Design Agency With Massimo Zefferino
Have you ever wondered how to turn your design freelancing into a thriving, successful agency? Today, I sat down with Massimo, the founder and creative director of a niche design agency that achieved a remarkable 7-figure acquisition. His journey from solo designer to agency owner is full of insights, challenges, and triumphs. You’ll hear firsthand how focusing on a niche can help you crush competitors and get way more clients and of course – grow your business. This episode is packed with practical advice, strategies, and inspiration for anyone looking to scale their design business.
Listen to the episode here:
You will learn:
- The key steps to transition from freelancing to running a successful design agency
- How to identify and embrace a profitable niche for your business
- Effective techniques to attract bigger and better clients
- Ways to overcome the biggest challenges during the transition from solo designer to agency owner
- Valuable lessons and advice for design business owners aspiring to achieve greater success
About Massimo Zefferino:
Founder & Creative director of zfactor – a niche full service creative agency with a 7 figure acquisition. Host of Angry Designer Podcast
Aventive Academy’s Resources:
Free Client Portal for Designers: https://aventiveacademy.com/client-portal/
$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/profit
The Creative CEO Accelerator: https://aventiveacademy.com/accelerator
TRANSCRIPT:
0:00
We dumped all those customers and we, you know, we came out of the graphic design closet and said, hey, we are specialists in B2B technology companies.
That’s how we marketed ourselves.
And it was the best thing that we could have done because then in a short amount of time with the industry knowledge we had, the connections we had, just the customers were flocking to us.
0:23
So we really do very little, knock on wood.
We do and did very little advertising, marketing.
We’re very fortunate.
We would do networking events to introduce ourselves.
We would do talks on what we knew, but we didn’t have to hunt for those customers because by being that specialist, they were seeking us out.
0:44
And that was such a great.
So unfortunately, sometimes I don’t have much to say when people are like, well, how did you find your customers?
I’m like, you know what, we niched because then this way it’s like we never had to worry about having any competitors in that space.
And I think that was the benefit of all this.
1:16
Welcome to The Profitable Graphic Designer Podcast brought to you by Aventive Academy.
I’m your host, Kady Sandel.
I’m a brand strategist, designer, creative director, and the CEO of a successful six-figure design agency based in Austin, TX, serving clients worldwide.
1:34
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 design business owners how to attract more clients, increase their pricing, and develop design businesses that provide the financial freedom and time flexibility you’ve always dreamt of.
1:55
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.
2:17
Hello and welcome to The Profitable Graphic Designer Podcast.
Today we have a founder and creative director of Zed Factor, a niche full-service creative agency with a seven-figure acquisition.
He’s also host of Angry Designer Podcast and.
2:34
Actually, I would like to ask Massimo to introduce himself.
Welcome.
Oh, thank you, Kady.
I’m Massimo Zefferino, agency founder, creative just like you said, you did a good job.
I don’t even have to say anything, of course.
But yeah, it’s funny because now I’m at a point in my life, I’ve been an agency founder for so long, creative director, you know, rocking this ship.
2:57
And now we got the podcast and they’re both equally time-consuming, I’m sure, you know, except you still have a little, you have a little one in the mix now where at least mine are older.
So yeah, I’m a little divided, but I think my career is now both acting as an active creative director of Zed Factor.
3:15
And then that podcast, that’s another big thing, but we’ll get into that later.
Yeah, I love that.
Well, can you give us a little bit of your background then, like your location, school, freelancing, design, like how it all started?
So that’s a long story.
3:31
So we are located in Waterloo and we’re about 60 miles out from Toronto.
So everybody knows Toronto, that’s a major city.
And I did go to school initially in Toronto.
So I was one of those few cases where I knew what I wanted to do from a young age.
3:46
I think I was 12 years old when I knew I was going to be a graphic designer.
So everything I did from that point forward was taking me closer to this career, right?
I wanted to own an agency and I wanted to be a graphic designer.
So whatever jobs I took as a young guy, it was always to take me closer to being an agency owner, right?
4:06
So even when I needed money, I didn’t go work at a restaurant or a kitchen.
I instead worked in sales selling clothes or selling photography equipment so I could learn how to talk to people or I could learn how photography worked at that time, right?
Or even, you know, I got a job at a coffee shop, right?
4:23
And this was all before I even went to college.
So by the time I actually finished high school, I chose my high school because they had two graphic design courses in there, not one.
And then, you know, I had such amazing teachers in high school that they offered me a third year as an independent study.
4:43
So I was the only student in the class just working with the teacher.
We would talk, we would do it.
It was an amazing experience.
I left high school loving the industry, loving my teachers, you know, I already had freelance gigs.
OK, high school, but it was crazy because it’s like you would design a picture and somebody would give you $20.
5:02
And I was just like, wow, like this is so cool.
You can make money drawing logos, pictures, ads.
It was such a rush.
So by the time I left high school, I had a nice little portfolio and it was real work, not just high school work.
5:18
And I got accepted into Sheridan College, which was one of the bigger, more specialized, prominent graphic design colleges that offered a graphic design course.
And you’d think that that would go well, but it was a horrible experience.
And it was my first year.
And it wasn’t that I didn’t like the course.
The course itself was dated in the sense that here I left high school, I had already learned how to use a Mac because the future was clear.
5:52
Our industry was going online, it was going on a Macintosh.
So I put down my pencil at a young age, I started learning how a mouse worked.
And so when I went to my first year of college, everything was back to being manual, manually drawing, manually drawing fonts, like the typography.
Of course, I appreciate manually drawing fonts, but I will argue to the teeth that it was pointless to understand those spaces when we were already transferred over to a computer and they could teach us online, teach us how to get us more advanced.
6:19
So I struggled my first year to the point where it was challenging the teachers when it came to assignments.
That’s what we do as designers, we don’t accept the norm.
If we find a better solution, we try to pitch that solution.
So by the end of my first year of college, my profs told me that I would never make it in this industry with the way I was.
6:42
And that’s the worst thing to say to somebody who’s Italian, right?
I got the fire inside of me.
So I was like, yeah, I’ll show you, right.
So I bounced on that and I hated my experience in college was horrible.
And I’d already gotten some jobs as an in-house designer while I was in college, right, because I had to figure out how to pay for college on the way through.
7:06
And so all my education came from my first and second jobs, you know, and of course, a little Co-op that we did through the college.
But I was an in-house designer at not an agency, but at a sports equipment company, right?
So I was making everything from watches to wristbands to the packaging to trade show booths and so much in such a short amount of time because I just wanted to learn it all right.
7:29
And I knew that I was going to get that agency one day, right.
And that’s where my goal was always to own my own agency, not just be a designer.
And then I, when I did finally leave there, which was in the Toronto area, I went back to Waterloo and my parents said just come live here because you know, you want to own an agency, do it from your house where you don’t have to pay for rent or anything, which is nice, right ’cause it’s pretty common like.
7:52
From your garage, you know.
I had no shame.
I was moving in with my parents.
That’s what Italian guys do.
So I went back home and I did get a job at an agency locally just because I still needed to learn the agency side of everything.
8:10
So I worked at that agency for about a year and a half.
And then once I left that agency, I moved into my parents’ basement and started Zed Factor.
The funny thing is, I didn’t even have a company name when we started the company, right?
It was we just, we had work, right?
8:26
And there was already work knocking down my door, but I didn’t have a company name.
I wasn’t registered.
But you know when people say, oh, I need a logo to start a business, you don’t need a logo to start a business.
You need customers to start that business.
The logo is just building your brand, the beginning stages of that brand.
8:42
So needless to say, it took about a month before we came up with the company name, had customers.
We did things a little differently.
How could I put this? So when we did start Zed Factor or the company known as Zed Factor two weeks later, when I opened up the phone book back then, you know, our town was small.
9:01
We were probably only about 350,000 people.
Sorry for interrupting.
But what year was that?
Oh, like how long 98?
Yeah, so like 25 years ago, right.
So I opened up that phone book and there were
34 other agencies in town and I was like, how the heck am I ever going to stand out from being someone different from these other agencies, right?
9:26
So, you know, I being who I was and how I was raised, I was raised in a blue-collar environment.
My uncles were all tradesmen.
My father was an engineer in a factory or a cement guy in a factory.
But needless to say, this is the environment I grew up in, on how things were made.
9:42
So out of all these agencies, nobody cared about the B2B side, nobody cared about manufacturers and how things were made.
And they would turn away that business.
So I was like, you guys are nuts.
I mean, this was just like a beautiful field of corn waiting to be picked, right?
10:02
So within a short few years, we jumped in and focused only on the industrial sector, the jobs that nobody else wanted.
We had real customers.
We were doing ad buying placements, creating ads because magazines were still really the popular thing back then.
We were helping these companies create their brands, elevate their brands, because these were reputable companies.
These were companies that were well into the seven figures, some in the eight figures.
And nobody gave them attention, nobody gave them love.
So it was just a perfect opportunity for us to go in on that side, which was the best thing we ever did.
10:38
Because through that experience, we, at our own pace, without worrying about competition or anything at that time, started to build the reputation as the people to go to in this space.
And of course, that’s just carried on since.
We didn’t abandon the one hiccup we had, which was a benefit, of course.
In this process, we learned how engineers thought, we learned how things were made.
We learned how the business world worked.
What we never learned about was the recession and how that would affect the business side.
So that was a good slap in the face because nobody ever teaches you that stuff.
But what that did is that allowed us to pivot then and take on more localized work in the short term, learn about the web.
11:24
And then what we did is we embraced web technologies early on when a lot of our competitors wanted nothing to do with it.
They actually thought web was a fad and it was going to change.
They were like, oh no, it’s going to be gone in a couple of years, which is mind-blowing now to think about this, right?
So of course we were like, no, this is a perfect opportunity.
Let’s take what we learned offline and put it online, which sounds like a no-brainer to us now.
But back then people had no idea what the Internet was even used for.
So we were building web pages and selling those back to companies.
And then through this process, we met more technology companies, which then grew us into a different direction.
12:24
So instead of focusing on the industrial side, which we do still have some customers today, 25 years later that we started with, we were pivoting to learning the B2B technology side of this town because this town is the birthplace of BlackBerry, right?
And everybody knows BlackBerry started this whole crazy world that we know of this mobility world.
So we started learning that side of the business.
We started learning B2B technology companies.
And with BlackBerry as a giant customer of ours at that time, we learned about the business-to-business technology side, but we also learned about broadband technology, the Internet itself.
Nothing exciting, but that kept us down this direction where we just specialized in B2B technology companies and even more so, ones that had to do with connecting devices, right?
Which doesn’t sound very exciting.
But everything that we know from watches that we have now to our phones, to our security systems, everything is about connected devices.
And it was a great world for us.
And it just kind of took us in a new direction.
13:21
And the funny thing is, I was still at this point a generalist.
I still was of the mindset that you don’t want to specialize because you’re going to leave work on the table.
It was such an absurd way of thinking, but I understand now.
At that time it was like, no, I can’t turn away work.
And it actually wasn’t until about 2017 that we said, screw this.
We looked at our business, 80% of all of our business came from this market that we had, and that 20%, which was all the fun stuff that people might think, the sexier stuff, but it was so time-consuming and the experience was never good in those spaces.
14:11
So we dumped all those customers and we came out of the graphic design closet and said, hey, we are specialists in B2B technology companies.
That’s who we want.
That’s how we marketed ourselves and it was the best thing that we could have done because then in a short amount of time with the industry knowledge we had, the connections we had, just the customers were flocking to us.
14:37
So we really do very little, knock on wood, we do and did very little advertising, marketing.
We’re very fortunate.
We would do networking events to introduce ourselves.
We would do talks on what we knew, but we didn’t have to hunt for those customers because by being that specialist, they were seeking us out.
14:58
And that was such a great.
So unfortunately, sometimes I don’t have much to say when people are like, why did you find your customers?
I’m like, you know what, we niched because then this way, it’s like we never had to worry about having any competitors in that space.
And I think that was the benefit of all this.
So with that being said, once you become niche, you learn how the inner workings of companies work and how everything kind of unrolls and how business is done.
15:23
And through this, it was just, we ended up becoming acquired two years ago and that was the best thing we could have done.
I mean, we still grew our agency, we still had a multi-million dollar agency and we had a ton of work and it was a really cool vibe.
But then that kind of piqued somebody else’s interest.
15:41
And so now we are still operating as Z Factor, we’re still Zed Factor, we’re still operating as our own agency, which is fantastic.
But we’re also the in-house creative agency for Connexon, which is an Internet service provider who brings Internet to areas of North America that don’t have Internet, if you can believe that.
16:02
So we’re helping.
So there’s actually like 20 million people in North America that don’t have the Internet, which is just mind-blowing.
So their mission was honorable.
It was a good thing.
It was like, yeah, we already know this space.
Let’s help this giant company continue on with their mission and still take care of our business as we have.
16:22
So it was the coolest experience so far.
So that brings us to today.
And that’s where I am.
Yeah, and now I have a lot of questions.
You thought it was going to be an easy road, didn’t you?
Right.
Well, but also it’s amazing because I always am really well prepared for my podcasts when I’m interviewing someone.
16:43
And sometimes I don’t even look into the document and sometimes I am going through the document depending on who I talk to.
You know, some people are maybe not as talkative and whatnot.
And so I have to go through the questions.
But now I am just scrolling and I’m like, so you’re answering this question, you’re answering this question.
16:59
It just flows perfectly.
Now we get to go into detail with it all right.
This is amazing because and I also wanted to mention I was also 12 or 13 when I figured out that I want to be a graphic designer.
I just didn’t know that that’s called graphic design.
17:17
And so I said to my mom, I want to make a billboard and she was like, you want to be a construction worker?
Like what do you mean?
You know what?
Me too for billboards.
I was fascinated with billboards back then, right?
Exactly because it’s not like we were seeing a bunch of logos online and social media didn’t exist and all of that.
17:37
So what you see is like posters, billboards, right?
Exactly.
So true, right?
Yeah.
And I also.
Would go like high.
School and all of that.
Yeah, exactly.
But I really liked that.
And so the only way I was able to explain to my mom what I want to do is like, so I want to make that.
17:55
Like, how do you do that?
I have no idea.
And then she had to figure out what that is, ’cause it’s not like you were just able to log in and Google.
That’s funny.
So we both the exact same fact.
Yeah, it was bilbers.
There was something magical.
I mean, now they’re all digital.
You don’t see them as much anymore.
18:11
But there was something magical about seeing these really cool.
And again, artwork, outdoor artwork at the time, right?
And even more so just like how you know then how that took to a whole other industry, right?
Where then now you had all the graffiti artists using the outdoor artwork to create more art, you know, like the Banksys of the worlds and the Kaws.
18:31
I mean, I still love going to see billboards.
Like we were in Toronto about six months ago.
Same thing.
I just went to go look at everything.
All the graffiti, all the outdoor signs, all the bus shelters.
It’s still pretty.
Yeah, even though I think that billboards these days are purely promotional, there’s almost no art in them.
18:51
It’s like this is a huge phone number.
I’m a lawyer.
Call me, you know, I literally see that’s what I see here in Austin.
It’s most of the time.
Were you in an accident phone number?
Like that’s it.
There’s no, I don’t know.
19:06
Probably because people don’t pay attention to it anymore.
We are so overwhelmed with all the social media, with all the information that we get.
And so when someone has only a couple of seconds or maybe one second to get your attention on the road while you’re maybe already listening to a podcast and music and a book at the same time.
19:26
And you know, it’s like they have to have just that.
I think it’s.
True.
It’s true.
So I don’t know what.
So I recently took a road trip, two road trips, two giant road trips, one from here to Creative South, which is in Georgia.
So that was like 1800 kilometers and then going from here to Denver, CO, which is like 2000.
19:47
So I just within a month I did two giant road trips.
There is something funny about the American landscape and this lawyer culture because you’re right, all the billboards down there are all lawyer sites with big phone numbers.
Up here north of the border, they’re still creative because I don’t think they’re allowed to advertise like that up here, which is kind of refreshing.
20:07
So yeah, I can understand where because it wasn’t as fun driving through there as it is up here with the motor art anyway.
Yeah, exactly.
OK, Hey, we should put our ads out there so people can find us, right?
Need a logo?
Call here injustice to your company.
Who knows, maybe it would work.
20:24
Why not try it?
I haven’t seen a billboard like that usually we usually designers and design agency owners try to promote and advertise through LinkedIn, going to networking events but I have not seen need a logo.
And a.
20:39
Phone number maybe we’ll try.
Kind of funny, right?
Yeah.
So to go back into like how you were able to grow, you mentioned that niche was one of the most important things that you did in your business.
And I know you mentioned that from really early on.
20:57
Now, I also know that many designers are afraid of niching down or choosing, how I like to say it, like you’re choosing your specialization.
And the beauty of our business is that we can choose.
We’re not like doctors where you have to complete four more years to specialize in one thing.
21:15
You literally just pick and choose and you know, a lot of designers are afraid of putting themselves in a box.
And if someone chooses to work with fitness trainers only they think it’s going to be too narrow.
But there are so many different fitness trainers, different personalities, different offers, different target audiences, different everything.
21:42
So what would you say to designers who are maybe still generalists and thinking if they should niche down or not?
So, so there’s two ways to niche and I think that’s the distinction that we’ve made.
Of course, you can niche into a specialization, right?
21:57
I know some designers that are just logo designers, that’s all they do, or they’re just UX designers, or they just, you know, I know somebody who just does PowerPoints, right?
And you know, that’s one way to specialize or to niche down is into a skill set, which they’ve done really well for themselves.
Every one of these people who I know are in these spaces are doing well right now.
To me, that’s scary because I keep thinking that if you end up doing one skill, that one skill has a better chance of being replaced.
22:35
OK, so the other way to niche down, of course, is like we have into an industry, a bigger space.
I’m still very much a generalist in that space, which is almost like it’s double the value for our customers because you know, I’m here at Zed Factor.
We still offer everything from trade show booth design to websites to, you know, even E-newsletter campaigns, brand development, right?
22:55
So we’re a full-service agency, but we’re in a niche industry, which in my opinion is the strongest way to niche because what that does is it makes you an industry specialist.
And by being an industry specialist, you have insights into that industry that put you ahead.
It gives you, I don’t even want to say it’s a competitive advantage.
I, because in my opinion, there is no competition.
And we had people come to us that said, you know, I met so and so from this agency.
But once I heard about your company, you guys know my business, you guys understand I don’t have to spend months training this other company to learn my industry.
23:42
You know it so we can get to work and ramp up is usually the hardest part.
And that’s where there’s like the most frustration and friction with companies because it’s like, you know, you get a new customer, you, you know, you know design, you know, you might be great at putting together an idea landscape concept.
But if you miss the mark in their customers because you don’t know the nuances of their industry, or you didn’t fully grasp the benefit of their technology, then you have to go back to the drawing board and you go back to the drawing board.
You know what, Kady?
24:14
We don’t go back to the drawing board because we don’t need that ramp up in this technology.
And it just puts us at a whole other level than the other companies that we deal with.
Now, when it comes to fears, I understand the fears because people think that they’re shrinking down their market, but you’re not shrinking down their market if your market is already 2-3 billion different companies out there, you’re just giving yourself 250 million of them.
24:39
There’s so much work out there that by niching into a space or an industry like we have, it just allows us easier to target a certain area, as opposed to just kind of randomly walking down the street and looking for a restaurant that has a bad logo or a business that has a poor storefront or anything like that.
You know that this is an industry I want to attack because I have specialized knowledge of this space.
25:12
For example, I use the analogy, Sean, my co-host in the podcast, he’s a musician, he’s a really good drummer.
He’s awesome and he has passion in that space as well as being a graphic designer.
He’s a passionate designer, passionate musician, if he was to start over in his music industry as a drummer, there were so many different companies in that space that he could go after because of his knowledge.
Obviously the easiest is he’s in a band, so he could go after bands locally and do band posters, band logos, bands, he can focus there, but then going one step back, he can look at music shops.
25:56
He could go to this music shop and this venue and then do the next stage of customers, which in a town like this just tons and we’re relatively small town.
But let’s say he wants to go even further.
He can now look at the manufacturers of music equipment.
He can now he’s a passionate drummer.
He could look at the smaller drum manufacturers, larger equipment manufacturers.
He could hit like guitar studios and this it just, it keeps going and going and going.
The market isn’t nearly as small as people think it is.
But because he’s a passionate drummer or musician, he can now stay in the industry that he’s passionate about, but he can offer services to every one of these companies.
26:29
So I don’t think that people need to worry about making their market too small in this sense as so much, you know, keeping their options open to all the different avenues that a niche has in my opinion.
26:58
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.
27:14
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 aventiveacademy.com/profit to check if you can join us now or if we are currently not accepting more designers into the program.
27:36
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 five-figure design clients, 10 times their pricing, reach six figures and beyond, make $20,000 per month while working only a few hours a week and more.
28:02
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, I wanted that flexibility.
So if you want to be my next success story and achieve results like these.
28:20
Visit aventiveacademy.com/profit.
Now let’s go back to the episodes.
Yeah.
And I think there is another fear that I personally had before I decided to niche down because I’m also specialized in an industry which is health and wellness.
28:39
And I go even deeper, product-based businesses into health and wellness with a focus on skincare and supplements.
So I feel like since 2019, I’m just going more and more narrow, but we’ll talk about that
on your podcast.
So the other fear that I had is that I would get bored, not just that I would not get enough clients.
I feel like I knew that I would get a lot of clients specifically because I was in health and wellness.
So I knew that there are a lot of spas and fitness and gyms and skincare and that all goes under health and wellness.
The umbrella is huge, right?
So.
29:16
I wasn’t afraid of that, but I was afraid of getting bored.
What if I get one spa logo, another spa logo, third spa logo?
You know, it’s like, what do I do?
But after really going into this niche, you can’t get bored.
You literally cannot because every single spa, even though they seem the same from an outside perspective, maybe depending on who’s doing their branding, they all have different target audiences.
They can be younger, older, wealthier, more affordable, whatever it is they maybe are going for like some energy vibe.
29:55
Maybe they’re going it’s so different and exactly, especially with skincare lines, I at first when I got like first skincare line, I was like, oh, so exciting.
And then secondly, I’m like skincare line again, but it was totally different, different experience.
Scale of the client, everything different, but I already had the knowledge of how to brand the skincare line.
Then I got a third, then I got a fourth, and now I’m talking about one skincare line that I’ve never heard of anything about, like formulations and whatever they’re doing.
30:29
And I just like love learning.
But I also know a lot about the target audience and branding side and packaging design labels like how you know, and now I even have in my team because it’s six of us in my agency.
And I even have like my web developer now he had completed so many Shopify websites that, you know, now we have a huge portfolio and it’s so easy to win clients and also raise our rates.
And that’s the most important.
Part right well, and again, it’s like people they don’t realize that the easiest path, OK and it’s not always about the money, but the money is the necessary evil to keep our lives going to keep our businesses going is once you get to that expert status, you can change you can make your rates anything you want and that’s not on agreed level that’s just to the point of keeping, you know, maintaining your what is it your client base.
31:23
If you want to, you know, still make it the same amount of you know how can I put this Kady help me out here?
You know what I’m trying to say, right?
Like by being able to raise your rates as an expert, it allows you the freedom and flexibility to pick and choose the kind of customers and projects you want because you are now an expert in that field.
31:43
So, you know what, my rates might be double what they were three years ago or four years ago before when I was a generalist.
I guess it would be about six years ago.
But that number one, we’re getting work done a heck of a lot faster for customers.
We are getting them better results than we would have, you know, if we were generalist and versus everybody else.
32:03
And they keep coming back to us for more and more work because we are experts.
There’s always something new that we have learned from somebody else that we can now apply here because, you know, we’re not being punished for becoming experts.
People aren’t paying for us to be experts.
Exactly.
32:20
I mean, if you’re worried about some sort, you know, if you’ve got a bad knee, right, and you can’t do sports anymore, do you want to go to your general doctor, your family doctor?
He might be able to give you some high recommendation.
Sure, put some ice on it.
Put some of this.
No, you go to the sports clinic.
They’re the ones that can tell you, right?
32:35
Maybe there’s other options for you.
Maybe there’s Chrisson shots that you might need or maybe we need to do some rehab.
You get expert advice by going to the expert and that comes at a cost, but you’re not complaining if it solves that problem of yours.
And I also think that having a niche really what I always like to say is it saves you time and your clients’ time and also it makes you more money because you are now the expert and as you mentioned, you can pick and choose.
And for example, for me, I used to go when I lived in Denver and when I was really trying to grow my business, I was going to a lot of different networking events without much success.
33:17
I was going to three to five different networking events per week.
It’s crazy.
Gosh, now I go to two per month and only because it’s not even about getting clients anymore.
It’s more like I need to get out.
I want to meet people.
Plus, I’m an extrovert, which I know is weird for creatives, but I just like being around people.
33:37
But now I go to these two specific networking events.
One is for the health and fitness entrepreneurs, so they’re all my target audience or if they are not, they know my target audience.
And 2nd is CPG which is Consumer Packaged Goods, so all product based businesses.
33:54
That’s literally two to four hours per.
Month and I’m getting a lot of clients because people are remember in the past I would go like, oh, I’m a freelance graphic designer and they’re like OK, cool, yeah, you know.
What else can you lend to the conversation?
Exactly.
So now when I go to the CPG event, which is all about products, I say I’m a packaging designer for the health and wellness businesses.
Yes, but that includes branding.
You know, if they’re looking for new packaging, most likely they don’t have the brand strategy, they don’t have a logo, maybe they don’t have a website.
34:31
So that’s how we, you know, include all of it, but focus on the right.
The networking conversations, they tend to change, right, because now you’re going to a networking event and as a generalist designer going to a general networking event, most of the experience is like, hi, I’m a graphic designer.
34:50
How can I help you?
And right away that kind of puts people off because they don’t want to go.
It always feels like an insurance salesman.
You know, they’re everywhere and everybody hides from them in this situation when you’re an expert, like you go to these events or when I go to our events, we’re not leading with, we’re a designer generally, we’re leading with something topical from the event that they talked about.
35:12
They might have had a speaker.
We can go up to people and be like, wow, So what’s your take on AI right now?
And then all of a sudden they’re like, oh, AI, we talk technology, they’re telling us about AI and software development.
We’re telling them what we’re seeing in the future for AI this, that, and then after talking to them for 10-15 minutes about a topic like in the industry, then they ask, what do you do?
35:35
And it’s like, oh, I own a brand strategy company that specializes in B2B technology companies.
That’s why I know about AI or about this software or about what’s happening in your industry right now.
So all of a sudden it’s just like, holy cow, I could use that help and this guy obviously knows my business.
So it’s a completely different conversation that you’re having because now you’ve positioned yourself as an expert in that space because you’ve shown the expertise.
Just like I’m sure you don’t go around, you know, talking brand, brand, brand, brand to every one of these people.
It’s always about, oh, what new packaging do we have out there?
What new technique?
What have you seen?
Oh, did you see that campaign?
It was phenomenal.
Like it’s a completely different conversation that we’re having.
Exactly.
I just went to a networking event for CPG, so product based businesses and I was talking to this guy who he started his tea company business a couple of years ago, but I already had a tea company client, so I already knew a lot about packaging.
36:37
I even met some manufacturers here in town and whatnot.
And so that’s the only thing we talked about.
And then later on he’s like, and what do you do by the way?
And I was like, you know, I have a packaging designer.
I have a branding and design agency and whatever.
And he’s like, oh, well, right now I’m using this kind of packaging, but I know it’s not good.
Exactly.
And so.
I’m like, yeah, well, let’s talk about it.
And so we exchanged project information.
I followed up.
We’ll see what’s going to happen, but it really it’s easier to get clients when you have an issue.
It is.
It absolutely is and I can’t, I can’t stress that enough.
That’s the number one advice when people ask me how do I get customers?
I’m like niche, why are you not niching?
Like that’s the number one way changes the networking events that you go to.
Just like you said, it changes the way you speak about your company, about your skills and it turns you into an expert.
37:34
So who doesn’t?
Want to be an expert Exactly.
And so we also talked about like raising rates and getting, you know, maybe higher paying clients and you mentioned doubling your rates.
So I’m assuming this over time you start to detract better and maybe bigger clients, right?
So what strategies did you implement to kind of like achieve this?
37:53
So it really did come down to, you know, once we started.
So a couple of strategies, right
?
Internally, we really, really focused.
So always knowledge has always been a big thing, right?
And it’s always keeping up.
Now, maybe we were a little fortunate because I genuinely have an interest in that space.
38:11
I kind of like technology.
I like learning how things are done, right?
So that’s just my own personal curiosity to keep up with the industry itself, OK?
So that’s first and foremost that you need to always keep that curiosity from an agency perspective, right?
We always knew that the people that we were dealing with, OK, weren’t at their end jobs, OK, they were going to go elsewhere in that industry.
38:34
So we embraced this methodology that we, we call customers for life, right?
And we help every single person that we deal with.
We get personal relationships with them.
You know, we don’t keep it always just business.
We ask them how their day’s going, where we, you know, we keep up with their life.
If maybe they had children, maybe their own child went to college or something.
38:54
So we make sure that, you know, we become part of their life, OK.
And then we help them succeed in their careers as well.
So now we know who they are and we’re helping them with their career.
So when they leave the company and go to a second company, they bring us along.
39:10
And that’s time after time after time again, every every relationship that we obsess over internally are the people that are bringing us along in their journey.
So that didn’t happen once, that didn’t happen twice, that happened 5-10, honestly probably about 20 times in our case that that we would follow our customers through their careers because they knew they moved up, they needed someone that did what we did.
We provided them great results before.
There is no getting getting ramped up.
There’s no you know, trying to understand what their expectations are work wise.
So you know, the client for our life mentality for us has worked really well.
And then with that being said, referrals worked really well.
But again, the referrals came with the fact that we were industry experts.
So when our customers, they attend their industry events, their networking events.
OK, so maybe they’re not a cell phone manufacturer, but maybe they’re a distributor.
For cell phones, or maybe they manufacture batteries for cell phones.
So all of a sudden, they’re making those conversations and they keep them happy enough, they refer you in that sense to people in their industry.
40:29
So as industry experts, they’re confident in making recommendations to us.
Just like I’m sure with you, if I have a skin care product and I meet somebody else, I know you know, Myspace, I’m going to push forward that recommendation because you’ve already proven yourself as an industry expert, not as a logo designer or not just as a competent graphic designer.
Because you know what, there’s a lot of competent graphic designers out there.
There’s a lot of competent shops out there.
People aren’t looking for competence anymore.
They’re looking for expertise.
So we make sure we maintain that expert status with our customers.
We make sure that we keep up with the industry to maintain our expertise in the industry.
41:13
And then with that being said, we prove our industry expertise not only with our marketing, but we also explored creating some industry products from the tech side.
That is also helped and, and again, it always seems to go back to the expertise.
Kady, you know, maybe you open up your own skin care line or your own kind of packaging.
I know because I already have the domain for skin care.
I know, right?
It’s an entrepreneurial curse.
Paying for that domain for only like 4 years.
41:48
It’ll happen.
I’m not letting it go because it’s a really good name.
I don’t blame you.
It’s true though.
It’s absolutely well that’s we’re never going to lose the entrepreneurial bug.
But, you know, I have had many successes, but obviously failures as well because we will continue to try stuff in our industry.
42:07
We’ll try to create an app, maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t.
We’ll try to create a new landing page.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
We tend to do that on our own personal projects, right, to keep pushing forward.
You know, I did a lot of that, you know, just as we kind of made our way through this.
But I think we’ve had more successes than failures and that has kind of taken us to where we are now.
42:30
So, yeah, I think it’s just that that genuine curiosity and the hustle to get that expertise and keep that expertise.
Yeah.
I mean, even starting a podcast, it’s like a new business, right?
How much I learned from that, yeah.
42:49
But I love, I love running a podcast.
OK.
So we talked about getting clients through referrals, going to networking events and all of that.
But when it comes to marketing, have you used any social media?
So we tried and, and this is The funny thing.
43:07
I wish I had a great social media story.
We don’t.
And that’s, that’s the truth of it, unfortunately.
We tried with LinkedIn and I do understand that LinkedIn, I think when we tried with LinkedIn, it was still too new.
And then of course we went and put our portfolio online.
But then what happened is by putting our portfolio online, it gave people quick judgments on whether they like something or not.
And there’s, as you know, there’s always more of a back story.
You know, when you presenting a piece of art or when you’re presenting one of your designs, there’s always the market, you know, the reasoning behind it, the results for it.
43:48
And even though it did great for your customer, somebody might not like it.
And then I didn’t, that didn’t sit well with me.
And that was my concern with social media.
I mean, for quite a while we were putting out a lot of industry related stuff that was just fun, right?
But in the end, we took down most of our social media posts just because it didn’t allow us that opportunity to tell the back story and it just allowed a lot of people.
Now, it’s not that I mean, I recommend people obviously do this right?
And we do it on the podcast.
Absolutely.
But on the design front, it didn’t seem to work for us at the time.
And this was only early on.
And I think now if we had to do it all over again, I would be living and breathing on LinkedIn, I would be putting all my expertise on LinkedIn.
44:33
If I had to redo this now, I’m fortunate and we don’t need to, but I see the value of LinkedIn more than anything else, you know, portfolio wise, just it didn’t sit right with me.
I mean, even on our website, if you see our website, it’s horrible.
It’s a one-page website.
It’s only there because we need it there.
And we don’t even have a portfolio on there because again, we don’t want people to say something like, I mean, again, a lot of our customers are boring customers.
They’re B2B companies and they only advertise to other B2B companies that for the space we’re rock stars and their stuff looks better than anybody else’s.
45:07
But to somebody who is doing a cool wilderness brand or creating a cool brand for an extreme edge team, they would look at it and be like, you know, like there’s nothing special there.
And to those customers, it rocks and it got them incredible return on an investment.
So that’s why we pulled back quite a bit on that side.
So.
Yeah, it’s very similar for us.
We don’t even post on Instagram.
I have a manager who she used to post once a week on our Instagram.
45:42
I have not seen our Instagram for years.
And she was posting more from a sense of if someone lands on our website and clicks on social media so that they see we’re not closed, like that’s it.
But it was like one single image branding for skin care.
This is what we do.
Maybe not even that.
I don’t even know.
So yeah, it’s.
True.
That was it.
But I was getting a lot of clients and I’m still getting a lot of clients through LinkedIn.
And it’s not even about posting, it’s about connecting with referral partners.
And so those are people who have the same target audience but offer different services, specifically photographers, product photographers.
They send me clients all the time.
Right, right, right, right.
You come to think of it.
Yeah.
We would have engineers that introduce us to other engineers.
That’s right.
So see.
It’s brilliant.
So is this really social media or is this still just networking?
I think.
It’s online networking, yes.
It’s like offline networking is going to an event in person and then you have online networking events which I call LinkedIn.
You’re right.
You’re right.
And that’s exactly it.
Even how you just described it, that seems to be a stronger form of communication because it comes as referral.
It comes as already a sense of expertise.
There’s a comfort factor.
I was always hesitant to refer my friends to something or I would never try to match two people up, forget that because again, your relationship is going to be different.
But if I was confident in who that person was, I would confidently forward that recommendation on to somebody else.
It just makes a lot more sense.
Yeah.
Because it’s hard to put your name behind something in that case unless you’re 100% confident with it.
And networking.
Even now I’m working with a marketing agency that she just emailed me this morning that they have a skin care client.
They help them with e-mail marketing, they help them with Facebook ads, but
they don’t have a good website.
So they’re reaching out like, hey, we need the website.
When I looked into their packaging and the logo and I was like, maybe there is something more.
Exactly.
So I think that they need all of that, which we can now complete in a couple of months because I have a team and expertise and everything.
So it just saves them time.
And then in two months, I send them back to that marketing agency.
Yeah, absolutely.
See.
And again, the power of networking is it’s huge these days.
But it’s funny that you’re the same way about social media.
Which is just proof that I don’t think there’s this belief or this myth that you need to have a giant social media following and people are paying for fake followers just so they look like someone special.
You don’t necessarily need that unless you’re trying to attract your audience out there.
Obviously it worked for you.
It didn’t affect us in any way.
So I don’t necessarily think that you need to have that following.
You need to exist exactly.
You don’t need to have that following.
Exactly.
I also think it’s very important to know who your target audience is.
So for example, with Aventive Academy, where we help designers grow their business, we are on Instagram because a lot of designers are on Instagram, they get inspiration from that’s where they post, that’s where they hang out.
So that’s why I use my social media in that sense, but not to get clients because my clients I believe are more on LinkedIn or in-person networking events.
So it’s just very important knowing who you want to target.
And as you mentioned, your target audience is probably not on Instagram or Pinterest or.
Yeah, no, not.
Not for fun anyway.
They run from it.
OK, I do have a couple more questions, but we are coming to the end.
So finally, what advice would you give to design business owners who may be inspired to grow and achieve the kind of success that you have, like maybe going from a solo designer to running an agency?
Yeah.
So it’s a big question.
I know that’s a big question, right?
Because if I think back to the hardest parts of being an agency owner, it was the design, the passion for what I did came easy.
What didn’t come easy was the HR part, the hiring, the managing staff.
That was something else altogether.
If somebody’s looking to, and even the, I’m sure you’ve heard this before, you meet people and they’re like, oh, just hire somebody to do that job for you.
When you’re small, you’re thinking I’m not going to hire somebody, I could do that in 4-5, six hours.
I’m not going to pay them two or $300 a week.
But it seems like that 4-5-6 hours that you think that you could do yourself, there’s this bigger picture that you need to embrace.
And if you hire competent people to help you in those areas that you aren’t focused on and you weren’t passionate about or you’re not really good at, what that does, that frees you up to become that expert that we keep talking about.
I mean, you would never be a skin care expert if you were doing your books 20 hours a week, and also doing the hustling is one thing, but maybe the cold calls or maybe cleaning the office.
I used to do it myself.
I was like, well, I’m not going to pay somebody to do it.
Well, now it makes more sense to put, it’s not just the time, but it’s the energy that you’re putting in.
And I think it’s more than just the hours, the time, the actual hours per day you’re putting towards something, but it’s the energy behind it that I think people lose sight of.
And This is why I think the energy you put behind becoming an expert is important.
The energy you put behind choosing the right customers is important.
So I think it’s just a matter of if you want to grow your agency, make sure that the energy you put out is in the right places.
And I think that’s kind of where I’m getting at in the long-winded kind of way.
It’s OK to be that one-man shop to do it all yourself because we’ve all done it.
We’ve all started there, but energy’s all you got right.
And unfortunately time, it’s just going in reverse for us.
Every year that goes by, it’s a year off the end of your time.
So use it wisely and then put the energy in the places that are going to serve you better, not in the places to just save a couple of bucks in the short term.
Because that time you put out there, it’s so compounding.
You put five hours towards learning something new this week.
All of a sudden next week you’ve gained that five hours and you’ve made it more valuable for you.
And it just keeps compounding and compounding.
I’m a big believer in hustle, always hustle, always be out there and doing it, but make sure it’s hustle in the right directions, not just hustle for the sake of keeping yourself busy.
I love that.
I love that.
This is amazing.
Well, I love chatting with you and I think we can do this for another five hours, but.
I know, right?
But we’ll do it when you come on my show, OK?
Yeah, definitely.
Well, it was nice having you on the show.
And please share your website and social media pages with our audience so that they can connect with you.
Well, I would say you can find us on our website for the company, but can I plug the podcast?
Yeah, of course.
I’d say if anything, you can find us on our podcast, the Angry Designer Podcast.
I’m gonna link it below.
I appreciate that.
The business is one thing, but our podcast is primarily based on we talk about our experiences in this space, in this industry.
We don’t just give random advice.
The advice is solely what’s worked for us.
So if this idea, energy, the way I think resonates a little bit, you get a lot more of that on the podcast.
You can find us over there.
But yeah, the Angry Designer Podcast on the website, on Instagram, it’s the Angry Designer Podcast.
And of course, even on Apple and everybody else, I’d say that’s probably the best place to continue on with this one.
OK, I love that.
And I’m going to include the links below in the description.
And again, thank you so much for being here.
Thank you so much for having me.
I love being on here.
I’ve been watching you for so long.
I’ve heard your agency talk, so this is just kind of cool that it’s really happening.
So wow, eh?
Thanks for tuning in to the Profitable Graphic Designer Podcast.
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Bye for now.
Your host, Kady Sandel.