In mid-2008, Charfish Design became an actual, legal, tax-paying company. I’d like to tell you how my time in the trenches has been so far, and what I’ve learned along the way.
What you’re about to read isn’t stuff I read in some book or overheard some lawyers talking about in a coffee shop. These are just a few things I’ve picked up on this sometimes winding and bumpy road of owning my own business. Hope you enjoy these points and get something out of them!
Communication is the key
I’ve said this a million times on this site and IgniteLiving.com, but if you don’t communicate, you’re not gonna make it.
It doesn’t have to be artsy, poetic, business-like or even intelligent communication. It just has to be communication.
Your client doesn’t care if you use the words “empowering”, “networking” or “flux capacitor” in your email. He doesn’t care if your sentence structure is a little funky. He doesn’t care if you floss regularly or subscribe to any particular political stance.
He just wants you to exist and act like you’re actually there.
When someone writes you, write them back. When someone says they like your stuff, say thank you. When someone says it’s urgent, don’t go out for a long lunch before you answer. When someone calls, call them back.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t like the phone. I’m with you; I hate the phone. Ultra-hatred bordering on homicidal and/or suicidal psychosis probably. But it’s not about me. It’s about the client and the client wants a phone call. Seeing as how that client’s money will be paying my bills or buying me some groceries, I guess I ought to just shut up and get on with it, eh?
When you do communicate, have fun
If your business is anything like mine, you might have a LOT of clients. That’s not a boast; I’m just saying I don’t charge an arm and a leg for what I do, so have to make up for it in volume.
If I wrote every client the same email, over and over and over, I’d go insane. I try to keep it fresh and interesting and inject my personality into what I do. It makes it way more fun for me, and I’m sure clients enjoy my messages more than some generic bland form letter I could send. Plus, if you act like yourself, your client probably will too. You may even end up making some good friends along the way!
Pay attention
This is a tribute (or anti-tribute maybe) to the old used-car salesman mentality.
You go in looking for a car. You say, “I want one in blue.” The car salesman says, “We don’t have that, but look at this stunner in bright pink. Now that’s you!” And you think to yourself, “Is this guy a moron? I want a blue car and he is showing me one in bright pink? And it’s not even the same model!”
This happens all the time in business, especially via email. Client says, “I have a 50-page ebook I want designed.” Don’t write back and say, “How long is your ebook?” It makes you look stupid. It makes the client think you’re not really paying attention…which you weren’t. You can lose business this way.
It takes much less time to read an email all the way through and get it, than it does to read another email the client has to send because you weren’t on the ball. Wastes their time too.
Don’t take every client
I always run the danger of estranging clients when I speak of “Clients from Hell!” on this site, so please read this disclaimer first lest you think I’m pointing a finger at you:
Clients from Hell don’t care if they’re Clients from Hell. If you have the sensibility to even worry that you may be a Client from Hell, you’re not.
If you have to ask a client four or five times how long their book is, you might be steering into dangerous territory. If you ask the client, “Is it okay if I get this to you on Tuesday,” and they write back, “My favorite color is blue,” you might be in for some trouble.
You bring in what you put out
That probably sounds a bit enigmatic, so I’ll explain. If you want work to come IN, you have to put OUT communication. If you want a new client IN, you have to advertise OUT. If you want someone to know that you sell special wedding napkin rings with ducks on (business IN), you have to tell them (OUT).
Make some noise, tell everyone what you do, post to your blog, pick up that phone, spark up conversation even if you hate talking to people. Your reward will be new business. It never fails.
Take care of those who take care of you
When you find someone with whom you work well, boost that relationship and protect it as much as you can.
There are a few clients for whom I’ve done countless projects, one after the other. They make my business and life so much easier, having their repeat business. I have no illusions about that whatsoever, so I take good care of them. The more I help them the more they help me, and that is a fantastic way of things.
If you find yourself in a similar situation, do your best for them. Well, you should be doing your best anyway, but maybe you could do extra your best. Or something more logical perhaps.
Keep getting better at what you do
This is not only essential for keeping up with your competitors but also is a great trick for keeping interested in what you do.
Case in point, after designing about 8,384,859 ebook covers, I was feeling a bit stagnant and burnt out, and wanted to spend all my time watching Square Dancing DVDs.
So I started learning 3D programs, different Photoshop skills, studied up on classical typography and layouts, figured out what the Golden Mean was and how it could help me in my designs. All of a sudden I was interested again and started having better ideas and more of them.
So, long story short is don’t type-cast yourself. You’re not necessarily going to develop new skills and competencies just working your routine. In fact, just in interest of time and keeping the machine running, you may end up doing the same things over and over. They’ve worked before and they’re easy for you, so you just keep pulling that same trick out of the bag. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s also not the best route to personal development either.
Of course, this not ALL I’ve learned over the past year of working, but these main points will leave one in good shape if they’re remembered and practiced. Plus, I just don’t feel like writing any more.
Next week, we’ll be posting the next installment in our old series: 10 ways to make your website look better. You don’t want to miss that so subscribe now. Oh…and here are the first three posts in the series, case you missed them: