Here are some previous year’s setting goals posts in case you’d like to follow along with my goals over the years.

• The Year To Come: Looking Ahead To 2011
• Do You Have Goals For Your Business? Part II
• Looking Back At 2008 And Ahead To 2009 – Part II

My Goals for 2012

Once again I’m going to list 4 things I’d like to accomplish even though that number proved to be too much last year. i’ve done better when only setting 3 major goals for the year, but hey you gotta live dangerously sometimes.

• Finish redesign/wp framework
• Improve time and task management
• Find some people to work with
• Write an eBook

Redesign and WordPress Framework

I’m tying these two together since they ultimately form part of a single project.

As I said last year the current design needs to go. It’s old and doesn’t reflect the kind of work I do or am capable of doing.

The aesthetic was tired by the time I introduced it. The content organization is hard to maintain. I feel cramped when trying to veer even slightly from the usual post format.

The design is limiting me from doing a variety of things I’d like to do with the site.

Additionally 20111 ushered in a time of change for the web design industry as it moves toward responsiveness and mobile thinking, and it’s time I get this site more inline with that new thinking.

Where the WordPress theme framework is concerned my goals are modest. All I really want to end up with is the beginnings of a framework I can start to use in my freelance practice. I’ll be happy with a 0.1 version.

I’ve wanted to enter the WordPress theme market in some way shape or form for years and have nothing to show for that desire. I also have some new ideas for a WordPress business model, though I’ll likely need help to make it happen.

Improve Time and Task Management

A couple of years ago I read Getting Things Done, by David Allen and liked, for the most part, the ideas it contained. I took some of those ideas and modified them to better fit my own workflow, but over time I’ve fallen back into old habits and haven’t been following GTD principles as much as I’d like.

A review of the book should help me do a better job of putting its methods into practice. There were a few aspects of GTD I found hard to embrace and I’d like to give them more of a chance this time around.

Ultimately this is a goal with no specific end. The task will be to incorporate a better system and be consistent in following it.

I’ve also noticed how much time goes into maintaining this blog. If you’ve been reading for awhile you know I tend to write posts more of the epic variety than the quick thought or opinion. It takes a lot of time though, and I think I need to change things up some.

One aspect of the redesign is to make it easier to add different types of content such as audio and video. If all goes well I’ll introduce some screencasts to the mix and otherwise experiment with different formats and content types.

I’ve tried a few times before and have inevitably fallen back into the longer epic posts, but I’ll put a little more focus on changing things this year.

If I can do what I want to do it should allow me to publish more in less time, which I think would be good for both me and you.

Find Partners to Work With

This one is going to be hard for me. I’ve realized though, that I can’t do everything on my own. There’s only so much one person can do and if I want to see a few ideas realized I need to ask others to help me.

I have 2 projects in mind, one being a WordPress site and the other having to do with my forum where getting others on board will likely be necessary to see them get off the ground. I have people in mind to ask for the forum project, though I’m not sure who I’d ask on the WordPress idea.

One part of this goal will be for me to overcome some personal limitations and grow as a person. I’ll consider this goal a success if by the end of the year I’ve made a few connections and asked a few people for help even if they respond with a no.

Write an eBook

As I mentioned last year digital products are something I’d like to add to my business. I do want to become more entrepreneurial and move off some from my freelancing ways.

Given how all my posts end up being on the very long side, you’d think writing a book would be easy for me. I also wrote about 40,000 words for what turned out to be a 10,000 or so word chapter in Smashing Book 2.

I think this is a very doable goal for me and will mostly require commitment on my part to work consistently throughout the year.

Last year I didn’t really expect to get a book written and didn’t plan on starting till the end of the year. Ideally I’ll get started on this much sooner in 2012 even if I can only devote an hour or so a week to it.

If I can successfully put some better time and task management practices in place there’s no reason I can’t find a little time each week for a book.

Wish me luck.

Summary

Last year didn’t turn out so well when it comes to accomplishing goals. I hope not to be saying the same a year from now when it’s December again.

Learning why I didn’t get things accomplished last year was nice, but it only goes so far. To accomplish goals you have to actually get things done.

My goals for this year are a combination of actionable tasks along with some changes in processes and a bit of self-growth thrown in for fun.

I think everything I set out above is achievable over the next 360 or so days before I report on how it all went, though I thought the same last year and look how that turned out.

Again wish me some luck. You should be able to tell how I’m doing if you start seeing some changes to the design here. If not feel free to remind me about this post to give me the kick I need.

How about you? Do you set goals each year? If so are there any you’d like to share? Have you been better than me about reaching those goals?

However the only true failure is a failure to learn and not completing my goals taught me a few important lessons. Hence the complete success part of the post title comes in.

If you missed the post where I set my 2011 goals here’s a reminder of what they were. You can read that post if you’re interested in the details.

• Redesign this site
• Develop a wordpress theme framework for myself
• Continue improving my small business forum
• Write an ebook

And here are a few older posts where I looked back over the year’s goals in case you want to chart my progress over the years.

• The Year That Was: Looking Back At 2010
• Do You Have Goals For Your Business? Part I
• Looking Back At 2008 And Ahead To 2009 – Part I
• Looking Ahead In 2008

What I Did and Didn’t Accomplish in 2011

When I set these goals I hinted I might be biting off more than I could chew. I was more right than I realized. While I didn’t expect to complete every goal listed, I did expect to complete at least one.

Redesign this Site

This site is in need of being reworked and deserves a complete redesign. It was my primary goal for the year and the only one I’m mad at myself for not finishing.

I’ll spare you all the details, but let you know the year went something like this.

Planned and wireframed the new site. Got busy with client work. Got busy being lazy. Developed a single page template from one of the wireframes. Back to lazy. More client work. A few weeks to close out the year working the template into a WordPress theme.

In the end though, the redesign isn’t finished and I have nothing to show. This site looks just as it did a year ago.

I don’t want to leave the impression that I’ve done nothing since January. I’ve actually created to different designs and have an html template coded for one, which I’ve taken over to WordPress and begun turning into a theme.

Develop a WordPress Theme Framework

At the end of the redesign process I would have a completed theme. It was my plan to abstract a few things out of the theme and turn it into a rudimentary framework I could use for other sites.

I’ve never hidden the desire to enter the WordPress theme market in some fashion. In time the rudimentary framework could be fleshed out and matured to the point where it could form the backbone of a WordPress specific blog and site.

Obviously the redesign never reached that point and so again there’s nothing to show as complete.

Continue Improving the Small Business Forum

I admit to setting this goal a bit on the vague side. I could easily tell you about a few things I did and call it complete to my satisfaction, but I was hoping to do more than I did and so will consider this goal as unfinished like the others.

Most of the improvements I made to the forum were the usual upgrades to vBulletin. This year that meant a switch to vBulletin’s full publishing suite. Along the way I added some modules to help me run the place.

The vB publishing suite helps turn the software into more of a CMS, where members could post to their own blogs or be included as authors in something of a site wide blog. I’ve set this up to some degree behind the scenes, but it’s not quite ready and there isn’t any content ready to go.

Quite honestly vBulletin doesn’t make much easy. I’d prefer to move the whole site to a WordPress/bbPress/BuddyPress set up, but think bbPress hasn’t matured yet to match vBulletin on the forum side.

In any event while I did make improvements to the forum, I didn’t make all the improvements I wanted to make.

Write an eBook

In truth I never expected to get to an ebook, though held out hope i might have some time at year’s end. I didn’t.

Other than some random thoughts and notes I can’t say I accomplished anything with this goal, though again I never really expected I would.

What the Year Taught Me

There’s a success part of this story I promise, though the success is more along the moral victory lines as opposed to a true victory. The only failure is a failure to learn and my lack of results this year led me to some realizations.

It’s easy to blame my lack of results on a lack of time, but that’s not the truth. There’s always enough time, but there’s only so much you can do within that time. It’s about setting priorities and not wasting the time you have.

The year hammered home 3 main lessons for me.

• I need to improve my time and task management skills
• I should pay less attention to perfectionism
• I can’t do everything alone

With the first it’s clear to me I don’t make the best use of my time. I used to be better about it, but have slipped. More focus on getting things done in the available time is a worthy goal.

Where perfectionism is concerned it’s hard for me not to be a perfectionist when working on something for myself. Perfection is something to work towards, however there’s no reason it can’t be strived for in iteration.

Get something done quicker and work to make it better.

With the last I realize there are more things I’d like to do than I can reasonably do on my own. I’d like to grow my network of people to work with and see if any are interested in helping me get a project going.

The lessons learned will come into play more when I talk about my goals for next year.

Summary

While it’s true I didn’t accomplish any of my 2011 goals, I did come away from the year with a better understanding of why I didn’t accomplish them and a hopefully new motivation to improve things.

Next week I’ll share my goals for the coming year We’ll see if I get more done in 2012. It’s easy to say I will, though the proof will come a year from now when I’m writing next year’s version of a look back.

How was your 2011? Were you able to achieve your goals for the year?

Regardless of how 2011 was for you, it’s almost 2012. Happy New Year everyone. Enjoy the holiday weekend and see you again in the new year.

However sometimes you feel like there’s something missing in your client list and you’d like to get more of that missing element.

What Makes One Client Better than Another?

Better is a subjective word. There’s no specific set of requirements in some set amount that makes one client automatically better than another. The truth is only you can define what makes a better client for your business.

Your first step in working with better clients is to define what a better client is. Some things that may define better for you:

• Clients with more interesting projects
• Clients that bring out the best in you
• Clients who give you more freedom
• Clients with a greater social ethic
• Clients that pay more money
• Clients you like personally
• Clients you believe in

The list above is, of course, incomplete. There are an endless number of things that can define better for you and the list above doesn’t take into account which items are more important.

The main thing is to realize that only you can define better and you have to define it before you can attract better to your business.

Today’s Clients Predict Tomorrow’s Clients

If I could summarize this post with a single thought it would be the work you do today leads to the work you’ll do tomorrow.

Today’s clients will recommend you based on what you did for them. They’re going to recommend you to people they know who are probably like them.

They’ll recommend you based on the reason they chose you and choose to work with you again. If you land a client because you had the lowest price, that client will recommend you as the low cost option.

New leads will choose you based on the work they’ve seen you do in the past. Your portfolio shows them the work you can do and offers proof of your skills. The work you do today is going to help convince others you can do that same work in the future.

If everything in your portfolio is a small site with hand drawn illustrations your portfolio isn’t doing much to convince corporate clients you’re the person for their large and conservative site.

How to Work with the Clients You Want

Essentially it comes down to doing more of the work you want to do in the future as soon as possible. That’s much easier said than done so here are a few practical tips.

Value Yourself

The most important thing is to value what you do. You and I think it’s easy to set up a quick html page, but that’s only because we’ve been doing it for awhile. It’s easy to forget the years of learning that go into creating a simple site.

What you do is valuable and adds great value to your client’s business. If you don’t see that no one else will.

If you want clients to value your skills, experience, and time, you need to value them first.

Learn to Say No

You don’t have to say yes to every client request or demand. Learn to say no.

Clients will ask you to do lots of things that probably aren’t fair to you. It’s not because they’re bad people or trying to rip you off. They’re usually just trying to get the best deal they can for their business.

You generally won’t lose a client because you say no to a 20% discount or because you won’t work over the weekend. Instead you’ll send a clear message that you value your work and time.

Be Selective: Turn Away Bad Projects

There are times when money is tight and you feel like you have to take on any project offered at any price. While there might be times when you have to say yes to stay in business, these times really aren’t that abundant.

Often you’re better off filtering out some clients. Bad business recommends bad business. Taking on a bad project also means no time for the better project that comes in tomorrow.

Turning away business is not easy, especially when there’s a financial need, but turning away bad projects was one of the best things I ever did for my business.

Do More of the Projects You Want to Do

This might sound like a catch 22, but there are ways to do the projects you want even when no one is offering them. You can be your own client. Develop a theme for a popular CMS. Build a site for a new business.

This is also the exception to working for less than your value. Consider if it’s worth a large discount or even a free site in order to shape your portfolio.

A site built for a charitable organization is an easy way to justify any lost revenue. You can consider the lost revenue a marketing expense.

Think of all the example pages and sites you’ve built while learning. Think of this in a similar light. You’re doing free or low cost work in exchange for a portfolio that will help attract the projects you want to do in the future.

Blog About Things that are Important to You

Like a portfolio a blog can show proof of skills. If you can’t work on the projects you want, you can still write about how you would improve similar sites or simply write about things that show you can successfully complete the projects you want.

This is really an extension of the point above. If you’re not currently getting the projects or clients you want, find some way to show you can handle them.

It doesn’t specifically have to be a blog. You can write a book, a white paper, speak at conferences, give away sample code, etc.

Be Selective in What Your Portfolio Shows

You don’t need to show every project you’ve ever done in your portfolio. Be selective. Show those projects that most closely resemble the types of projects you want to take on in the future.

A portfolio isn’t meant to be all your work. It’s meant to be a selection of your work. What you choose to show will affect how people view your ability to work on their project.

Be Where Your Ideal Clients Are

Identify where your ideal clients are most likely to spend their time and then build a presence there.

If you want corporate clients, a small business forum isn’t the best community to join. Do what you can to network with the people you want to work with.

People network with others similar to themselves. Find a way to get into the social circles representing the clients you want.

Build a Brand that Attracts “Better” Clients

Everything you communicate affects your brand. The color scheme of your site, your copy, how you reply to emails, everything. Build a brand that appeals to the clients you want.

Every point above is really one aspect of this one. Figure out what what will appeal to your definition of “better” clients and do what you can to be those things.

Beware though that you may learn along the way that what you think makes for a “better” client turns out not to be all that great when you realize what you have to do to land those clients.

Summary

If you aren’t happy with the clients and projects your freelance business currently attracts don’t get down. Start taking steps right now to attract the clients and projects you want.

First define who those clients are and what those projects will be. You need to know what makes for a better client for you before you can attract that client to your business.

Understand that the work you do today will attract similar work in the future. Who you work with today usually leads to working with more of the same tomorrow.

Be more selective in the work you take on now and the work you show to others. Take incremental steps to grow your business in the direction you want it to grow.

It comes down to having your current business reflect that it’s capable of working with the type of client you want to work with and working more on the types of projects you want to work on.

Last week Amber Weinberg posted why freelancers don’t really need a business plan. It’s one of the rare posts where I agree and disagree with most everything in the post. The reason for my apparent confusion is the advice really depends on how you define a business plan.

Note: One of my readers, Félix, translated this post into Spanish for those of you who might prefer reading it that way. 5 preguntas que su negocio debe responder

What is a Business Plan?

Both of the statements below are from the same Wikipedia article on business plans.

Business plan—A formal statement of a set of business goals, the reasons why they are believed attainable, and the plan for reaching those goals.

Business plan—A decision-making tool. There is no fixed content for a business plan. Rather the content and format of the business plan is determined by the goals and audience.

The first is closer to what many people think of (and what Amber described) as a business plan. It’s a formal document that is written with a standard format. Here’s the format used in a sample plan at bplans.com for a service oriented business.

• Executive Summary (including Mission Statement)
• Company Summary
• Services
• Market Analysis Summary
• Strategy and Implementation Summary
• Management Summary
• Financial Plan
• Appendix

About the only time you would need one of these formal plans is if you’re seeking financing for your business and even then they may not be useful. (Note the headline in the image below)

Business Planning

The second definition above is more what I think of as a business plan. It’s a tool to give our business direction. It can take on any format you want. It’s business planning as opposed to a formal plan.

Mine helps me make decisions about my business and I consider it one of the most important documents I’ve created. It’s so important that I revisit and rework it every year.

While many freelancers start by declaring themselves freelancers and then looking for clients, I think the more successful freelancers take some time to plan how their business will function and grow.

Given that design is essentially formulating a plan, you can consider business planning as designing your business.

5 Questions You Should Answer When Starting Your Freelance Business

Regardless of whether you plan or not there are some questions you should answer when starting a freelance business. A few obvious ones are:

• What services will you offer
• How much will you charge for your services
• Where are you going to find clients
• How are you going to convince clients to hire you

You ask and answer these types of questions in advance to help you make decisions when they come up in practice.

Business planning for freelancers is an individual process. Only you can truly define all of the the questions and answers you need to ask, however I think there are few essential questions you need to think about and answer if you want to be successful.

Who is Your Market?

Your market isn’t everyone who needs a website. Thinking everyone is your market is a mistake many new freelancers, myself included, make.

The thought process is usually to cast the widest net possible as a wider net means more potential clients. You are never going to appeal to everyone and even if you could you wouldn’t have the time to serve them all.

Instead you want to more tightly define who your clients are. You can define your market based on demographics. You can define it based on location, type of industry, business size of the client, the platform you’ll develop on. etc.

The better you define a market, the better you can appeal to people in that market. Your market should be large enough to offer enough potential clients, but not so large as its definitions become too general.

How Can You Reach Your Market?

Once you’ve figured out who your market is you then need to figure out how to reach them. You have to let people know you exist before they can decide to hire you.

People in a market often spend their time doing similar things. They share needs and interests. They read the same magazines or join the same social communities. They probably search for similar things and visit similar websites.

To reach your market you need to be present in the same places they’re present. Join the same communities. Ask and answer questions. Get to know the people in your market.

One of the reasons I joined and now own a small business forum is because the people who typically frequent those forums are my market. In fact I built a client list by talking to people on a single forum. My client list has since expanded, but it all started with a handful of people on one forum.

What Differentiates You from Your Competition?

It’s unlikely you are the only business serving a market. You have competition for the same potential clients. Why you? Why should people in your market choose you over another freelancer?

Getting to know people will help as people generally prefer to hire people they know. Still you need to offer your market a compelling reason to choose you over everyone else who wants their business.

This can be a difficult question to answer, especially early on. I think the answer generally comes from one of three places

• You—What specific skills do you have both related to and outside your business. Whoever you are, you’re unique and have something to offer that your competition doesn’t.
• Your competition—If you spend some time studying your competition you can find things they aren’t doing or doing well. You can differentiate yourself by filling the gaps your competition isn’t serving.
• Your market—If you listen to your market you’ll hear them telling you what they want. They’ll tell you the problems they need solving. Be the person that solves those problems.

The main thing is to answer the question “why you?” If you don’t know, don’t expect that clients will either.

How WIll You Position Your business to Promote “Why You?”

Once you know how you’ll differentiate yourself from the competition you need to decide how you’ll get those differences across to your market. Will your advertising and general marketing convey why you’re the right choice?

What tangible benefits can you offer your market? Are you giving your market the features it wants? What compelling offer are you making to potential clients. What story are you going to tell?

This question is all about the specifics of how you’ll get across your differentiation and how you’ll be consistent in getting it across. This question is about building your brand and how you’ll turn it into the valuable asset it should be.

How WIll Your Business Generate Revenue?

The obvious answer is you’ll charge for services. By definition a freelancer sells services. However, there are a variety of ways you can generate revenue at the start or as you grow.

You can sell products you create like themes or plugins. You can advertise or sell affiliate products. You can create informational content with a price.

Even if you limit yourself to services, questions such as how much should you charge immediately require answers. A mistake I see many make is to try to charge less than the competition and use price as a differentiator.

Large businesses can do well competing on price. Freelancers will do better to differentiate on value. Price your services based on the value you offer to clients. I find this easiest to do when you’ve already asked and answered the 4 questions above.

Remember too that you’ll be paying for things like health insurance and a new computer when necessary. You have to account for all these costs when pricing your services.

How I Plan My Business

My business planning is about as informal as can be. I open a simple text file and I start typing.

Free writing, jotting down random thoughts, sketching something on paper, creating mind maps. All I’m trying to do is dump anything in my brain and record it somewhere.

I use the questions above as a guide, though I often meander my way to answers. I think about smaller details and larger concepts in no particular order.

Typically I’ll spend a few nights or a week thinking and writing all with the goal of answering the 5 questions above. I’ll flesh out notes, remove ideas that don’t fit, and generate new thoughts as the week progresses. After a few days I usually have the workings of a plan.

I tend not to revisit a plan after it’s written. The act of thinking and writing is enough for what I need the plan to do. Toward the end of each year I spend about a week going through the process again in order to plan how I want my business to grow in the coming year. Parts of my plan stay consistent from year to year and parts change.

For me the plan is all about getting me to think about the direction I want my business to go. It’s amazing how much more focused my business will be with even just a few hours of thinking about it over the course of a few days.

Summary

Is a business plan necessary for freelancers? It really depends on what you mean by a business plan.

Freelancers don’t need to create a formal plan. Those are created to convince banks to give you a loan. Freelancers will greatly benefit from planning their business, though.

It’s up to you the form your plan takes, but I think answering the 5 questions in this post is a good approach. You might even reduce all 5 questions to 2 general categories of thinking about your market and thinking about your brand.

Do you or did you plan a direction for your business? If so how often do you revisit your plan? Have you found business planning helpful or a waste of time?

The advice is good. I’d offer the same tips myself if someone were to ask me, and yet I was struck by the fact that I completely ignored 6 of the 7 tips when starting my own business.

7 Things You Shouldn’t Do, But I Did Anyway

I’ve been in business about 6 years now, so I assume I’m doing something right and yet I started by ignoring some simple and fundamental tips in regards to starting a business.

Here’s the advice on what not to do offered in the Vandelay post along with a comment or two about my ignoring them.

• Going full-time too soon – For me it was all or nothing. I didn’t think I’d have the energy to come home from another job and work on my business the way I would need to get it going.
• Not having savings set aside – I wish I had more savings when I started, but the timing was right for me to start out on my own even without. I did have few needs and had lived on little money before. I also had a couple of credit cards I freely used for most everything I could.
• Assuming it’s easy because you’re skilled at what you do – This is the one I didn’t really do, though I did initially think skills alone could set me apart. I learned very quickly that more than your own talents are needed to build a business.
• Not having a marketing plan – I had no clue how to market myself when I first started, though I did know I needed to market myself. I learned on the go and even now only have a loose marketing plan where specifics are concerned. I do have an overall marketing strategy to guide me now, but again it was mainly on the job training in the beginning.
• Lack of organizational focus – Something I always work toward improving, but by no means was I organized early on. The one thing I had in great supply in the beginning was time so worrying about using that time efficiently wasn’t at the top of my list.
• Not considering necessary expenses – The only major expense I saw early on was a computer, which I already owned. With a little bit of free or low cost software I was in business. Hosting and other absolutely necessary costs were on the insignificant side. The reality was I didn’t have money to spend so there wasn’t a lot to consider.
• Not considering taxes – The first time I thought about taxes was when I sat down to do them for the first time. Other than keeping receipts and setting up a separate business account for business purchases I can’t say I gave any consideration to taxes until they were due.

Again the above is all good advice. Looking back I wish I had followed more of it. I probably would have gotten to where I am sooner.

The reality is I had to do things a certain way or they weren’t going to happen for me. I’m sure I’m not the only one who took this path. It begs the question how important is it to follow all the tips you come across?

Learning from Experience

We all learn from experience. We try something. It works or it doesn’t. We learn what we can and either try again with our new knowledge or move on to the next thing with that same knowledge. Much of business and life in general is trial and error.

The advice of others is learning through their experience, which can be a great time saver. None of us should be reinventing the wheel again and again to learn that round wheels work better than square wheels.

Yet we’re all different. We have different skills. We have different weaknesses. We bring different experiences with us. What works for one may not work exactly for another. You have to take in what others tell you and decide for yourself what applies to you.

Most of us have our own definitions of what it means to be successful and we all have different skills and experiences to help us get there. Only you can honestly know which advice you need to follow and which you might be able to get around and ignore for a time.

The One Tip You Should Always Follow

The one tip I would suggest you absolutely have to follow is to learn from your own mistakes. We all make mistakes. I made them and you will to. We’ll continue to make mistakes the rest of our lives. However the only mistake you can truly make is not learning from your mistakes.

No matter where you are when you start or where you are now as long as you keep trying new things and keep working to improve those things you’ve already tried, you’ll get to where you want to go.

Early on I did many things that went against good advice. I had my reasons for ignoring that advice. Sometimes that worked and sometimes it didn’t. The one thing I’ve always done is learn from my mistakes so I could do better the next time.

In the end we’re all on our own path and we need to do and learn from the doing..

Summary

There is a lot of good advice online, included the 7 tips from the Vandelay Design post. Most of it is also worth following. It’s usually given to help you not make the same mistake the advice giver has made and it would serve you well to at least consider the tips being offered and why they’re being offered.

Nothing in this post is meant to say you should ignore the 7 tips mentioned or any other you come across.

At the same time we’re all different and we’ll each take different paths to our own success. In the end you’re still going to have to get out there and do and in doing you’re going to make some mistakes.

The one thing you have to do is learn from your mistakes in order to do better next time. We do. We learn. We grow. Outside of that I’m not sure there’s anything you absolutely need to do.

Ultimately you have to do what’s right for you. Not what I think is right for you or what anyone else thinks is right for you. Only what you think is right for you.

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
—Confucius

Commonly offered advice when starting a business is to follow your passion. You find something you love and then figure out how to build a business around that love. The other side of the advice is to follow the money. Think first of existing and potential markets that offer the best chances of making a profit and build businesses around those markets.

I don’t believe in one-size-fits-all solutions to any problem and either of the above are viable ways to start a business. However in my own freelance business I’ve always followed my passion and instincts and wouldn’t have it any other way.

I also take something of a Taoist approach to evolving my business from it’s origins to where it is now to where it will be in the future. It may at times mean missing an opportunity for money, but it offers me the best way to remain happy with the work I do and in my mind the success of my freelance business is about more than money alone. Again I wouldn’t have this any other way.

Why You Should Follow Your Passion

I think you can make money around most any topic or industry. Some topics will naturally offer better opportunities than others, but I think most any topic can be tweaked to have a viable business around it. The way might not be obvious, but it’s usually there.

Whatever your passion, there is very likely a way to build a business around it.

That doesn’t mean every topic can lead to a multi-million dollar business of course. It will depend on how many others share your passion and whether or not those people would be willing to spend money around that passion.

There’s also a down side to turning a passion into a business. You run the risk of losing some of the passion when it mixes with those aspects of business you don’t enjoy. Some do lose interest in a hobby after turning that hobby into a business.

Starting and running a business is not easy. It takes a lot of work and effort and usually a considerable amount of time to build it into something that can support you.

It’s also something you’ll be involved with the majority of your waking hours. Your business will have ups and downs. There will be days where all is wonderful and days where you wonder if your business will survive next month or next week.

When you feel passion for your business

• You’re more likely to stick through the hard times
• You’re more likely to continue learning about your industry
• You’re more likely to enjoy your daily work
• You’re more likely to see ways to scale your business
• You’re more likely to create quality work

During the first couple of years of my freelance business I didn’t make much money. I made about $12,000 in year one and even less in year two. I survived with some savings, taking on occasional odd jobs, and mainly by using credit cards to pay for everything a credit card would be accepted for. It amounted to a high interest loan that was always given as long as I didn’t exceed my credit limit.

I can look back at those days and remember how at times I was worried if my business would survive or how I would ever pay off the mounting debt. And yet because i was following my passion I enjoyed every moment of it.

I stuck through the hard times and continued to learn how to improve my skills and business acumen in general. I played to my strengths, which evolved from my interests. I never questioned what I was doing and knew that even if I had to take on a full time job to pay the bills I would come back to building a freelance web design business the moment I could.

Had my business not followed my passion, I’d probably be back to working for someone else with a job I probably wouldn’t care too much about.

Finding Your Passion

Some will tell you they built businesses and enjoyed every moment of it without following their passion. I think in many cases these people did follow their passion, though perhaps not in the obvious way.

We think of following passion in business as finding some topic outside of business that you love and then turning it into a business. For some though the passion is the business. For some the passion is in researching a market, developing a product for that market, promoting the product to that market, etc.

For these people following their passion has little to do with the specific topic or industry. I’d argue these people are following their passion even if they started businesses by following the money trail. Their passion was for business.

I can look at myself and my business and think about where business and passion meet.

• I’m passionate about learning new things. A career in web design means always having to keep up with new technology.
• I’m passionate about sharing what I learn with others. This blog certainly gives me an outlet to share the things I learn with others.
• I’m passionate about working under flexible hours and conditions and being able to set my own schedule. Freelancing meets those passions very well.

Other things I feel passion for are art, creativity and problem solving each of which come in handy for someone working with design.

I’m also intensely curious about what motivates people, what makes us tick, how do individual psychology and social factors affect our decisions. Again pretty useful things when working in the design industry.

At the same time most of the things I feel passionate about could work equally well in other industries and careers. The life of a novelist or journalist would easily make use of my passions. If I didn’t mind giving up the freelancing thing a career as an architect would probably work as would a college professor.

I could easily come up with more examples. My point though is what you’re truly passionate about often goes deeper than a specific topic or industry.

When we find a way to merge what we truly love at a deeper level with what we do for business we’re genuinely happy with our working lives. To me finding this harmony between who we are and what we do comes from Taoism. This harmony is our path, our way through life.

Evolving Your Business The Taoist Way

Let me say that I make no claims to be an expert on Taoism. What I’m suggesting here is my own interpretation of certain principles of Taoism based on my admittedly limited knowledge. I’m calling it Tao since to me it seems like the closest fit, but if I’m misinterpreting Taoism in any way please accept my apologies.

Several times over the years I’ve tweaked my business based not on financial potential, but on my own interests.

• I dropped hosting services. I didn’t enjoy the work and as a consequence did little to build this part of my business.
• I added WordPress services. Working with WordPress on this site led to more interest of WordPress in general. My increased knowledge allowed me to do things like answer WordPress questions on forums, which has led to more working developing themes.
• I’ve spent much of the last year and a half working to improve the quality of my writing here. Other sites noticed and I’ve been presented with writing opportunities on other sites, which has now become a part of my business.

With each of the above it was my interest or lack of interest that led the way. I could easily have worked to generate more income from hosting, but I felt no passion for it. That lack of passion limited my success with hosting.

My interest in WordPress on the other hand helped build that aspect of my business. At the same time if my interest in WordPress were to wane and I found something like Expression Engine more fun to work with I could easily evolve my business away from WordPress and toward Expression Engine.

Writing is leading to more opportunities to market myself and is leading me to new business models I’ll work into my overall business.

Freelancers can Adapt Easily and Quickly

One of the great things about being a freelancer is the flexibility freelancing gives you. You can change and adapt your business quickly for any number of reasons. Evolving mine in this somewhat Taoist way of aligning personal interests with business enables me to lead what I consider a more successful business and lifestyle.

It’s not realistic to change your business 180 degree and think the transition will be a smooth one. It would be akin to starting over for the most part. However it’s fairly easy to add a service here, drop one there, and use new interests to create products, etc.

You can continue to evolve your freelance business as you evolve as a person and use your outside interests as part of differentiating your business from those around you..

Ultimately I feel as though I’m going with the flow, which is where Taoism comes into play. The flow of my life takes me in one direction and I adapt my business to flow in that same direction. I see my business as an extension of who I am as a person.

The evolution is all still related to where I started. I was a web designer and developer then and I’m still a web designer and developer now. Some of the specifics have changed, but the general theme remains the same.

The changes both myself and consequently my business take keep both in harmony with each other and I think allow me to produce a greater quality of work that continues to lead to both a greater financial success as well as a greater sense of satisfaction.

This greater quality ends up opening new doors to business models and business opportunities. In the end it’s passion leading business.

Summary

At the start of this post I mentioned that I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all solution to most problems. How you start and run a business is no exception. Choosing a topic you feel passionate about and starting a business around that topic is certainly one way to build a business. It’s not the only way.

My own preference is to start a business based not around passion in a specific topic, but the deeper reasons you feel passionate about that topic.

My father for example has been a collector of stamps and coins throughout his life. The obvious suggestion would be to build a business around stamps or coins. Looking deeper though his passion is really in the collecting. Any business that is based on collecting such as sports cards and memorabilia or comic books would likely be something he would have enjoyed building a business around.

Beyond the initial startup think of your interests and passions in how you grow your business. Some of your outside interests won’t fit, but many others will. We evolve as people and there’s no reason our businesses can’t evolve to meet our personal evolution as well.

This may not always be realistic, but more often than not it will be for many freelancers and small businesses.

When you feel passion for what you do so much of what’s necessary for success follows naturally. Work doesn’t feel like work and as a consequence you put more time into and have more energy for your business. You become better at what you do for the sheet joy of it. If you let your passion lead your business you increase your chances for success in many ways.

Back in college I remember the first day of each new semester was mostly about feeling out the professor in every class. We’d get a syllabus and see the requirements for the course. I’d sit there and think to myself how hard or easy each class would be and how much work would be required to get a good grade.

Some classes I could tell would be easy. I felt sure I would get an A. Other classes looked like they would be difficult and I would think if I tried really hard I’d be able to get a B.

A funny thing would happen. I usually did get an ‘A’ in those easy classes where I thought I could get an ‘A’. However no matter how hard I worked I could never get better than the ‘B’ in those more difficult classes. I had inadvertently set a limit on my success in those courses.

When I realized this I went into every class telling myself I would get an A and wouldn’t you know it, I started getting more ‘A’s in those classes. Not in all of them, but more of them.

The Limits We Set

A similar thing happens with our businesses. We think to ourselves how difficult some achievement will be and deep down don’t believe we can successfully achieve it. Or perhaps we’ve allowed our own biases to to creep into our business thinking. Because these biases are so deeply ingrained and often without logic they become impossible to break through.

Some limits aren’t necessarily bad. You have to make choices such as how to differentiate your businesses from others in the market. If you choose to focus on the high end of the market you naturally limit your ability to succeed with the low end of the market.

That’s not a bad thing. It’s a conscious decision to do well in one aspect of business at the exclusion of another. It’s one of the tradeoffs we have to make to succeed.

For example I tend not to work with larger clients. I didn’t like working for them and have a hard time believing I’ll like working with them. Does it limit my business? In some ways it absolutely does. It also helps me identify those clients I’ll enjoy working with more and consequently those clients I’m better able to serve. It helps set how I write content on this site and how I generally market myself. It helps direct me in many ways.

I consciously limited my success in one area in order not to limit my success in another. My view of larger clients does limit my business, but I’m conscious of it so it becomes a choice I make.

It’s the limits we aren’t aware we set that create problems. When you’re unaware of a limit you’ve set, it’s hard to get past it. You can’t make the changes necessary, since you don’t even know you need to make those changes.

One of my clients is a good example of this subconscious self-limitation. The first time he ever contacted me I gave him some advice about seo. He took the advice and almost immediately saw an improvement in the search traffic his site received. Since that time he’s never listened to any advice I’ve given him about seo. I’m 1 for 1, but he’s always quick to let me know why my subsequent suggestions wouldn’t work for his business.

Over the years I’ve noticed he’s offered very little in the way of logical arguments as to why he won’t follow my advice. Having gotten to know him I can see how many of his objections are simply a result of some arbitrary reasoning or some ingrained belief formed without proof. He’ll often come to a conclusion and then create arbitrary logic to back that initial conclusion.

Ultimately these places limits on how much his business can grow. He’s stuck in his ways and as a result his business is stuck in its ways.

What Limits Us?

Lots of things potentially limit us and many are unique to each of us. It’s usually our own psychological history that has led to these unseen limits we place on our success. A few common limitations I see all the time are:

• Fear
• Self Doubt
• Lack of trust and self confidence in ourselves
• Resistance to stepping outside of our comfort zones
• Playing it safe instead of taking smart and managed risks
• Negative belief system
• Personal biases

These are hardly all the possible ways we limit ourselves, though I think the list above is fairly common. Fear is a natural part of being human. Self Doubt, lack of trust, lack of self confidence are common to all people who pursue creative work like design. Even the best designers wonder if their work is any good at times.

It’s much easier to play it safe and stay inside our comfort zones than it is to take a chance and step outside them. As human beings we all develop our own set of biases to the world. We like this and don’t like that for no reason we’re aware.

The thing is for your business to reach new levels of success you need to get past these self limiting behaviors. Your businesses needs you to trust in your decisions and to take intelligent risks. It needs you not to make decisions based on arbitrary biases. It’s all well and good for you to prefer an email over a contact form when contacting someone, but to not offer the contact form to your visitors only limits how many of them will contact you and become clients.

How To Overcome Your Limits

Recognizing you have a problem is the first step in solving it. Our self limits are no exception. Your first step is see how you limit yourself. This isn’t necessarily easy, but it’s certainly possible. Ask yourself why you make decisions. Seek to understand your reasoning behind the choices you make.

If you consistently do this you’ll likely see patterns emerge that you weren’t aware of and often these patterns will be clues into your own biases and self limiting behavior.

If you find this hard ask someone you trust to help. What’s difficult for us to observe in ourselves is often easy for other to observe in us. You may find yourself being defensive when someone points out ways you limit yourself, but try not to react. Simply think over what they’ve said and ask yourself if they may be right. You don’t have to accept what others tell you, but it can be a great way to discover unknown parts of yourself.

Overcoming Limitations in Creativity

At the same time we need to learn that others around us aren’t perfect. They too have their biases and doubt and issues. I think the biggest limitations creatives place on themselves are those that relate to doubt and self confidence. It’s important to learn to trust yourself and your decisions. All creative people struggle with the blank page. You see the finished product in others, but you don’t see their struggle to get to that finished work.

Do your best and then be objective. See the good you do instead of focusing solely on what you don’t do well. Start with the good and recognize it as a strength. See your weaknesses as opportunities to improve instead of letting the self doubt creep in. You do good work. Perfect, no, but there is good in what you do. Learn to see your work as objectively as you can in order to identify strengths to build on and weaknesses to improve.

Each little success builds self confidence. When you have even the smallest of successes congratulate yourself and realize you are capable of even greater success. Then move on toward achieving your next small success. Success doesn’t happen overnight. It seems that way looking at others from the outside, but success comes about through consistently making incremental improvements. See your small successes along the way as necessary steps to the greater success you envision.

Always be improving. You’ve identified a weakness so now learn how to strengthen it. Are you unhappy with the graphics you create? Spend some time with your graphic program of choice and learn to use it better. Experiment with new skills and techniques and have fun with the process. The more you do something, the better you’ll get at it.

Use your strengths to lead you in developing a creative advantage. What do you do better than others? Find your strengths and use them to set you apart.

The key to more creative success is to trust in yourself and to continue making incremental improvements in your skills. Don’t look at what you can’t yet do. See what you do well and what you do better now than six months ago.

Overcoming Limitations in Business

When it comes to business I think our greatest limitations are the resistance to taking managed risks and stepping outside our comfort zones. Risk is an inherent part of business success.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.—Unknown origin

Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration
—Thomas Edison

The two quotes above are at odds. The first tells us to change when things aren’t working and the second tells is to try again. Both are the right advice in different circumstances. I think the first is more along the lines of what we need to do to overcome self imposed limitations.

Our businesses get stuck in part because we continue to do the same things as we always have. However we’ve likely wrung all the success we can get from our current methods and reaching another level of success might mean doing something different or taking a chance on something we think will help.

That something different might be:

• Trying new marketing channels
• Investing in new software, hardware, etc
• Spending more on advertising
• Making changes to your business model

The above is obviously not an exhaustive list. Notice that none are guaranteed to work and each would have some risk associated with trying. You wouldn’t jump into something like changing your business model without reason. The point is you also shouldn’t allow you own limits to affect that decision.

Don’t tell yourself a new marketing channel can’t work before you’ve even tried. Don’t be afraid to spend money when it has the potential to bring more money back to your business. Don’t be afraid to make significant changes to your business when something is telling you those changes need to be made.

One Way I Limited My Business and Then Overcame the Limitation

A few years ago this site was on a different domain. When I started this business I had just helped with the creation of a web hosting site and thought the idea of hosting would be a good way to earn a living. The word hosting was naturally in my domain name. Then I came to realize I didn’t really care for hosting or feel qualified to offer hosting related services.

I saw myself as a web designer, but my business suggested I was a web host. I knew that I needed to change domains and place more focus on the design and development services I offered. But I hesitated and did nothing.

There were risks associated with changing a domain and company name. I had done a certain level of branding and people knew me by the business name. I had worked years to build up search engine traffic associated with a domain and the many URLs on the site. While some of the risks could be mitigated, moving to a new domain was going to have its pains.

Traffic would decrease. I expected to lose subscribers to the blog. Some who knew me would be confused and branding work to that point would have to be entirely redone.

For a year I allowed my business to stagnate due to my own fears and self doubt about changing it. Deep down I knew I needed to make changes, but I allowed my fear to place limits on the business.

Summary

Often when our businesses become stuck the reasons are our own self imposed limitations. We limit ourselves and our businesses through fear and self doubt, through choosing the safety of comfort over the risk of stepping out of comfort zones, and through personal biases we can’t logically explain.

The first key to overcoming these limitations is to recognize them. You need to see where you might be limiting the growth of your business and understand what personal mechanisms are at play. Admitting you have a problem is the first step in overcoming that problem.

As a creative professional it’s important to learn to trust in yourself and your abilities and realize that all creatives have self doubt at times. Find your strengths and use them as a competitive advantage. Understand your weaknesses and seek to improve them.

As a business owner understand that safe only gets you so far. At times you need to take risks, but with those risks comes the potential for great rewards. The easiest way to break away from fearing risks is to take small calculated risks. Your success will build confidence in your decision making and you’ll see that the world won’t come to an end if a smaller risk doesn’t pay off as you’d hoped.

Think about where and how you might be limiting your business. Sometimes consciously limiting one area of your business makes sense to you as an individual or the business as a whole. But you need to consciously be aware of how your limiting things in order to make that determination.

Do you know where you limit your business? Are you willing to push through your self limiting behaviors in order to reach for greater success?

My Experience

When I first started a freelance web design business. I didn’t ask for deposits. It made me feel uncomfortable to ask a stranger for money before having done any work for that person. I also wanted to run my business with more trust, more me proving my value before asking for money.

After talking to a client on the phone or exchanging emails I wanted to believe everything would work out fine. I wanted to believe the hard part was getting the client to contact you in the first place and after that the rest would follow easily.

Boy, was I naive.

Unfortunately early on I was ripped off a couple of times by people who never had any intention of paying. I always held on to project files until payment was made so they didn’t get anything from me, but I did put in considerable time developing a site without ever getting paid.

These experiences were few and far between, but they did occur and one or two is more than enough to make you want to protect yourself.

Another experience over the years has been with clients who continue to expand the project during the development lifecycle. On several occasions where I didn’t collect a deposit the client would continue to add to the scope of the project just as I was about to finish and be able to collect. Without asking for money the project would just continue further locking me into having to finish the new requests because of how much I’d invested already in the project.

Eventually I decided upon the rule that prior to beginning work I would ask for a deposit. I was nervous the first time I asked, though it’s never been an issue or cost me a job. It’s not the first thing I bring up with people. I usually wait till a time when I feel confident the client will hire me. Never has someone backed out because of my asking.

As a rule I now ask client’s for a deposit. With some long time clients I won’t and with very small jobs where the final price is going to be small enough where I can afford to lose the time, I may not ask for one either. I do know some service based providers who ask for payment in full prior to starting a small job.

One other advantage to asking for deposits is they help smooth cash flow. Many freelance designers will find themselves busy one month and not so busy the next. You’ve probably experienced a few times where you were waiting on a big check while looking at the all the bills you needed to pay yesterday.

Asking for a deposit breaks up the one large check into 2 or 3 smaller ones and makes it more likely there’s some money in the account when you’re paying the bills and for those times you want to invest to grow your business.

The Issue of Trust and Minimizing Risk

There’s a question of trust in all business transactions and relationships. When you’re first starting to work with a new client neither of you know each other. You don’t know if they’re going to pay. They don’t know if you’re going to do the work. At some point you do need to trust each other if you’re going to work together

Without a deposit you as designer take on 100% of the financial risk in the project. While most client’s are good and honest people, it’s possible you can finish a site or application, hand off all the files to the client, and never receive a dime. Or the client could see your finished work decide it’s not what they wanted and move on. Either way you put in a lot of work for nothing.

On the other hand if a client gives you a deposit then they’ve taken on the financial risk for an amount equal to that deposit. They don’t know at that point if you’ll deliver anything. Sadly some designers never do. There are certainly stories of clients paying without ever getting anything in return.

The major difference with the deposit is no one is taking 100% financial risk for the project. In the beginning the client risks 50% (assuming a 50% deposit) of the price of the job as a show of good faith.. After you as designer have finished half the job you’re risking more and more until the project is finished where you’re now at risk for 50% of the project price.

Some designers will use a payment schedule like a third up front, a third after the client has signed off on the design comps, and a third on completion. In this way no one is ever at risk for more than a third of the the total cost of the project.

Ultimately someone will be at risk during project development and you and the client need to trust each other to work together. Ideally you’ve gotten to know enough about each other to have developed some level of trust and some level of relationship. You both ask questions of each other and trust in small ways until you feel comfortable working together.

Asking for a deposit or payment schedule minimizes the absolute risk you take on with any new job.

Some Service Based Business Don’t Require Deposits

In the forum thread I pointed to at the start of this post, it was mentioned that a number of service based business exist where payment is 100% after the work is finished. Not everyone asks for a deposit. These might include:

• Plumbers
• Electricans
• Dentists
• Auto Mechanics
• Dry Cleaning

Those are just a few I pulled from the thread and we can easily add to the list. Clearly the standard with some service based businesses is not to collect a deposit.

Plumbers and electricians will sometimes charge for the service call whether you accept the work or not. In some ways this is similar to a deposit in that it minimizes their risk in coming out to your home. It also serves as incentive for you to hire them. Not all will do this so I don’t know if it’s an industry wide standard.

Why do some industries require a deposit where others don’t? What can you do in order to collect on an unpaid invoice?

Your Recourses for Getting Paid

I think a big part to the questions above is the recourse the services provider has. Take an auto mechanic. If you don’t pay they keep your car. They did take a deposit and the deposit is your vehicle. You’re going to pay. The same is true of for the dry cleaner. They have your clothes. You want them back and so you’ll pay their bill.

No monetary deposit was necessary in either case because your physical property stands in lieu of a financial deposit.

Think about plumbers and electricians. They aren’t asking for a deposit and they don’t hold your property. They do have a physical presence. They could for example not leave until you pay them. They also know exactly where you live so they can continue to come back asking for payment.

With the dentist you’re going to need his or her services again. You could always switch dentists, but how long do you think it would be before word got around with the other dentists in your area if you never paid your bill?

All of these business not collecting a deposit have other recourses for getting paid and minimizing their financial risk. Most online service based businesses, designer’s included, don’t have these recourses. We can hold onto the files we’ve worked on or created, but that’s pretty much it. If a client refuses payment there’s only so much we can do to collect. Most of us would take the loss and eventually move on to the next client.

The Type of Client Makes a Difference

Another idea that arose in the thread was that you wouldn’t necessarily ask a large corporation for a deposit. The decision to ask for deposit does have something to do with the type of client. That is true, but there are reasons for that.

1. There’s more to gain with a bigger client. Your corporate client likely has a bigger project, with a greater price, and a greater potential for more of the same. With greater reward comes greater risk. That is to say we’re usually willing to take a bigger chance when the potential reward is that much greater.
2. Recourses do exist with the bigger client. Where you might not require a signed contract for a $500 job, you more likely would for a $10,000 job. Even if you don’t the corporate client will almost always insist on one. That contract comes with legal protection as does the price of the job. It’s not usually worth it to take a $500 client to court. It would be worth it to take the $10,000 client to court.
3. There’s a different kind of trust involved with the larger client. True you don’t really know the client, but you’ll have more trust for getting paid from IBM than you will from John Smith (Apologies to all the decent and honest John Smith’s of the world). You’re less likely to think IBM will welch on the bill. They might not pay as quickly as you like, but you feel confident they will pay your invoice.

Even with all of the above you still might collect something prior to completing work. A project from a large client might take months, even years to complete, and few expect a small business or freelancer to not collect anything for that length of time. It’s entirely likely the corporate client would set up a payment schedule with you.

Another type of client who you might not seek a deposit from is a repeat client. You’ve gotten to know each other and have developed a trusting relationship with them. Some of my clients have been clients for years and we’ve reached a level of trust where I don’t ask them for a deposit and they don’t ask me how much a job will cost.

Either of us could get screwed, but we’re comfortable enough with each other to know this isn’t going to happen and both of us will do what we can to make sure the other is happy in the case of disagreement. Treating existing clients with a greater level of trust is one way to grow your business and get them to recommend your services.

Alternatives to Deposits

From reading above you can probably tell I think asking for a deposit is important to your success as a freelance designer. Are there alternatives? Are there other ways we could minimize the financial risk when taking on a project?

The idea of looking for alternatives is one that came up in the forum thread, in part, as a way to help differentiate your business. If everyone requires a deposit and you don’t then clients might be more willing to work with you as there’s no risk to them to get started.

Contracts are one way both designer and client gains some protection. Legal protection is a great thing to have, but again you probably need to go to court to get the benefit of that protection. Is it worth going to court to recover $200? $500? $1,000? At some point the money involved is worth time in court. Where that is may not be so clear. Contracts can be great, but unless you can realistically enforce them they aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.

You also have to consider the issue of working with people in other countries. Which country’s laws apply? Where would the case be tried? Is it possible to get both parties physically present in court? These questions shouldn’t keep you from getting a signed contract. They’re simply to point out that a contract isn’t necessary a perfect way to recover a non-paid fee.

One idea that came up in the thread was to use an escrow service. An interesting idea though one I don’t think reasonable for small jobs. The escrow service will naturally want to be paid. Which side ultimately pays the fee. client or designer? For a small job it really doesn’t make sense to pay a third party to hold the money.

A similar idea would be to hire an arbiter to settle disputes. Again this probably isn’t a realistic idea with a small job due to the cost involved.

You might think holding onto login information for various aspects of the client’s site would be enough to give you some assurances of being paid. The thought has occurred to me once or twice to simply return a client’s site to the exact state prior to my working on it when they were avoiding paying my invoice. I often make a backup of files before working on them so it would be easy enough to download the modified file and replace it with the original.

This isn’t an ethical solution in my point of view though, and in the end still doesn’t get you paid. It might keep the client from getting your work for free, but it’s not something I would endorse. It breaks trust and ultimately could impact your brand in a negative way.

You can also try anti-marketing where you spend time promoting through various channels How the client in question doesn’t pay bills. Again not the most ethical solution to the problem, but one that probably feels good.

That’s about all I can come up with for alternatives and none works as well as asking for a deposit or setting up a payment schedule. I’m, always open to new ideas and if you have any I’d be happy to hear them. For now though, I’ll stick with collecting a deposit and occasionally taking a chance with some clients.

Summary

Collecting a deposit for web design work has become the standard way of doing business for a reason. Sadly it’s too easy for bill to go unpaid when you never physically meet a client and have little to no recourses for collecting your fee. In an ideal world there would be no need to get paid something upfront, but the world we live in is far from idea.

Most clients are good and honest people with every intention of paying your bill. However all it takes is one or two not so good and not so honest people to rip you off before you have to pull some trust back from everyone.

A deposit lessens the absolute risk either party takes. No one is then risking 100% of the financial cost of the project. It takes some of your risk and places it on the client, but overall it’s fair to both parties. Don’t be afraid to ask for a deposit.

Do you ask for deposits before starting a project? If so are there times you won’t ask for one? Do you only consider them when the project price will go over a certain amount? Any ideas for ways to protect yourself without asking for a deposit?

A few days ago Seth Godin published one of his usual short, pithy posts, Choosing your customers. The essence of the post is:

Yes, you get to choose them, not the other way around. You choose them with your pricing, your content, your promotion, your outreach, and your product line.

You’re choosing your customers or clients with how you brand your business.

My Retail Experience

A number of years ago I worked in a picture framing shop. I remember one day a woman walked into the shop who was a royal pain in the you know what. She was making a lot of pointless requests and expecting me to jump through hoops to meet those pointless requests. I didn’t. I treated her well, but wasn’t willing to do the hoop jumping thing, instead politely declining.

When she left I figured she wasn’t going to be a return customer. At first I thought about whether or not my boss would be upset with the way I handled the situation. I didn’t treat her with a “customer is always right” attitude, but rather a “this is how we do things here” attitude. Again I was always nice and polite. It’s simply that I didn’t bend over backwards to do things in a way different from how our shop worked.

I started thinking more about it and thought that for every person who might not come back to our shop because they didn’t get exactly what they wanted, there was probably someone leaving another shop in town because they didn’t get exactly what they wanted there.

If we treated customers in accordance with how we wanted them to be, over time more of the customers we wanted would become customers of our shop and more of the customers we didn’t want to deal with would be customers of one of the other shops in town that catered to that type of person.

By each shop sticking to its brand the customers in town would slowly redistribute themselves to the stores who’s brand most aligned with their individual personalities and shopping habits.

There are Enough Clients to Go Around

Most markets have different submarkets, niche markets, each with customers with different interests, needs, and wants. When you make decisions about what your brand will be you inevitably target different groups of people within the overall market. Your brand will appeal more to some and less to others. Ultimately it’s you that chooses who your business appeals to.

You’ve probably heard the expression about time, price, and quality (fast, cheap, and good). You can get 2 of the 3 when hiring someone, but not all 3. If you want something done fast and cheap, don’t expect it to be good. If you want something good and need it fast, expect to pay a hefty price. If you want something good and inexpensive, understand it will take some time to complete.

As a service provider you can also realistically pick only 2 of the 3 as part of your brand. Which you focus on is going to determine the kinds of clients attracted to your business. Do you want to be the business that’s inexpensive with a quick turnaround or the the business that produces truly great work for a price? Neither is better or worse for your business. They’re just different in that they attract different kinds of clients and require different details in your business model.

When you research a market to choose a niche or decide how you’ll differentiate your business from the competition, what you’re ultimately doing is choosing who your customers will be.

Most markets have plenty of potential customers. There are usually enough to go around. Web design is certainly no exception. Many, many people have or want websites and they need to hire someone to create and maintain them. You don’t need all of them to hire you to have a successful business. You only need a handful and you get to pick and choose who that handful will be by how you build your brand.

Build your brand to appeal to the type of client you want to work with and let some other web designer pick up the clients you prefer not to work with.

There are two components to brand:

1. The sum of all associations, both positive and negative someone has with your business.
2. The number of people that have associations with your business.

The second component above is reach. It’s how far your brand has spread. When most of us think about brand we think about large companies that everyone knows. These companies have a large reach. We all know them and have thoughts and feelings about those companies.

For example if I mention Apple, Microsoft, and Google you know who I’m talking about. On the other hand if I mention McGuckin Hardware you probably don’t know who I’m talking about unless you live in or near Boulder. McGuckin’s reach is mostly local.

To me the more important component of brand is the sum of all those associations. This is especially true for small businesses and freelancers. Our reach is never going to be that of Google. It doesn’t need to be. What’s important to us is that those people we want to reach have a sum positive association with us and our businesses.

What’s also important is that we’ll never be able to get everyone to have a positive association with us. No matter what price you set for your services, some will think it fair, some will think it overly expensive, and some will think you’re underpricing yourself. You can’t please everyone, which is the whole point of this post.

Don’t try to please everyone. Try to please the kind of people you want to work with. Identify who those people are and understand what they want and need. And then build your brand around those things. By doing so you’ll be choosing your clients instead of them choosing you.

Summary

It may sound strange at first to think we get to choose who are clients are, but we really do. We choose our clients with the choices we make in building our brand. Our choices will inevitably appeal to some people more than others.

If you align your choices about price, content, marketing, quality of services with the wants and needs of the people you want to work with then it’s you choosing them instead of the other way around. If you’re not attracting the type of client you want look to your own decisions and think about who it is you’re targeting.

You choose who your clients will be by making your business the obvious choice for them. It may seem like they’re the ones making the decision, but ultimately it’s you making the decision for them.

Ask yourself who you want to work with and what would make those people hire you. Then be that person, that business that they want to hire. Don’t wait for the right clients to find you. Be the brand the right clients for you will choose.

Last week we were talking about design as a commodity and if you remember my argument was that design itself wasn’t a commodity, but the business of design could be commoditized. I closed the post with:

If we don’t want the latter to happen we should do what we can to consistently improve our skills and create better and better designs. We should never use price as a selling point and by example show others that good design outperforms bad design.

Sarah left an interesting comment on the post:

the key is to concentrate on our strengths and differentiate by demonstrating the value we can add to a business rather than simply showcase our design skills.

It’s important that we promote our strengths and differentiate ourselves from the competition. It’s what keeps us from becoming a commodity and what inspires people to hire you as opposed to someone else.

How to Differentiate Your Business

One key to differentiating your business is in the word itself. You have to do something different. You have to do something your competition either doesn’t do or better yet, can’t do. Any time you offer something the competition doesn’t, you make yourself more appealing to a subset of the overall market that’s interested in that something different you offer.

Ideally you’d be acknowledged as the best or only one offering this additional thing, but realistically you won’t be.

I think that’s ok. Each way you can be unique or better separates you from some of the competition. It puts your business in a niche that will appeal more to some people. You may appeal to less people overall, but what your selling matches much more tightly with what a certain group of people are buying increasing the odds they’ll buy from you.

As a freelancer you probably realize you don’t need millions of clients to be successful. You need a handful. Your goal should be to align what you do with that handful of people as best you can in order to make yourself their best choice.

A simple example would be to focus locally. It might seem counterintuitive, since one benefit of working online is the broad reach, but there are many people who prefer to work with local businesses.

You’re likely not the only web design option in your home town, but there are certainly less web designers in your local market than across the world. Focusing on the local market will always be one way to differentiate your business from the majority of the competition.

There’s no one way or one best way to differentiate yourself, but there are three general ideas to help you determine what makes you unique and what you can offer that the competition can’t.

• You – No one on this planet shares exactly the same experience you do. You are uniquely you. You have skills and interests that I don’t have and that other web designers don’t have.

  Look outside your skills related to design and development. Are you a musician? Then you’ll likely understand better what musicians want and need in a website better than I do. You could focus on sites for bands and specialize in a way that most web designers won’t be able to.

• Analyze the competition – Spend some looking at the business of other web designers. What do they do well? What do they do poorly? If you find much of the competition fails to deliver on something then you can fill that gap by offering that something.

  Look at what indirect competitors are doing well that direct competitors aren’t. For example if you decided to focus locally what do designers in other cities do that designers in your city don’t.

• Listen to your market – Potential clients will tell you where the competition is failing by sharing their frustrations and desires. They’ll tell you what problems they need someone to solve. Your job is to solve those problems.

  Remember that your market isn’t everyone. Be specific in regards to who you’re listening to. Again assuming you’re focusing on a local market it’s possible the problem clients face in another city aren’t the same as problems clients face in your city. Listen to the general market, but pay more attention to your specific market

Once you have some ideas about how you can differentiate yourself be specific. It’s one thing to say you understand what musicians want and another to list specific issues they have and how you solve those issues.

Make sure you can really do what you’re claiming you can do. If you claim to understand the music industry better than other web designs, then you better understand the music industry better than other web designers. Potential clients will be able to tell easily whether or not you can back up your claims.

Be open to changing your unique selling proposition over time. People change, things change, technology changes. It’s ok to change what differentiates your business too. If you succeed by offering something unique your competition will notice and soon start offering the same thing.

Your business also needs to adapt and change. It’s possible that your skills and interests evolve over time. Maybe you’re no longer as interested in the music scene as you once were. It’s ok to change focus to another industry that interests you more as long as you understand you’ll need to do a little branding work.

Some will tell you that price is one way to differentiate your business. Technically that’s true, but it’s something you should avoid at all cost. Differentiating on price is what makes you a commodity and that’s what we’re trying to avoid.

The reality is that only the biggest of businesses can compete solely on price. Price differentiation means low margins. You make money in volume. I don’t know about you, but I can only serve so many clients at a time. Differentiating on price will only assure that you’ll work very long hours for very little pay.

My Story of of Being Unique

I’ve shared much of the following in previous posts, though maybe not in this exact context.

When I first started out I thought the best way to bring in clients was to appeal to as many people as possible. I offered every service I thought I could reasonably deliver. My thinking was that whoever the potential client was I would have something to offer that person.

I offered:

• Web design services
• Web development services
• SEO services
• Hosting Services
• Writing services
• Marketing services
• Programming services
• Carpentry services
• Singing Lessons

Ok, maybe not those last two, but hopefully you get the point that I tried to offer a lot. Unfortunately trying to appeal to everyone means appealing to no one. When you cast such a wide net you offer no compelling reason to choose you. You have no unique selling proposition.

While I’d like to think I was more than competent in each of the services I offered, the reality is it would be impossible to be better at all those things than everyone else. Any person focusing on one of those services would be better at it than me in a short amount of time.

With each iteration of my business I’ve paired down the services I offer and I’ll continue to do the same in the next iteration. Most likely in the future I’ll scale back on some of the seo services I offer to place more emphasis on the design and development services.

That may sound a little weird if you look up at the unique selling proposition of this site. Mt tagline reads “People Friendly & Search Friendly Web Design.” Clearly seo is a big part of how I’ve been differentiating myself. However search friendly design is only one aspect of seo as opposed to something like link building.

I can still differentiate myself as someone who can build a site that serves as a great foundation for seo without specifically offering link building services or keyword research services.

I haven’t just scaled back over time. I’ve also added new services, specifically around WordPress. WordPress wasn’t something I worked with when I first started my business. Over time though, I listened to the market wanting more for less cost and part of my solution was using WordPress as a CMS. It enables me to offer a lot of backend functionality without having to do all the backend programming. I can charge the same while offering more. That’s not the same thing as charging less while offering the same.

In fact choosing to work with a specific application or two can be a great way to begin to differentiate your business. Not everyone who designs and develops websites works with WordPress or Drupal or Joomla or any of the other hundreds of popular applications running sites.

True if you focus on Drupal you won’t appeal to those people wanting a WordPress site, but you will appeal that much more to those people who do want a Drupal site.

One more point that bears mentioning is that since day one I’ve always worked to be better at what I do. That may not make me unique in the types of services I can offer, but ideally it helps differentiate me in the quality of services I offer. Being better, especially when you can prove you give better results is one very strong way to differentiate your business.

Summary

Being a commodity is not good for a freelance designer’s business or for a freelance designer’s soul. If your business is a commodity it means competing on very low margins. It means watering down quality for the sake of being able to mass produce more and compete on price. I don’t think that’s why any of us got into this business.

It also means that someone with more resources than you will always be able to outcompete you. If you charge $5 an hour and I can turn a profit charging $4.50 who wins the price war. It’s in our best interest to avoid being commoditized, by emphasizing what we do better and what we do different.

When looking to differentiate, look to yourself, your competition, and your market. Look for gaps that aren’t being served and think about what you can do better than others. Think specialization in order to reduce your competition and appeal more strongly to a smaller group of people.

How are you differentiating yourself from the competition? What are you doing better than other designers? What are you doing that they won’t or can’t do?