The Friday Freelancer #022: How to earn an extra $5k per month and the 3 problems that stop most designers from getting there.

Hey, Huw here!

You may or may not have noticed I was missing for the last two weeks.

I was transitioning my business from one platform to another and had a few hiccups.

I think it's all fixed now, so thank you for being patient as I get it all sorted!

Let's dive in!

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How to earn $5k per month and the 3 problems that stop most designers from getting there.

?OK, so the goal of this week's?newsletter is to?solve the 3 biggest problems that stop graphic designers from growing their freelance business:

1. Price Confusion

2. Lack of Leads

3. Sales Fear

Let's first look at Price Confusion.

This happens when you offer too many service options to your clients.

You might have been charging an hourly rate for some ad-hoc work, package pricing for brand identity, and a complicated structure to price websites.

What does do for your leads? It confuses them and we don't want that.?

More importantly, it makes your marketing efforts impossible.

Here's an example: Imagine if you?need someone to mow your lawns.

You go and get?2 quotes. One of them mows lawns but also does window washing, and car detailing and can even paint your house if you wanted them. The other business just mows lawns. If you just want your lawn mowed who would you think does the better job?

The one who does everything or the one who specialises in lawn mowing.

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The second problem is the Lack of Leads.

As a freelance graphic or web designer, you mostly have two options for getting clients.

1. Pay for expensive ads

2. Rely on word-of-mouth

Luckily there is a better way but first, let's look at what's wrong with the other two.

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Pay for expensive ads

Unless you are a recognised brand or personality you will be wasting your money with ads.

Why? Because the social platforms are set up to make it look easy to create ads but make it difficult to optimise.

So unless you are an expert at making ads,?I would avoid it altogether.

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Rely on word-of-mouth

When I started my freelance career, many of my first clients were from friends and family.

And just starting off that was perfect...small jobs, nice little sums of money, partly paid for rent.

Until my life got more expensive, I got better as a designer and more experienced and I wanted to find my own private clients.

What then? I asked my network for referrals and happily got some!

But after getting a few projects here and there, they dried up as fast as they had appeared.

Word-of-mouth is awesome for when you are starting out but terrible for creating a sustainable business.

Why? Because it leads to the feast and famine revenue model you see below.

The third problem is sales fear.

For many of us introverted types, sales scare the heck out of us!

It's awkward, we don't know what to say and if we can avoid it we do.

The problem is if we avoid sales we won't grow our business.

And if we don't grow and make sales, it makes it really hard to pay our bills...

I remember the first time I got on a sales call, I was rubbish!

I was so nervous, I forgot what to say. And the whole call felt more like a therapy session for them to get all their worries off their chest.

When the call ended (after 1.5 hours) I didn't get any work from it. I just felt exhausted and frustrated.

The thing is, these call frameworks can be learned over time.

I did, and over the next weeks and months, I felt more comfortable and even sold some design work along the way.

The aim is to turn this uncomfortable sales process, into one that is easy and comfortable.

We want to create a simple system that makes it easy for?you to use for just 20 minutes per day.

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So there you have it.

Those are the 3 biggest problems I see designers making that stop the growth of their business.

Perhaps you resonate with one or two.

If that's you and you would like some help with this, I'm starting a new group this month.

The program is called clients because that is the only focus.

If you want to add another?$5k or more to your revenue per month, email or DM me?"CLIENTS"?and I'll share more details.

Have a great weekend!

Huw