Doing Business as a Designer:Building Your Business 1 Day at a Time

(Slide-u-mentary Version - made in google docs)

By Jae Xavier of KnowledgeCity.com 

Blog: jaexavier.wordpress.comTwitter: twitter.com/jaexavier

Introduction

This post is especially aimed at you younger voracious designers who are starting up. Sure, you’d like your design business to attract a lot of clients. And… sure, you’d want your design business to be the best there is, FAST. The truth is; business is about process. Every bit of a business has sub processes that make your design firm function properly.

What are those processes?

Here are the main sub processes that compose of a business: Sales and Marketing – Attracting and contacting prospects, identifying their needs, negotiate, and close the sale. Finance and Accounting – Paying invoices, manage receivables, manage debt, and manage the economics of your business. Administration – Hiring, leadership, and company structure. Operations – Preproduction, previsualization, concepting, production, rendering, customer service, tech support

What to expect

Early on, these processes start small. As your company matures, each of these processes will be administered either by you or someone you hire. This is a matter of preference for the founder(s) of the company. For example, you are the only person running your company. You may be managing all the aspects of your design business all by yourself.

Some Scenarios

Here are some scenarios to consider: If you want to grow your business faster, you can choose to focus on sales, marketing, finance, operations, and administration while you hire contractors to handle design work. You are more likely to get more customers but have lower profit margins because you are paying contractors. If you handle production, you will be neglecting sales and marketing. Therefore far fewer businesses will be coming in. However you will have larger profit margins.

Conclusion

Either way, it’s important to take it a step at a time; otherwise disorganization will infect your business, distraction will cloud your vision, and you will become easily lost.

Want to know more?

ResourcesSBA and SCORE Small Business Management - Online TrainingProfessional Sales – Online TrainingMarketing Concept – Online Training ArticlesDoing Business as a Designer: Getting StartedDoing Business as a Designer: The Article Collection at Scribd