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00:00:01
Why Branding Yourself Feels Impossible (And Other Designer Dilemmas)
158 Plays6 months ago
Listen in as Cass & Amanda deep dive into why creating your own branding and website design as a designer can feel so d*mn hard, and some simple ways to tackle the root cause and design an identity that sets you up for success long term. They also discuss some common service and pricing dilemmas that come up when establishing yourself as a professional designer, and their best lived-and-learned advice for solving them.
Resource mentioned:
- The Designers Den Membership Community
- Pro Design Business Course
- Find All of Foxtrot Branding's Resources for Designers at FoxtrotBranding.com/education
Timestamps:
(0:00) Intro
(3:15) The story behind our branding & web design
(6:11) The dilemmas behind struggling with your own branding
(10:57) Important mindset & positioning work before jumping into branding
(23:36) The simplest & quickest way to create your branding & web design
(30:24) Common portfolio dilemmas that can hold you back
(34:60) Dilemmas around establishing your services
(39:01) Pricing dilemmas & determining the value of your services
(41:23) The course we recommend for establishing and growing your business
Recommended
Transcript
Balancing Brand Creation and Overthinking
00:00:00
Speaker
So you want your brand, your own brand to appeal to your ideal client. And that's why it's so helpful to do this work first. Yeah. And so like it needs to be really solid and an example of your skill, but also you don't want to overthink it to the point of where you're working on this for months and you never get it done. So yeah how do you find that balance? like How do you get into creating your own branding and website design in a relatively short amount of time, but still making sure it's really solid because it's not something you should just like do on a whim or not put intention and skill into?
Foxtrot Branding Journey
00:00:32
Speaker
Welcome Spill the Tea. We're Cass and Amanda. We are the co-founders of the creative studio Foxtrot Branding. And in these episodes, we share about navigating our lives as designers and business owners and the challenges and rewards that come up along the way.
00:00:45
Speaker
In today's episode, we'll discuss why branding yourself feels so impossible and other designer dilemmas. This is something that I think every single designer has faced. Like it feels really hard to do your own branding and website design.
00:01:00
Speaker
Maybe it doesn't for you though, if you're listening and you're like, actually it was really easy. Maybe you're a magical unicorn. I don't know I met a designer who like had an easy time designing their own brand though. Yeah, i I feel like it's something that is just universally hard for a lot of designers.
00:01:14
Speaker
Like you're always going to have a blind spot when it comes to yourself, like as a person, but especially as like a business owner and a business entity. Like it's hard. And it's hard to prioritize it. So we'll we'll talk about like why it's so hard and talk about some ways that you can ah make it easier and like, you know, get past that phase so that you can move on to other things in your business that are really important.
00:01:34
Speaker
as well. But before we dive in, if you've enjoyed this podcast or you like this episode after you listen, um we really do appreciate when you leave us a review on either Spotify or Apple Podcasts, if you can leave us a five-star review there.
00:01:47
Speaker
And if you're watching on YouTube, give this video a like and this is subscribe to our channel because that really does help us out. So what's the tea at Foxtrot Cass you want to share with us?
Struggles in Self-Branding
00:01:56
Speaker
Yeah. um Things are really busy right now, which is good. We've, um we're in the middle of some really fun projects and we are kind of like gearing up this month for our summer break, which will start next month. So really looking forward to that. Honestly, like so excited it has been a ah really intense start to the year. So um I'm truly looking forward to those three weeks off, but
00:02:19
Speaker
um Otherwise, we're having a good time in the designers den, which is our new community for designers that we opened up. That's a monthly membership. That's been really fun. It's been so nice. Yeah, it's been great to reconnect with like all of the members from our courses. We shifted like their communities to that community as well.
00:02:37
Speaker
They have like their own private like course chats for the for the courses that they were a part of. So it's just a great place for like more designers to come together. I feel like that's what we all need right now is just more connection with each other.
00:02:49
Speaker
Yeah, truly. We're all just kind of talking about like what's going on in our day to day, supporting each other. Like, you know, if we have questions in specific areas and that's actually like um kind of one of the ideas for this episode topic, like where it came from is we were talking about that with ah another designer who.
00:03:04
Speaker
is working on their own branding and website design. So if you guys want to join the designers' den, it's $10 a month. um You can find the link in the show notes or hop on our website. But yeah, it's it's a really fun place to be.
00:03:15
Speaker
Okay. So let's go ahead and just jump in and talk about why does branding yourself actually feel so impossible? Why do we all struggle with this?
Foxtrot Updates and Designers Den
00:03:23
Speaker
Yeah. I'm trying to think back to like when we were working on our own branding and website design. And honestly,
00:03:29
Speaker
That was back in 2018. And was a different time. You know, we were, don't think we had as much exposure to like other designers and just like the designer internet space that we're in. So like maybe we didn't have as much comparison or just like knowledge of what you needed to have for your own branding and website design. So like, and also you created our branding for us technically before like I was even ah part of Foxtrot. So I don't know. Yeah. I had like the name and the logo. Yeah.
00:04:00
Speaker
But then I think I like mocked up the website maybe. i don't, I don't remember if I had built it or not yet by the time we met. So I think that maybe you had a version you built it. Yeah. Maybe it was like a super bare bones version. Like you came in and helped build it out more since that was something that you were learning.
00:04:16
Speaker
Yeah. um Yeah. It's crazy to think back that far. I know. Whatever we started with, though, we did need to update it like yeah pretty soon after. So and and that it was a struggle and it it's a continual struggle to like, you know, you design your website and then a ah couple of years later, you're like, well, I really need to redo it again for whatever reason, whether you've just evolved your position as a brand or it's outdated or you just have, you know, a new direction that you want to take things. So like your skill level improves too. And like your vision for it all changes and improves. And so I think like we did the best that we could for like the age that we were with the experience that we had.
Importance of Launching and Rebranding
00:04:54
Speaker
And I think honestly, this is something we didn't actually include in our notes, but I'm realizing now, like one of the biggest things that keeps designers back from like even launching is they're so afraid to like,
00:05:05
Speaker
build a brand that they're not like absolutely proud of or that they know they're going to have to change later. But it's just if you think that way, then you're never going to launch. You're never going to start like because ultimately, like you will be rebranding. Like if you're a new designer, you will be you will be rebranding.
00:05:20
Speaker
You don't realize how much more you're like your eye and your skill will improve over the years. So you really just need to put it out there and just like do your best for now and like follow these steps that we're going to talk about today.
00:05:34
Speaker
But like, don't be afraid to change it later when it needs to change. Yeah, totally. Like it's going to evolve no matter what. So if you're letting your branding and your website design be the thing that is like holding you back from being able to move on to other really important things in your business, like marketing, like that is, it it shouldn't be this thing. You're losing money, you know, like.
00:05:56
Speaker
You couldn't be working this whole time. You could be booking clients. We still booked clients even with like not the most amazing brand and website. Like you just, you attract different people at different levels in your business. And so you just got to start.
00:06:08
Speaker
Yeah. And so many designers like do like, i mean, the the common story is really like I've been working with a couple of clients and I know I really need to finish my branding and my website design and get it out there.
00:06:19
Speaker
But, know, I'm struggling to find time to prioritize it because once I get into it, I'm just like, I don't know, like I could go this direction or a completely different direction with it, you know, and like that found, you don't even have like a foundation for it. So it's like, how can you expect yourself to be able to like flesh out this full branding suite and website design when you're just kind of like grasping at straws for ideas, you know, or the foundation of how, how you want to come across, how you want to position yourself, you know?
00:06:46
Speaker
um i think it's a really, really common place to find yourself. Yeah. And especially as a newer designer and, you know, last month in our podcast episode, we talked about um just imposter syndrome. And I think that's something that still kind of trickles in in this area to like designing your brand and your website and determining your messaging and your positioning. Like if you are trying to start a business and just trying to be like a generalist,
00:07:13
Speaker
graphic designer, you're going to have a much harder time designing like a brand around that and a website that's going to attract people because you're kind of just trying to talk to everyone and you're kind of just trying to work with everyone's budget.
00:07:26
Speaker
You're just trying to be available to whatever you can find. And like although, sure, that's a good that's ah great place to start and maybe when you're younger or brand new, but... you're going to have the most success if you really like position yourself and and change your mindset to being like, I'm no longer just a freelancer. I'm a business owner and I have this like business entity that I'm creating and it has its own like personality. It has its own brand and that helps you work on like the other positioning and marketing parts too. Once you have that, that foundational idea created.
00:08:00
Speaker
And I think it's so easy to skip the foundational parts because, like I said, that story of like, well, I've already started working with a couple of clients and this ball is rolling. So I really just need to create some branding that will um help me, you know, continue to do what I'm doing. And you kind of like miss the beginning steps of doing that work of like some mindset work around to do Why did you start this business? You know, like, what do you really feel like your strengths are in terms of how you want to niche down or what you want to focus on as a designer? Because you're just kind of like, well, this is like what I'm doing now. So let's just try and create like, you know, i I'm a general creative studio who who could do this, this and this. Because a lot of times with your first clients, you are doing like a myriad of like, I don't know, different types of graphic design work and just whatever comes your way, which is totally fine, but it's not sustainable. really, because for the long term, if you want to be ah specialized design studio studio, you do need to decide like what your focuses are going to be.
00:09:00
Speaker
And I honestly think like that kind of stuff, like just being a generalist designer causes so many more headaches because you're constantly having to like restructure your services and come up with new pricing. And like, you have no idea how long something will take or what to charge for it. And you just get in in your head about it. And it's like, you're you're using so much brainpower already to like run a business. You don't want to be wasting that much more brainpower on like a $200 like thing here or there. Like,
00:09:30
Speaker
I think a lot of people like get scared of like niching down and creating the packages and creating the higher pricing and designing the brand because they think that that's going to be more complicated when really it's much more simple.
00:09:41
Speaker
If you do it right and you follow these steps, your business and your life will be so much more simple. Like I promise you.
Finding Balance in Niching
00:09:47
Speaker
And yeah, I think like it can be sometimes like hard to find the balance of not niching down like too strongly at the very beginning of your business, but also not just taking like or positioning yourself to take anything that comes your way because you don't want to say, you know, like when you're just starting up most for most people, you don't want to be so specific of like,
00:10:07
Speaker
I only work with X type of business owner to do like X type of design because that can just be so limiting and you don't you haven't grown your audience to have a wide enough audience of that type of person to be able to have enough work to sustain you. You kind of like grow into that for most businesses.
00:10:23
Speaker
Um, but you also, I don't want to just position yourself and market yourself as doing anything for anybody. Like, like you were saying, Amanda, like you want to be intentional to put yourself out there and your branding and your website design of like, you know, this is the specific type of people I work with, you know, doing these types of designs. It doesn't have to be like super narrow, but it needs to be not everything.
00:10:44
Speaker
Um, so I think a good way to start building that foundation is, you know, even if you're working with some clients and you feel like you kind of have, a little bit of a thing going in terms of freelancing or your business, it is good to take a step back and do some mindset and positioning work to like think about the big picture of like why you started your business, why you want to do this. like I was mentioning, like what do you feel like your strengths are? Some of those questions. And we do have a couple of specific like prompts, like a worksheet of prompts, and then a worksheet of questions in our Pro Design Business course that um but we'll kind of go through some of these questions just because they really are a great place to start when you're trying to nail down your branding and website design. And I know it can feel like, oh, I don't want to go back and do this. I just I have like a week to knock out my branding and website design and I just need to do it. But doing this work is going to make it so much easier to create those designs for yourself.
00:11:40
Speaker
Yeah, you really need that direction for yourself the same as you would, you know, build a strategy and design direction for a client like you want to do those steps for yourself. And you want to go even deeper. so that's why we start with like, start with a mindset, then do the positioning. And then that kind of trickles into everything else.
00:11:58
Speaker
yeah, like this overall initial strategy. It's so easy to want to skip it, but it actually sets you up to need to do more work when you set up or when you
Importance of Design Foundations
00:12:07
Speaker
skip these steps. And that's honestly true in like all parts of being a designer in my experience and what we teach in a lot of our courses and resources is like, if you try and skip these steps, it's actually going prolong the process, which absolutely yeah I teach it because like I have to remind myself that every day as someone with ADHD. If I try to skip all these things, I think it's going to be faster, but it's actually not. And I'm just going to be more frustrated later Then you have to redo it and then you're going cry about it.
00:12:38
Speaker
It's like everything sucks. Like, why didn't i just do it the right way the first time? ADHD, inciters unite and let's all make sure we do these. We go through the mindset and positioning work. Yeah. yeah So in terms of some like mindset work and just some like general journal prompts and things to think about um before you even get to the positioning work and like the niche niching down work for your business, I do think it is so helpful to think about what like your long-term vision is for your life and your business. I know that's super broad, but...
00:13:09
Speaker
I mean, you got to start there because that's going to inform a lot of your other decisions. Also, um like what what are some of your top values in life and as a person? That's something we've loved to come back to and um think about for ourselves and also teach in a lot of our resources. You know, what's really important to you?
00:13:28
Speaker
um And that's also important because, you know, you're starting this business because you want to create some kind of income and business model for yourself that is better than, you know, what you could have if you were to be employed somewhere else. So like, you know, take it back to your values. What's really important to you?
00:13:45
Speaker
hmm. Yeah, I feel like it's helpful to imagine like, what would like your dream boss do for you? And then can you do that for yourself? Like, what's really important to us, like our values are like or like our freedom and feeling secure and our creativity. So like, how can those things maybe influence the decisions that we make as as business owners and how we provide for ourselves as far as um what our income goals are and like how much time we take off work like it really does fit into all those things.
00:14:17
Speaker
And it'll really help influence like who you decide to work for. And i mean, for your clients wise, and how you structure your day, how you structure your services, like this really does impact you those decisions.
00:14:29
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Some other just general mindset things are, um you know, what does an ideal day of work and life look like for you? What are your ideal clients like? You know, start thinking about the type of clients you want to work with. What are your strengths? Just all of these general things.
00:14:47
Speaker
mindset things that you should be considering because they will touch every part of your business. And they'll they'll touch like how you position yourself. And we can get into some like more specific positioning ah ah statements and like prompts and kind of talk about what positioning is. But those really do inform a lot of your business. For example,
00:15:07
Speaker
We always talk about how important time off is and setting those boundaries in our own business. And that has helped us attract clients that really believe the same thing for themselves. Like we've had a client tell us before, I i heard you guys talking about how important time off is. And like that made me want to work with you because that's something I also value as a business owner.
00:15:27
Speaker
um And I think that shows people that you prioritize having these boundaries and this space so that you can ultimately like create the best work possible for your clients. So it's like when you are working, like it's going to be the best experience and outcome possible for your clients.
00:15:42
Speaker
So now that you have that foundation laid with the mindset work, it's then helpful to move on to your positioning. And just so we have like a basic understanding of what positioning is as we talk through it, your positioning is going to include establishing who you are as a business, what you do, who you work with, and what you help your clients achieve. It's really about like creating a unique statement that will very clearly communicate to your ideal audience like all those things, like who you are, what you do, how you help them, and who you help.
00:16:13
Speaker
That's like the core of your your business messaging is like once you have that locked in, you can form everything else around it. um So we definitely recommend starting with doing, again, like some more journaling prompts,
00:16:26
Speaker
This is a great resource that we have in our course pro design business. And this really helps you ho in on like, what is your unique selling proposition? you just go through these questions about again, like what are your strengths? What kind of design work do you most enjoy doing to help you figure out like which way you want to go with this and your positioning?
00:16:43
Speaker
Just a lot of questions to help you understand yourself first. Then you can start breaking down how you niche. And so the the answers that you give at the start of the worksheet will really help maybe guide you in one direction or the other. And so when you define your niche, you know, it might be like Cass said, it's not always just like, oh, I only work with this client from this industry.
00:17:07
Speaker
You can niche down in so many other ways. You can niche down by design services that you offer, design specialties or skills, design style even. like Everyone has their own style, but some people like really push that hard as their positioning is like, you get ah a brand designed by this brand that everyone knows.
00:17:30
Speaker
You can also niche down just like by price range. Like there are just certain price points that are going to attract certain groups of people and repel others. And then you can also niche by, you know, maybe the type of business. So for us, like we used to work with pretty much anyone, but now we mostly just work with product based brands, aside from a few service based businesses that still find us.
00:17:51
Speaker
Yeah. i Honestly, I think it's best way if you are in the earlier stage of your business, I think it's best to stay kind of open to what your niche could become. And you know you do need to pick some kind of niche to start with so that it's easy for people to understand what you do. Because I think The place you could go wrong is like, say you're trying to you're starting up and you're trying to market to like your local ah city that you live in. And you're just like, yeah, I do graphic design. I do marketing. I do. I help with your advertising. That's just so broad.
00:18:21
Speaker
um And I think that's kind of taking more like an agency model when if you're just starting up as like one person, you know, doing... design work, I think it is more beneficial to like choose this one thing that you do. And it can still be appealing to ah broad range of people. Or if somebody comes to you and they're like, hey, do you do this? And it's something you want to do, but it's not necessarily something you're putting like forward in your positioning and your marketing right now. You could still do that. But, you know, just try basically just try and pick a niche that is specific, but, you know, not so specific that you're totally limiting limiting yourself and you just are not going to be able to find clientele that would fit that. yet until you've grown your audience to that point.
00:19:01
Speaker
Right. And this is a related side note, but I think sometimes like agencies can kind of get away with doing that and just taking on generally any kind of work. Like they'll always have their specialties, but lot of agencies will take on pretty much anything because they can hire like junior designers who will do the work for cheaper. And like, they just need that. They have people on staff all the time.
00:19:21
Speaker
That's really just not like... that's not the most profitable like path to take if you're a single business owner. Like you really can't afford to just like do all the business stuff plus do like all of these random one-off tiny budget projects. Like you just can't build a really super profitable business based on that.
00:19:41
Speaker
Um, especially when you're carrying the load of like needing to provide for your business and provide for your whole life, you know, like, yeah. You need to be working on like set packages, set prices and a higher price point. That's just the best to it. It's also why you need to be smart and do this work at the beginning and think about like, you know, what are my specialties? what i could What could I really optimize? And also who is it going to be for? Because for example, if you are starting in your local community, you know, some of this positioning work it gets into defining your client avatar and like who they are, you know, let's think about what they need and what would be attractive to them.
00:20:16
Speaker
And, you know, thusly what your branding and your website design should be too, because like, how are you going to try and start making this branding a website design for a client you haven't even thought about or narrowed down? Like if you're just trying to make it something that you like, that's not going to be the the most effective for you. um I think it can work and like you can evolve it, you know, as you niche down.
00:20:37
Speaker
But really, you do need to have some type of ideal client in mind because going back to like, you can't skip your own process. For us with our clients, we we can't just create a design if we don't know who our client's customer is. Like we're not designing for our client, hopefully, because that is really hard a lot of the time just to to please your client's um personal, but what they personally like. And also like that's not going to be effective for them. Like really, you're creating a brand to attract your ideal clients. So yeah. You got to do this work up front. Otherwise, you're just going to be like, well, I like this and this looks nice, you know, but you don't know if it's actually going to work for you.
00:21:14
Speaker
And that's what like allows more of that like self-doubt to creep into because if it's only based on what you like, then you're going to fear the judgment that people will have ah about the brand that you built that you just like that has like nothing to back it up with.
00:21:27
Speaker
Yeah. And it's like you're going to feel so much more insecurity about that. So you got the strategy because it helps give you that confidence, helps back you up on your decisions and yeah has a better result usually. Yeah.
00:21:38
Speaker
Maybe you're like 22 years old right now and you really love like more, i was going to say Gen Z.
Aligning Design Tastes with Clients
00:21:45
Speaker
is i Is that even like, no, that's not Gen Alpha. That would still be Gen Z, I think. Gen Z, yeah. But in this example, like maybe you love like um super maximalist, like neon colorful, like design and like that's what you make your branding about. But your local clientele or your clientele like is a local audience of business owners who are like 35 to 50 years thirty five to fifty years old they're probably not going to connect with that or like trust that or, you know, want to work with that if that's your ideal client. So you're going to have a mismatch there in the branding you create versus the client you're trying to attract. So that's why you do need to like think about this in advance.
00:22:20
Speaker
Yeah, because your branding is really, I mean, it's the best way to advertise that, hey, I'm a really good designer and hey, I connect with like maybe what you want to see. So you want your brand, your own brand to appeal to your ideal client. And that's why it's so helpful to do this work first.
00:22:35
Speaker
Yeah. And so like it needs to be really solid and an example of your skill, but also you don't want to overthink it to the point of where you're working on this for months and you never get it done. So yeah how do you find that balance? like How do you get into creating your own branding and website design in a relatively short amount of time, um but still making sure it's really solid because it's not something you should just like do on a whim or um not put intention and skill into?
00:23:01
Speaker
I think this worksheet is so helpful because not only does it have all these questions, but it also has a really great template example. So you can just kind of like fill in the blank. It's kind of like Mad Libs for your business and you get to pull from all those answers and restructure them into a ah positioning statement that...
00:23:18
Speaker
just looks and feels and sounds really strong. And so I think that's why it's just such a great resource. And I definitely recommend checking that out, checking out Pro Design Business if you're, especially at the start of your business, like this is going to be so helpful for you if you're just keep getting stuck at these same points when trying to start your business.
00:23:36
Speaker
And because we know like even once you've established your positioning, it is so hard to prioritize your own branding and website design.
Simplifying Design with Checklists
00:23:43
Speaker
What we've also done in pro design business is break it down into a branding and website design checklist for yourself and simplified it as much as we can.
00:23:52
Speaker
um So I'll kind of go over some of the main bullet points and checklist points we have on that list. But I think basically the the overall concept when you're creating your own branding and website design is to probably give yourself some kind of time limit to work within so that it's not going on forever, like set some kind of deadline for yourself, but also don't make it like...
00:24:12
Speaker
this massive design project with so many deliverables um that it's going to be overwhelming or try to make your website design like um a really fully fleshed out, highly customized five page website. If right now really you only need like um a landing page or, you know, you just need to have the essentials on each of your like core pages for your website. Keep keep it simplified because that's really all you need at the beginning.
00:24:37
Speaker
Yeah. So the checklist is really great. It's very simple, like you said, um but it just kind of gives you like kind of the the accountability to like go through the steps. And it really does follow what you would typically do for a client of yours, you know,
00:24:51
Speaker
you're creating the direction. So maybe that's like a Pinterest board. Then you put that into like a curated mood board. Once you fine tuned the direction you want to go, ah you build out your color palette, your font collection, then design your logo suite, um all those little things. And then maybe you expand into like your social media platform stuff too, if you want to, um,
00:25:11
Speaker
But like, it's just the foundation, you know, but I think just going through this checklist and there's some notes that we have there in this checklist as well with like further advice and explanations. But I think that's really helpful just to like keep yourself on track and feel like you're not like skipping anything. Like, because if you're like us and the ADHD, like we said, and you want to skip stuff, like if you really want to follow this checklist, you know, you can go through and use that as accountability for yourself.
00:25:36
Speaker
Yeah. And like, it's so tempting to, once you get into this, you're like, oh well like, what if I made merch? What if I made like all these other things, you know, it's like to get really into all the like brand expansion. But i think having this checklist and be like, is it on the checklist?
00:25:50
Speaker
You know, like reeling yourself back in because it really is something you just need to like get the foundation for, like you said. um What would you say to someone who's like, I have like totally different inspiration ideas. Like I have two different mood boards that I just can't pick between. Or somebody recently said like in our designers and community, like I just am really going back and forth between like a lot of different ideas. Every time I come back to the drawing board, I start with something new. Like what would you say to if someone's struggling with that?
00:26:18
Speaker
I think if you have too many ideas, it's probably probably because you skipped the initial steps. Because I think like once you nail down like the the basic information and like your audience, your positioning, all of that, it will kind of help. like You'll kind of have hints towards one or the other. like it'll help like If they're so drastically different, I feel like there's probably a clear answer that the strategy you did would help you pick easier.
00:26:44
Speaker
Yeah. Or if they're like, i maybe they're they're um both really good ideas and like both could speak to your ideal audience. Just pick one. You know? like Yeah, like literally, yeah. Like if you're just like just avoiding the the choice, you know, then you kind of just have to Just pick one and move on. Like if you're so afraid of failure, like it's fine. Like just you just got to do it because you can always rebrand. You can always change it, especially if you're just starting like you're fine.
00:27:09
Speaker
You know, don't overthink it. but And pick something that feels timeless and like you can evolve. You know, you don't really want to overhaul your brand. Like, you know, we've never changed like our core brand orange. and our core um little like a fox emblem, you know, like we've always kept that the same, but we've evolved the other elements of the brand, but it still feels like us and it's always been recognizable. So pick something that feels solid and timeless, um but know that you can evolve it and tweak it and make it better as you grow.
00:27:36
Speaker
As far as like your website design goes and that side of things, you have to establish your branding first, but then you get to your website design. And honestly, I think This can be even harder, especially if you're not a website designer.
Hiring Professionals for Web Design
00:27:48
Speaker
So if you're not a website designer and you just feel like it's not your strength and it's not not something you want to learn how to do, do consider like maybe hiring this out. And I think that could go both ways for the branding as well. Like if you're not a brand designer, if you're primarily a web designer,
00:28:02
Speaker
Maybe consider doing some trade-out work with another designer or you know hiring another designer if you can afford it, finding some kind of package that could work. Because and honestly, if you just really struggle with website design, you could spend a lot more time and waste a lot of time trying to DIY it yourself. Yeah.
00:28:21
Speaker
I think you know that should be a consideration. um But if you are going to do it yourself, first of all, know that it doesn't have to be like huge and highly customized. Like I said, basically um you just need to have some key components slash pages on it. Ideally you would build out each page that I'm going to mention for SEO because it is good to have like a specific um homepage, about page, services page, portfolio page, and contact page.
00:28:46
Speaker
Those are kind of your main ones that you need to have. But as far as the content that goes on them when you start, really you just need to have the key information that people are looking for that they need in order to ah make the action of contacting you.
00:29:01
Speaker
Like you need to give them that key information. They need to know enough about your services and your starting at price. They need to see enough of your portfolio work to feel confident that they like your style, that you are capable of doing this. And then they need to have a way to contact you.
00:29:15
Speaker
um Those are like the the key components of a website that you need to get up. And in this checklist, um the brand and website design checklist in Pro Design Business, we do list like just really simple things that you should keep in mind and check off just to make sure you're feeling like you're doing everything that you need to do and when you set up the website, like ah SEO headlines and descriptions, making sure you have a good social sharing image, like proofreading everything, all those little steps that you can keep pretty simple, but it does feel good to make sure you're like doing all the things you need to do.
00:29:44
Speaker
And then once you've gone through this checklist, like you have your foundational branding and your website design, and you can move on to other things in your business, which is going to feel so good just to have it knocked out because that I think it really can just like hang over you as such a burden and you can let it mean for so long like I've seen this a lot of designers you know their website will say like under construction because they just get so busy with other clients they start with and the website will like be password protected for a year or two and that is honestly like hurting the longevity of your business so much because even though you have clients right now you've got to have like your marketing materials
00:30:19
Speaker
up and going um to make sure that you continue to have clients. Yeah. So as you're building your website, a really important part is your portfolio. There's so many people who they'll, you know, maybe they're in our, in our courses are just starting up. They'll ask for advice on their website and we really just don't see enough examples of work there.
00:30:38
Speaker
Or maybe it all seems like so drastically different and And you do want your products to look different, but like different to a point where it's like, i don't even know what kind of clients they like to work with.
00:30:50
Speaker
um So I think having a really strong portfolio that feels cohesive in the way that like it feels like they are going to if they hire you, they are going to like get a consistent like level of success.
00:31:03
Speaker
quality, right? So you want all your projects, like I was always told this in college too, whenever going through my my design program and whenever i would go and like, what is the word interview? ADHD brain, sometimes words disappear from my brain.
00:31:18
Speaker
So I would like interview for design jobs. and sometimes the feedback that I would get would be like, if the project is not very strong, leave it off, like don't include it because you don't want to have Even if you're just going to start with three projects on your portfolio, which I think is the minimum you should start with, if you have two strong ones and one that's less strong, people are only going to notice the less strong one because they don't want to take on that risk of hiring you and maybe being the one who gets the less strong end result.
00:31:47
Speaker
yeah So you want them to all be equally strong And I know that's kind of subjective. It's hard to you know determine, but I feel like you kind of know and you can look at your work and you know which one you're least proud of. Just don't even show it.
00:31:58
Speaker
Create something else that you are proud of. That's my best advice is don't let anyone see the weakest version of your work. You don't want to market with that. If it's not something you would create again, you know, for and or something you would want your client to think you would create for them, you know, don't don't put it up. And like you said, like your design projects don't have to have a super similar like style throughout them. And they could even be like various types of design. Like when, you know, early on in our portfolio, we had a lot of various stuff from like your college work that was like flyers or posters and ah they were all different.
00:32:32
Speaker
formats and you should grow that portfolio into the specific types of designs that you're doing now. But it was a good example to see like, oh, like your design work is really solid across all of these different mediums and all of these different styles. And honestly, at the beginning, we were doing a lot of different types of design styles. So that worked in our favor. But yeah, having three solid ones is important. um What would you say to someone who's like, I only have like maybe one example of work that I've done for someone before?
00:32:59
Speaker
Yeah, then you just need to make more and you don't have to wait for clients to do that. I think portfoal like personal portfolio projects are like the best thing you can do because they're so much fun and you can do them in a fraction of the time, or at least that's like my experience. And I think from a lot of other designers too, because you're not doing the back and forth with the client.
00:33:16
Speaker
You don't have to design things to their liking and you can just design like whatever your your heart desires, you
Enhancing Portfolios with Personal Projects
00:33:24
Speaker
know, and it's really fun. So yeah, you can just create like a fictional brand or you could maybe do a rebrand of some other well-known brand those kind of do well sometimes um obviously just making it very clear like this is obviously a case study this is obviously a fictional brand if you are rebranding an existing business for that purpose but if it's a fictional brand though um it's my understanding that there's no problem with like not stating that it's a fictional brand
00:33:54
Speaker
um You can just say, I designed this concept. That's fine. um There's nothing like ethically wrong with that. So I know that I just say that because I know that we've had people ask about it before. But just ah sit down for like an afternoon or maybe it's like, you know, across a week when you have free time, maybe you do like an hour a day and just like knock out a few extra little little brand projects for yourself.
00:34:17
Speaker
Yeah. And that's just a great way to show off your design skill and style and also to like work on your own design skill behind the scenes, you know, like you're going to level up and in some ways, you know, and be able to hone your design eye in practice and practice in that way. Like it's just a win all all the way around.
00:34:35
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Because really, like people will not hire you if you don't have enough good work on your website. They just won't. No, it's so you got to have it. Yeah. Even if your website looks incredible, even if your services are just stellar and- You don't exist. Like you're not real. They're not going to trust you. They're not going to give you their money. if There's no- You have to have it. They won't even get to the point of reaching out, you know, you do not have that work.
00:34:57
Speaker
Yeah. So you got to do it. So once you have established your branding and your website design and you have like at least three strong portfolio projects, um then you're really able to move into honing your services and the structure and like um setup of all of your packages and how you want to do that. And honestly, this is another, I think, big dilemma that we run into as designers and something we also have to evolve, just like we have to evolve our branding and website design. you have to evolve your services.
00:35:26
Speaker
But you when you're just starting out, you you want to have a clear plan and you want to have strategy behind why you're setting up your services the way
Intentional Service Setup
00:35:33
Speaker
you are. And I think for a lot of designers, it's easy to just kind of fall into your service structure rather than like intentionally setting it up from the beginning. Not always, but if you just start, you know, working with a couple of friends and family or you start gaining clients here and there, it kind of just becomes like You are sometimes we'll say like an order taker from clients. Like you're just kind of doing whatever they want in whatever timeline they have with whatever budget they have.
00:35:58
Speaker
And that's fun for your first couple of projects to be like, oh yeah, I'm doing stuff for people. Like, you know, I'm i'm a freelancer right now. But yeah eventually it's very quickly, it's not going to work for you because you really need to set up services that are based on your positioning of like,
00:36:15
Speaker
what you feel like your strengths are, what you want to do, and also, like, what your lifestyle is. Because if you're just – you're going to find yourself, like, get having projects drug out by clients if you don't have clear timelines for them.
00:36:26
Speaker
You'll get burnt out. Yeah. You're not going to make the profit you need to make. If you have goals to, like, quit your other job and do this full-time, like, that's going to take longer to get to.
00:36:37
Speaker
So, like – you just you have to to fine tune those things and you just can't take on the little things anymore or take on the little things on top of the big things. You can always upsell people.
00:36:49
Speaker
You can always do extra work for your bigger clients, but your main business income can't just be from little little projects. It just won't last in the long term. And your services are definitely something you can evolve and you can try different structures and packages, but it is important to at least start out with – one specific service type, if not two.
00:37:09
Speaker
And there's so many different packages and structures you can do. And it really is going to be dependent on how you want to set things up and what's going to work well for you right now. And what the client is too. It does kind of depend on like the type of client.
00:37:23
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Totally. That informs it because maybe, maybe you Only doing VIP days would work really well for you and your lifestyle, but um you just have a set of your clients that it doesn't work for and it's like alienating them and you're having to turn them away.
00:37:36
Speaker
So setting up like different levels, different tiers of services. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Setting up those different options. um It's something we talk about in pro design business, like all the different options and like timelines you could have, but it is something super important to take again, take the a step back. If you're already kind of like past that and working with a lot of clients and figure out how you want to set these up and then put those out um in, in your marketing and like on your website design and be like, this is the type of services I do like moving forward.
00:38:07
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Because once you have that, like that messaging clear to like, you're going to attract the right people so much easier because they're going to be able to like identify themselves in your messaging. They're going to be able to see, okay, like this person is serious. They're professional.
00:38:21
Speaker
They have their services figured out. I know exactly what to expect. I know exactly what it will cost me. Like that is going to make their decision to work with you so much easier and it's going to make your life easier to just doing the work.
00:38:35
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. For us, we have three different types of services right now. We have a VIP day, which is ah a one day time based service. And then we have a two week intensive, which is our shorter kind of more condensed um timeline for foundational branding and website design. And then we have our full service timelines, which are typically eight weeks.
00:38:55
Speaker
um But those are more like custom proposals where we can kind of build it around what the client needs. So going from your service offerings to then determining how to price them, that's another big dilemma that designers have. It's like, how in the world do I price my services? Like, I have no idea what people are willing to charge.
00:39:13
Speaker
Or I feel imposter syndrome with charging a certain number. That feels really scary. um Or especially, I think a lot of people, they get that imposter syndrome with pricing because they didn't do all this prior work to really validate what why their price is a certain number.
Value-Based Pricing Strategies
00:39:28
Speaker
Right. So, um, really taking the time to figure out like your service offerings is important to do before you do the pricing, because you don't want to just like come up with a price and then try to like, say, okay, I think I need to make like $3,000. So let's just like make up the service that fits under that.
00:39:45
Speaker
You want to do it the other way where you figure out your services based on what your values are, what your lifestyle is, what your goals are, who your client is, your unique positioning, like you're combining all these things to create these set packages, whether it's, you know, one, two or three or however many.
00:40:01
Speaker
Yeah. Once you have that really like nailed down, then that's going to help give you a much clearer picture of what is the value of this service. Because a lot of people, when they just say, oh, like I design a brand, and maybe they're like, oh, I charged $500 for this brand.
00:40:17
Speaker
They're not thinking about how long did this actually take me to do What are all the deliverables that I'm promising? What is fair to promise in this service? Or should that be in a higher level service?
00:40:29
Speaker
what are other people charging in my industry? Like you really do need to ask yourself those questions. You need to do the research and see what are other people doing and then what feels right for you and what you're offering. um And that's just going to really help you like just, you're going to have such an easier time in business. You're going to have an easier time talking about pricing when you do sales calls with clients too, because you're going to have that confidence again, because you validated the reason why.
00:40:55
Speaker
And so you won't have really a hard time, you know, turning down clients who aren't a good fit or feeling too much imposter syndrome. If someone, um, you know, decides not to work with you because of the pricing, you're like, okay, that's fine. Like, I know that my positioning is good. I know that my pricing is good for what I'm doing and I'll just keep marketing to find someone else to fill the spot.
00:41:16
Speaker
Or you can find some other solution for that person too, which like that's a whole other thing we could go into of like downsell options that you could have, stuff like that. um But these are all really important things that we that we talk about in PDB. And um it's really, really valuable for designers to have that like,
00:41:32
Speaker
that expertise from us and from other designers. Like we've tried it all. We've got all the experience to share and we have all these tools to help you figure things out for
Pro Design Business Course Promo
00:41:43
Speaker
yourself too. So you're not just following like a strict blueprint built by us or anybody else. It's like,
00:41:49
Speaker
you are creating your own blueprint for your business. And we're just giving you the the the education and the tools and the guidance to to get there. so that's why pro design business is just so great. And we want to talk about it all the time. Yeah. And we're simplifying it for you. So you're not like just stuck going in a circle like,
00:42:08
Speaker
Trying to figure things out in the fraction of the time that we did. Yeah. Cause it's so easy just to get in that cycle of overthinking things and just not even just getting stuck completely, honestly, like so many designers get stuck on their own branding and website design and never actually get off the ground because they,
00:42:25
Speaker
felt too overwhelmed by it, which is why we put everything into a branding website design checklist. So it's like, you can just be like, check, made this, made this, check, check, check. Okay. You know, now I have that validation. Like save your brain power for the things that you really need to do. Like we've got the structure set up for you so that you can go through that process, work through it on your own.
00:42:45
Speaker
and get support and guidance and feedback from us or from other designers in the course membership. um Because as a course member of Pro Design Business, you also get access to the Designers Den, which is our new program, our new course community, and just public community for designers too.
00:43:02
Speaker
Yeah. So if you guys are interested in Pro Design Business, you can go to ProDesignBusiness.com to check out the full course, um learn more about it, and you can enroll today or at any time. we would love to have you as a course member.
00:43:15
Speaker
Okay, we will wrap it up there. Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. Next month, in the next episode, we're going to be talking about some sales and marketing topics. So keep an eye out for that one. And you can find all of our resources and courses for designers at FoxtrotBranding.com. We're also on Instagram at Foxtrot Branding. And we will see you guys next time. Bye. Bye.