I work with enough designers to know just how painful the current economic downturn has been to the other half of the creative community. For every project that goes forward, it sometimes seems like three or four are being postponed or canceled altogether.
But that doesn’t mean that your checking account has to suffer. As a veteran writer, trained economist, and experienced salesperson, I know a little bit about marketing yourself in a recession – I’ve even written a book about it. So how do you come out ahead when things seem so tough?
The key for designers is to stop thinking like the talented, creative professionals that you are, and start thinking like the managers and business owners who approve marketing projects. And what do these people really care about? It’s not colors, programming scripts, or even the quality of your work – it’s bottom-line profits.
Now more than ever, no company wants to pay out money for a new website unless they can see a very clear return on investment. Unfortunately, that’s something few creative teams are comfortable talking about. As a rule of thumb, they’re more at ease discussing pixels than profits. If you can get past that aversion to numbers, though, and show businesses how they’ll come out ahead by working with you, you’ll find that there are still and endless number of design projects to be found.
Besides, it’s not that hard to do. Dollar for dollar, a professional, functioning website is one of the best investments any business can make – especially at a time when the economy is tight. That’s because your work can help them in a myriad of ways: by cutting the time their employees need to be on the phone answering routine questions; by bringing new leads and customers through enhanced search engine optimization and marketing; by making it easy to advertise new products and specials, and so on. There are literally dozens of ways that a relatively small expense can help your client meet his or her business goals; your job is simply to show them how.
Don’t just settle for making the case for a new website as generically as I just did, however. If you really want to get the project, do some homework. Find out what your prospective client’s real problems are. Get to know where they make their money, and just as importantly, where they are losing it. Is there a particular competitor, or section of their customer base, that they need to be paying more attention to? Are they missing out on opportunities because they don’t have a fully functioning site? More often than not, this kind of information can be found with a couple of quick phone calls or e-mails. Make some notes and include any insights in your proposal.
The key to finding work in a tough economy – not to mention most other times – is appealing to the things your client cares about, not what you think should be important to them. By showing managers and business owners that a new or upgraded website can help them make money, especially when times are tight, you can go a long way toward getting them to open their checkbooks and work with your company.
About: Matthew Aaron
Matthew Aaron is a freelance copywriter and author of Selling in a Recession: 21 Tips and Strategies for Finding New Business in a Tough Economy. For the past ten years, he’s worked with designers across North America and the United Kingdom by coming up with web copy that reads well, generates online sales, and assists in search engine optimization.
You can see more about him and his writing at www.matthewaaron.com.
Well said Matthew! Thank you for that informational and educational article.
Intriguing and well-spoken points about the need for not only salespeople but for all creative professionals to focus on what the client wants, and what they care about.
On the other hand, I’ve found that many clients simply don’t know what they want and what they need. They may have a great drive to boost their sales and market their products or services, but they lack in one key area: finesse. That’s where creative professionals come in.
It certainly wouldn’t hurt for designers and developers of all kinds to “see the other side” as it were, to “find out what [their] prospective client’s real problems are” as you so succinctly put it. The smaller your design bureau or firm, the more than each individual member really needs that focus, that keen awareness of the client, as I see it.
On the other hand, this awareness of what the client “wants” or think that they need can often be terribly limiting, even distracting to creatives like designers and developers. Sometimes it would seem that we need to step outside of the narrow confines of “what the client wants” and instead give them something that will stir their imagination, their own perception of their product. It may not be something that they buy into immediately, but if the relationship is good, it may eventually bring something new to the client’s business.
This is really just another way of looking at what you said in your well-written article 😉
Howdy Matthew; I’m wondering if you can expand on where to find this sort of information about businesses. To be honest, apart from speaking directly to them (which may not work well), I wouldn’t have a clue where to start. I already focus on ROI and the importance of design quite heavily in my approach to prospective clients, but being able get more quantifiable information about their own businesses, such as you imply here, would be brilliant.
Regards,
Bnonn
Oops, I forgot to tick the “Notify me” checkbox before submitting my previous comment…so now I have to submit another. If I may suggest it, you’d improve your UX In the comments a lot by having that option above the submit button, rather than below.
Please feel free to delete this comment (:
I think there is some great stuff said here, as a freelance designer/studio owner, I have seen first hand the battle of wanting to be a creative designer along with the need to make money. Its a tough balance, its hard to be creative when you know the project you’ve committed to ain’t making much dough!
I agree that clients want to see why they need a new site, and I try and focus on the benefits, bit on the same token I don’t want to bend someone’s arms to commit a project with me, because I said I can increase their business, design the new site and their lead count actually goes down.
That’s not a fun call to answer, plus I am a designer and the reality is that very little “profits” come from a changed or improved design if they are they are miniscule, the areas that address the profit is SEO an d PPC, which is a service I offer, but its not designing.
its tough out there designers, and hopefully the tide will turn and business owners will begin to appreciate the esthetics we can bring to the table, I think that may happen before designers begin to think of how they can help a savy business owner “increase” profits, what do we really know about creating profits?
Like you said we’d rather talk about pixels than profits.
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Thanks and Regards
Noel for Nopun.com
a graphic design studio
Hi guys,
Thanks for all the great comments and feedback, and sorry for not answering the question sooner — I’m working on a few copywriting projects and trying to finish up my next book.
Bnon: you raise a great point. To answer it fully enough to be helpful, I may try putting together another article or e-book. In a nutshell, though, I generally use a combination of direct and non-direct sources.
The first and best spot for information, of course, is the owner or manager in question. Sometimes, they’ll happily share some insight about their current business situation with you just to get a bid that’s more specific, and one that can give them an idea of the expected ROI for their website. Remember, they want bottom-line improvement more than they do a pretty design, so if you frame your questions the right way, they just might tell you what you need to know.
In the real world, however, we all know doesn’t always happen like that. In those cases you can try looking through the clients websites/articles/press releases, or talking to a different employee for background research, but either of those is likely to be hit and miss.
A third way to go is to do a case study on a similar company in the area, or talking to a local association for their industry. Either of these, while time-consuming, will probably point you at 95% of the big challenges your client is facing at the moment. Incorporating those into your bid or proposal will almost always put you head and shoulders above other vendors, and give you a really good shot at winning the project.
As I said, this is just a quick glance over a few ideas. I’ll do a bit of research, and if I find that some of my clients struggling with these issues as well, maybe I’ll create a free e-book and posted to my website. I sometimes forget that I come from the sales, rather than creative, background and tend to approach some of these things a bit differently.
Matthew,
I think that thinking about design from a sales perspective is what a lot of us need to do more of these days. What it sounds like you are talking about is doing your research as much as you can before you try to close the deal. That can never hurt. Often it will make your new found client respect you more because you command more knowledge about their particular slice of industry or whatever.
Your article was a good read and I think contains some great lessons!
Speaking as someone who has had a website designed for them, it’s not just the asthetic look that has to look good but also the ease of page navigation.
With users getting well educated with websites knowadays it’s really a matter of getting the work done and desired results to be seen.
Great stuff Matthew! Great branding (and writing) can help sales staff with conversion and the bottom line.