Freelance - CMD+Shift Design

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SHINE: The Entrepreneur's Journey

SHINE: The Entrepreneur’s Journey A short film by Dan McComb & Ben Medina

This is a good watch, lots of business owners talking very candidly about their ideas and experiences.

Nov 15 10

Informational Interview with Student from Western Washington University – Part One

A few weeks ago, I got an email from a Senior in the Graphic Design program at Western Washington University. She was interested in meeting up to do an informational interview with me. I had done a couple of these with designers myself when I was in school, so it was cool to have the opportunity to be on the other side of the table and hopefully offer up a young person in our community some advice.

While much of what was covered in the interview are things that I touched on before on this blog, I decided some of you might like to see what we talked about. The interview was a little over an hour, so I am going to publish this in parts, here you go! Thank you to Nicole for the transcription!

Interviewed by: Nicole Adsit, Friday, October 22, 2010.

What got you jump started into computer graphics? Did you go to school specifically for that?

No I actually started school as a fine artist, emphasizing in painting and drawing. Computers were my guilty pleasure. In the art world it’s not cool to spend your evenings coding websites so it was a thing that I liked to do but didn’t really talk about it and didn’t really think about it in a way of a career. At the end of my freshman year in college I had a professor that saw that I had an eye for design and talked me into doing a double major. Then I realized I loved design and that I could feel creatively satisfied from it …plus I could incorporate this love of computers into a visual medium.

Once you graduated how did you enter into the field?

When I graduated it was a shock to me because I did really well in school and got a lot of encouragement from my professors so I was expecting to move from school into career but it was really tough getting my foot in the door for that first job.

The first job I got out of school was for a company that made high-end presentation material — mainly portfolio books. Their mail client base was commercial photographers and they had a full design department that offered design, branding and marketing services to commercial photographers. Now, I really wanted to get in there doing design — but they weren’t gonna hire me cause I had no experience.

They did have a sales position available though selling the portfolios and I thought I can do this, get my foot in the door that way. I worked as a sales person for almost year got close with the Art Director showed her projects I was working on on the side and one day she said “Hey, Do you want to try giving me some ideas on this project?” So I went home worked on that and within a few months I was pulled out of the sales job and started as a designer. I was there for almost 5 years collectively before I left to start my own business.

So it was taking whatever I could and being like, “I know I’m not going to be a designer but I at least wanna be around creative people,” and in that environment I just focused on learning whatever I could about the business and making myself indispensable there.

When you were doing projects on the side what were they?

It was stuff for friends and family. Sort of freelancing but I wasn’t changing back then, It was mainly just for fun. I did some design for friends bands; t-shirts, album covers, stickers… I mean I was doing sales all day so when I went home I wanted to do creative design stuff.

So what made you decide to jump into opening your own shop?

I had been with the same firm for a while and I was feeling like I had reached the end point and wanted to move on. I started looking for another full-time position, just doing design for another company. I was at one interview for an in-house position and they were asking me all typical interview questions and one was “What do you see your doing in 5 years?” I was like, “Well, I would really love to have my own business; I’d really like to do freelance work and start my own company,” The guy interviewing me asked, “well why don’t you do that now?” and I didn’t have an answer, that had never occurred to me. I said something, whatever good interview answer that I came up with, I don’t know.

When I left the interview though, I was thinking, “well why don’t I just do that? Why wait 5 years?” So I started laying the ground work and left my job 4 or 5 months after that point.

How big is your design firm?

I’m a one woman show right now. I have worked with other freelancers, outsourced some work, I bring on other developers or designers from time to time but for the most part it’s just me.

So your focus is web?

I specialize in web and work a lot with websites powered by WordPress. But from my former work, I have that background in print work — I have clients where I do all their stuff; logo, collateral materials, print marketing, web site, all of it

What steps did you have to take to start your business? Did you have a client base?

I kept my job, I didn’t quite the next day. I started saving my money to create a bit of a nest egg. I knew that I had to have some what of a nest egg to keep me going through the early times. I contacted some of the creative temp agencies in the area like Filter, Big Fish, Creative Circle — these are agencies that specialize in the creative industries. They work like temp agencies: you go into them and let them know what you can do, they look at your portfolio and they have contacts with all the big design firms and large corporations that have in-house departments. If they know that you can do the job at hand they give you a call. They are really great resources for short term or long term contracts.

So I went in and interviewed with them and let them know I was going to be looking for freelance work in the next few months. That was encouraging, there was a lot of security in those positions but also a lot of freedom. When you’re on a contract there’s a little bit of security but you’re not an employee. I ended up taking a short term contract doing web development for a hospitality company in town… it was only 15 – 20 hours a week, but that was enough to allow me to leave my job, pay rent and stuff. Once I landed that I left and started focusing on building my personal brand online, networking with people building up a client base.

When you first started networking did you just call up people?

I’ve never done a cold call in my life. A lot of my networking was through other people. This person would introduce me to this person. Basically, getting to know one person, them hooking you up with someone else, and so on… meeting other designers.

Did you have any of your clients from your former job follow you? Did you take any clients?

No. I think that would be completely unethical to steal someone else’s clients. My former job actually became one of my top clients and would hire me out for freelance work regularly and I still have a working relationship with them. And after being gone for several years, I have had some clients I worked with back then that have since ended their relationship with my former employer come to me, but to actually take a client — I just see that as shady.

How has it been for a small start up company in this rocky economy?

I started working full time in February of 2008 which was the beginning of the recession. You would think that would be the worst time but I feel that was the best time. I feel like if I can be successful in the last three years then it’s only gonna get better from here.

Oct 15 10

Website's Making Me Think

After a very busy work week last week, this one has been a little slow. I have a few project quotes I’m working on that I am excited about (just need at least one of them to come through and I will have made my gross earnings goal for the year!)

DON'T MAKE ME THINK!

Much of this week I have been extremely aware of the usability (or lack of it) for all the websites I visit. As you may know, I am reading Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think for this months Pagebreak Podcast and I am really enjoying it. Anyone interested in web design or improving the site they own should pick this up.

Lastly, I’ve been working on a project I have wanted to work on for a long time now… and I may have even mentioned it before on the blog. I have some great content in this sites archives, so I have gathered it all up and I am not in the process of editing it, piecing it together and adding all new content to create an Ebook. I’m still in the starting stages of this, but It’s going to turn out to be about 2 parts freelancers advice guide and 1 part personal memoirs. It’s a big project to take on, but I’ve gotten excited about it!

Sep 2 10

PageBreak Podcast with Niki Brown & Liz Andrade

(Hey, that’s me!)

So the wait is finally over, Niki and I have been scheming about this for a long time now and then over the last couple weeks pulled it all off…

PageBreak is a design, business and marketing-themed book club and podcast, started by Liz Andrade and Niki Brown. The main goal of the club is to build a strong online community of designers, developers, freelancer (like ourselves) and to discuss and enjoy books about the stuff we love to do!

We’re starting out with the plan to pick a new book and record a show at the end of each month, so if you have a suggestion we’d love to hear them! You can subscribe to the show via iTunes or stream the show at pagebreakpodcast.com (we’re working on a site with commenting and all that jazz, so stay tuned…)

Book #1? Rework by 37Signals Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. Make it through the show (or download it and skip to the end) to find out what we’ll be reading for September, maybe you’d like to read along? If you’ve read Rework and you want to discuss it with me and Niki or other listeners of the show – head over to the GoodReads PageBreak group!

Jun 30 10

I Don't Work Weekends

CATURDAY After 2.5 years in business — I still think of myself as new to the game. I am just getting started, still learning and still have plenty of room to grow! However sometimes those who are even newer to running a business than me ask how I do it. How do I market myself, get clients, get money, do projects, etc, etc? I don’t have much of a strategy or a secret. My business plan consist of this, “Do work I am proud of for businesses that I want to see succeed.” I realize this isn’t very helpful information to any of you who might be looking to me to help you find your path on the entrepreneurial road, sorry about that. After my last post and the response I got from everyone about it, I have this idea that maybe instead of talking about the things I do that may contribute to me staying in business, perhaps it will be more informative to talk about some of the things I DON’T do. So, some of you may be shocked by this one…

I don’t work weekends.

From Friday evening through Monday morning my home office stands untouched (unless my cat sneaks atop the desk to chew on a pencil – the little bugger!) I have a separate laptop for personal use, like laying on my couch watching youtube videos or making mixed CD’s. If you were to call my work phone on a Saturday evening — you’d hear my outgoing message informing you of my regular office hours and that the office is currently closed and many of you who follow me on Twitter even know — my stream slows a bit as the work week comes to an end.

I don’t work weekends, Except For When I do.

I’m not going to lie, I do check in on email at least a couple times a day — But (perhaps it is because I’ve already set the standard with my clients,) I rarely GET emails and never get phone calls on weekends!

Now, there are exceptions. If a client has an expedited project with me, I work whatever hours are needed to finish the job on time — weekend, holiday, day or night. If I commit to doing a rushed project and my client pays the additional fees involved — I am at their beck and call until we finish. Also… while I never tell a client I will be working on their project over the weekend and I never promise any deliverables during my days off — sometimes I work cause I just like to! …I love what I do and it can be a lot of fun, so sometimes I am typing up a style sheet at 9PM or laying out a blog comment form on a Sunday morning. But, shhh… don’t let my clients know. ;)

Family > Business

If you love what you do so much, why don’t you work weekends?

I love what I do, yes — but even more… I love my family and spending time with them (and my friends — which I group in that “family” label.) is something I value. Doing work you love is important, but having people to share your life with — there isn’t anything more important than that!

Over-Time is Over-Rated

But if you work more hours, you could make more money and build your business faster!

In some cases this may be true. But, the general rule that working more hours means you get more done, is bullshit.

At my old 9to5, I spent the better part of my 4 years with the company skipping lunch breaks, logging 50 – 60 hour average weeks. I took work home, I worked on weekends and eventually… as you might have guessed — I got burnt out! I started having terrible anxiety problems, I gained about 30lbs as a result of skipping meals and binge eating before bed. I found myself overworked and under appreciated. And then one day, I decided to change that.

You’re thinking “Oh! This is the part where she quits!” No.. no… by the time I left to start my business I had actually found myself in a much healthier situation at my former post. The reason for THAT is because I made a conscious decision to stop with all the extra hours. I deleted all my work files from my home computer, deactivated office email from coming to my house. I started eating lunch (mostly) everyday and made it a regular habit to be out of the office no later than 6PM. After a week of this, I was amazed that instead of getting less done — I was getting MORE done! I felt less burnt out and happier, I was more productive! Since I knew my time at the office was limited, I worked smarter and prioritized tasks in a more efficient way. I was logging a fraction of the hours and getting the same amount (if not more) work done!

My Final Thought

So there you go… I don’t have some crazy secret strategy on getting more client leads… just a glimpse at how and why I do (or don’t do) the things I do. Is my logic on this warranted or do you think it’s in spite of this practice that I’m staying in business?

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