Being an entrepreneur for many years, I’ve come to the conclusion that the sooner you accept that budgeting for a startup business website is as illusive as figuring out Google’s algorithm for search,  you’d be in a much better place.

If you’re an internet entrepreneur or any kind of  business owner for that matter,  chances are good that a large amount of your business success will depend on your online presence.  With that said;  the top 3 things young entrepreneurs worry about all the time are…  finance, finance and more finance.  Most entrepreneurs have a business idea and a plan to succeed.  What most of us are lacking is the ability to budget our startup costs effectively.  In our defense though, it can be difficult to predict what expenses a new business will incur as it grows. 

Building or designing a brand these days is more about building an effective online presence.  Which means finding a designer who is both talented and knowledgeable to understand and effectively implement your branding design strategies.  I’m not going to bore you with a branding design lecture at this point, but take a look at this great presentation on the importance of  branding design below.

It is my position that if you’re building a business to succeed, you should be mindful of the core ingredients for success.   Hiring the right web designer to build your website is  one of those core ingredients.

BUDGETING FOR YOUR WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT

Getting Website Design Services For Free

The ideal option is to find a worthy web developer and offer him a partnership in your new venture in exchange for his expertise. This will not only allow for a possible continuous and quality development of your company and brand identity, but also a major reduction in your startup cost.

Hiring a Freelancer or Web Design Firm

If on the other hand, you choose not to partner with a web designer then your next option would be to hire a freelancer or  web design firm.

How To Budget For A Web Design Project

Many young entrepreneurs get the initial quote from  a web designer and allocate the respective funds as their  web development budget.   The problem with this is that the initial quote that a designer gives you seldom proves to be the one you end up paying.  Sometimes it maybe less but most times it ends up being more.  Much more.

As a designer starts a project, he/she may not know the obstacles that will occur as the project gets on-the-way.  This is especially true for custom website design.

Custom website design can sometimes involve lots of programming which is not an exact science, hence, can easily add hours to your project, ultimately increasing your website budget.

So you should be aware about these things upfront as you’re negotiating the terms of agreement.  If you’re on a tight budget (like most young entrepreneurs), try to negotiate a project price instead of an hourly rate.  This way you’re sure to be able to manage your money a little better.

Do You Have A Post Launch Budget ?

Another thing most entrepreneurs overlook is the post launch expense of a website.

When a website is launched, aside from the inevitable bugs that will come up, there are many things that will not be apparent until your visitors start to use your website. For example:

·        How user friendly is the website ?

·        Is your call to action buttons in the right places ?

·        Are your signup forms too long or difficult to fill out ?

·        Are the landing pages effective ?

Once you determine that the Buy Now  buttons should be green instead of light blue and that you’d rather have a search bar at the top of the home page instead of a link on the side bar. You’re talking about more time and hence more money. 

These are just some of the things you should be mindful of as you budget, negotiate and ultimately hire  a web designer for your startup company.

What have been your experience with budgeting for a website design project?

Are you looking to hire a web designer for your startup business?  Request a free quote from our designers network.

When I decided to write this article I was inspired by all the people I knew that were having trouble finding work; some for a few months, others moving into a year.  It got me thinking about the extended length of time it takes to find a job these days.  I thought,  with all the qualified designers out there in resume databases and design portfolio websites, why are recruiters still having difficulty finding designers to hire. 

The reason is that recruiters seldom look for designers that are looking for work.  Instead they look for designers that are not looking for work.  Confused? Well, there are two phrases in the recruiter’s lexicon that are used constantly, “active” and “passive candidates”.  They prefer to hire the latter, simply because of the perception that good people are always employed and employed people are usually talented.   

 It’s kind of like that girl you liked in high school-- you chased her around to find out that she was not interested… that is -- until you got busy, ignored her, spend time working out, playing sports and becoming popular, and voila – Now she wants to hang out. 

Same is true for recruiters.  They want to discover you and not the other way around… So if that’s the case, let them.  Instead of wasting your time searching job boards and adding your resume to bottomless databases, how about coming up with a plan to build up your personal brand, showcasing your talents so they can find you.  Yes!  the personal branding talk yet again :)

To help you get started:  I’ve outlined a plan of action or blueprint with the necessary steps you’ll need to take  to find your next design job.  This will take some time to implement, so the quicker you get started the better.

First, I’ll create a fake designer persona (profile) so I can better address the designer specific needs:

Fictitious Designer Profile: 

Title: Fashion Designer

Experience:  3 years experience

Expertise: Great at design and illustration

Location:  Looking for a design job in New York City

Target Company to work for:   Donna Karen, Calvin Klein, Michael Kors

Next, I’ll outline the necessary steps you’ll need to take to establish your online presence.

The Design Job Getter Social Networking Blueprint

 (this plan assumes that you’re starting from scratch)

Steps to building your online personal brand

1.     Create a design portfolio website – If you don’t have the resources to do it yourself or pay someone, use a design portfolio website like Styleapple or Carbonmade to upload your work.   To maximize your exposure on these websites I recommend filling out your designer profile completely. 

Most portfolio websites search engines search keywords, disciplines and categories.  You’ll show up in more search results by simply taking the time to fully complete your profile. Generally speaking, images will not help to get  you found in a keyword search.

2.     Start a blog – preferably on Wordpress (free) or Hubspot (monthly fee - SEO assistance)

a.     Frequency of blog postings – 2 to 3 times per week.

b.     What do you blog about?  At least once a week you should have a new illustration or design work in which you demonstrate your creative process step by step from inspiration to sketch to fabric selection.

What you’re looking to accomplish here is  to share how you go about developing a collection or pieces in a collection.  It’s important that your future employer knows how you work. 

Other ideas for blogging include unconventional inspiration, fashion shows you like, your trips to the fabric store,  cool fabrics you discovered, designers you admire (hopefully one of which is the company(s) you’d like to work for. 

This is necessary for one important reason: companies are actively monitoring their brands online (utilizing brand monitoring tools) by subscribing to a number of  keywords that they deem important to their brands. Company name, head designer’s name, competitors names,  and product names are keywords you can expect to trigger a response or a review of what is being said online.   So why not talk about them!

This can be an effective strategy when job hunting. With that said, doing your research about the company, finding out what they are up to and writing blog articles about what’s important to them is a great way to get noticed.  So when your potential employer is searching the internet to find out who’s talking…. Well-- you’re talking and you’re saying “nice” things about them.

3.     Start accounts on the following social networking websites: Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn

a.     Twitter (To Do List)

                           i.      Tweet Frequency – 2 to 3 times per day.

                          ii.      Twitter Profile URL - Link your Twitter profile URL to your blog or Facebook business page, NOT your personal profile page

                         iii.      Whom Should I Follow? Start following designers from all disciplines including interior designers, web designers, industrial designers, illustrators, fashion designers, fashion companies, fashion schools, fashion editors, fashion bloggers, graphic designers, advertising agencies,  etc. – Anyone that may have some connections in your industry.

                         iv.      Twitter Bio –  Your twitter bio should be witty yet informative i.e.  Young Fashion Designer Looking For His Next Big Break – Will work for fabrics...

                          v.      Tweet Content – Let you personality shine here. Talk about things you find interesting personally and professionally.  Have your blog feed attached to your twitter account.  Retweet and comment on tweets from companies that you have an interest in. 

b.     Facebook (To Do List)

                            i.      Facebook Accounts - Start a personal profile as well as a business page (this will allow you to post design related content and get a fan base going.

                           ii.      Blog Feed On Facebook - Have your blog feed attach to your Facebook business page.  You can use the Social RSS application to do this.

                          iii.      Facebook Fans - Ask all your friends, family and associates to become fans on your business page, the more fans the better.

c.      LinkedIn

                           i.      LinkedIn Accounts - Start a LinkedIn account – Take the time to complete your profile (above 90%) for reasons mentioned above.

                          ii.      Get recommendations – Ask your colleagues or previous employers to write you a recommendation, at least three(3) recommendations will give you a leg up when being considered for a job.  I’ve gotten many jobs purely on a recommendation.

                          iii.      LinkedIn Groups - Join all the groups you have an interest in.  LinkedIn’s limit is 50 groups.  Join 50 LinkedIn Groups.  There are many design and recruiter groups you can join including Creative Design Pros,  Designers Talk and Fashion and Lifestyle.

                         iv.      Connection Selection - Find designers and recruiters in these groups and ask to network with them.    Be sure when asking to  connect with recruiters not to be pushy by asking them if they have any jobs available.  They’ll likely ignore your request simply because they get these requests all day, every day.  It’s better to start building a professional relationship first. 

It’s also important when networking and finding connections that you do not only ask fashion designers or designers in your discipline to connect with you.  It’s better to connect with designers outside your discipline as well. This is so if someone approaches an interior designer looking for a fashion designer, chances are good that they’ll only know one(1) fashion designer, YOU!

Once you’ve set up the above accounts, now you’re ready to look for a job or rather have your job find you.  Which, I will discuss in my next post where you’ll learn how to work these networks  and contacts to get your next design job.

Feel free to leave your questions and advice in the comments below, I would like to get your feedback.

Step 1 in finding a design job is creating a design portfolio of your best work.  Create your design portfolio on the Styleapple Designers Network now!  It's free and simple.

EBGE '09 Introductory Video from myrmigi design house

I am very pleased to introduce The Myrmigi Design House Team to our Hire A Designer series. Myrmigi Design House is a creative studio that offers high-end creative design services including motion design, graphic design, 3D design, and animation projects (2D/3D). You can read the design firm's full profile here.

The Myrmigi Design Team wrote a very comprehensive article on the The Top 10 Things to Look for When Hiring a Motion Graphics/Animation Designer. If you are thinking about hiring a motion graphic designer for your next project, this is a must read. See the complete article here.

1.    Free Marketing.  Your work is seen by both clients and peers with little marketing effort from you.

2.    High Visitor Traffic.  More traffic comes to your portfolio on a social network site than that of  your own website. Think about it... Which location do you think sees more "walk by traffic".  A mall (social network with thousands of designers)  or a business located on a side street in a residential community (single design website)?

3.    No Setup Cost. Most social network portfolio websites have a free option which means you pay nothing to set up your design portfolio.  

4.    Multiple Design Services. Social network sites offers a wide variety of design services which makes it easier for clients to find what they are looking for in one place, which translates to more clients finding your business.

5.    Job Opportunities Sent To Your Email Inbox.  Design portfolio social network sites with an integrated job board will send you jobs that are posted on their job board which is a convenient way to find new clients.  Styleapple also has a membership option (Pro Membership) where designers can receive quote requests directly from potential clients.

6.    Social Marketing.  Your design portfolio will most likely get tweeted, dugged, fanned, bumped, floated and become delicious due to the convenience of social media icons on design portfolio social network websites.

7.    Feedback From Peers. By definition, social network websites have elaborate communication functionalities, which include various comments/ feedback/ and voting features.  Getting feedback from your peers can help build your strengths and fine tune your expertise.

8.    Networking For New Clients. Potential clients and customers can ask questions and inquire about your design services in a less formal environment.

9.    Flash Disable. Most design portfolio social network websites does not have flash which can hinder search engines ability to search and index a website. 

10.  Free Upgrades. The design portfolio social network websites does all the upgrades needed to stay current which in turn gives your design portfolio a free upgrade.

11.  Strength In Numbers.  Chances are good that you will show up on Google's top 10 search results  from your social network designer profile  than your own portfolio website for more general design service terms.

12.  Free Promotions.  If your design work is "feature worthy". Design portfolio social network websites will promote your work for free. By either making you a feature designer or for any marketing campaign they might be running to promote their social networking website.

13.  Collaboration Opportunities. Easy to meet potential business partners for collaborations on design projects and partnerships are formed when other designers are browsing and run into an intriguing design portfolio.

14.  Short Setup Time. Most design portfolio websites can be set up in less than 10 minutes. Whereas your own portfolio website may take months.

15.  Leveled Playing Field.  Clients won't judge you from your website layout and esthetics but rather your actual design work.

With all that said you might think that I'm against designers creating their own websites. On the contrary, I believe it's absolutely essential for designers to have their own websites.  The truth is, the majority of designer portfolio websites, though esthetically pleasing and optimized from a marketing perspective may not see a huge amount of traffic. For this reason, design portfolio social networks can be a very useful tool when promoting and searching  for new clients.  Once your potential client finds you, your personal website will serve as a closing argument to why you're the right designer for the job.  Your site says a great deal about you and will be an important factor on whether or not a client chooses you for their next big project.

Full Disclosure:  I'm the founder of the design portfolio social networking website, Styleapple.

Designer/Illustrator:  Andy Quick

As you know my job is portfolios. I eat and sleep design portfolios all day, every day. Sounds boring? Not in the least. I love seeing new portfolios and exploring a new designer's creativity. But there is a catch - I have an ulterior motive.

I look for things that are effective portfolio design. Effective from a usability and marketing perspective. I mean at the end of the day isn't it all about getting new clients? My routine is that when new designers sign up on Styleapple I do a quick once over of their portfolio on the site as well as their external portfolio. Make a decision fairly quickly whether or not I'm a fan.

I am by no means absolute judge and jury when it comes to portfolio design but I'm no different than the next guy. Some I'll like and some I won't.  So let's get to it. Andy Quick is an illustrator from the UK. I like the way his portfolio summarizes.

Thumbnails with description... cool. Thumbnail opens up seamlessly into a larger image of the project... very cool. All projects place on one page for easy scrolling and quick viewing... sexy. Quick previews of the projects cycling through on top.... very sexy. Great job Andy and welcome to Styleapple.

As far as my blog title goes... after finishing my post I realized that maybe what I do is not that random and maybe I wasn't looking for something else. But hated to get rid of it... so there I said it. Oh I also wanted to piss off the SEO voice in my head who kept telling me that the title was way too long... Sometimes you just gotta live a little :)

 Our Hire A Designer series continues with Melissa Gerber, a Freelance Graphic Designer with an extensive background in packaging design. She is an accomplished Art Director and Designer, experienced in publishing, packaging, editorial, and branding design. You can read her full profile here. Melissa wrote a very comprehensive article on the Top 10 things to look for when hiring a Graphic Designer for A Packaging Design Project. If you are thinking about hiring a graphic designer to do packaging design work, this is a must read.  See the complete article here.

 Our Hire A Designer series continues with Jonathan C. Smith, Senior Industrial Designer and Chief Editor at Design Exposed. Jonathan holds multiple patents for his work in industrial design and have experiences in both the corporate and consultancy environment.   Jonathan wrote a very comprehensive article on the Top 10 things to look for when hiring an Industrial Designer. You can read the full article here.

Image From The Design Portfolio of Amanda Reid

Our Hire A Designer series continues with Amanda L. Reid, President & Principal Designer at MANDARINASTUDIO. Amanda has nearly a decade of experience in various levels of interior design services for commercial and residential projects. Prior to starting MANDARINASTUDIO, she served for 8 years as Project Designer at a boutique architecture + interior design firm based in New York City.  Amanda wrote a very comprehensive article on the Top 10 things to look for when hiring an Interior Designer. You can read the full article here.

Image Credit:  From The Design Portfolio of Ana Gomez

As we depend on the web more and more to sell our product or service, it's important that we take the things that have worked for us offline and implement them online . When selling was done on the streets with a briefcase or vacuum cleaner in hand, it took years of trial and error to figure out what worked and what didn't. Now that the process has been somewhat perfected, it makes sense to transfer those methods to our online efforts. There are 6 key steps in the sales process:

1) Prospecting - The act of finding the right clients or customers to sell your product or service (Target Demographics).
2) Contact - The actual contact you make with a potential client, either in person, on the phone, email, snail mail or on the web.
3) Sales Presentation - The sales pitch, tour or description of your product or service and the explanation of why it's the right product for your potential clients.
4) Handling Objections - Objections are the reasons why your client or customer will not buy your product, whether it's the price, time or quality of your product or service.
5) Closing the Sale - Closing the sale is the summary of the benefits of your product/service and finalizing payment options or service agreements.
6) Follow-up/Service - Following up after the sale by checking in to make sure the product is working correctly or servicing the product.

These are the steps your sales process will most likely follow whether you're selling an actual product or looking for new clients. Having a blueprint of these steps can be an asset when looking to increase your sales conversion rates.

With that said, your design portfolio website should embody the essence of these six steps in order to take full advantage of every user that visits your design portfolio website. Here are some suggestions on how you can implement these offline techniques in order to be more effective online.

PROSPECTING
OFFLINE: Prospecting offline usually includes lots of cold calling, showing up at potential clients offices... sometimes unannounced, sending out mailers and promotional offers, etc.
ONLINE: Prospecting online includes various social networking activities, blogging, search engine optimization, email newsletter subscriptions, email campaigns, and other inbound marketing techniques.

CONTACT
OFFLINE: An initial contact offline can be made through a cold call either on the phone or in person, a response to a promotional mailer, or email reply to information sent to your potential customers.
ONLINE: An initial contact online refers to a website visit by a potential client, someone sending you a message on Facebook, Twitter, or Linkedin, connecting with you through instant message (IM), or leaving a comment on your personal or business blog.

SALES PRESENTATION
OFFLINE: The Sales presentation is your sales pitch about your product or service which includes a description of the product and benefits to your potential clients.
ONLINE: An online sales pitch or presentation can be tricky to master since you're not personally guiding your visitors through your website, so your website needs to be set up to do exactly that. To get an idea of how a client might search your website read "10 decisions your clients will make before hiring you". Most People don't have the time to figure out how to navigate your website. It's important to make your website intuitive enough that your visitors conduct their own tour of your design portfolio. Ana Garcia, a 3d Designer on Styleapple does a great job of introducing her design portfolio and giving potential clients a tour of her work and design expertise.

HANDLING OBJECTIONS
OFFLINE: Handling objections is a skill that will close many deals for you. To effectively handle objections you must answer all the questions your potential clients have way before you ask them to sign a contract or get their credit card number.
ONLINE: Handling objections online is simply answering the questions your visitors have in the very beginning. For example: What does it cost (Provide a general price list for projects, i.e. Print Work, Illustration Work, Branding, etc) What kind of work have you done in the past (Showcase of previous projects or client recommendations) What tools do you use ? (PHP, Mysql, Adobe Photoshop, Ruby, Illustrator, Dreamweaver,etc). BTW, a great way to handle objections online is by integrating a live chat button on your website incase a client has a quick question for you.

CLOSING THE SALE
OFFLINE: Closing the sale offline is the summary of the benefits of your product/service and the moment you ask for their credit card number or signature on your service agreement.
ONLINE: Closing the sale online happens the moment your website visitor fills out your contact form, contacts you on Skype, initiate a live chat session, email or give you a direct phone call. It's important to have multiple ways of contact, so your clients can reach you in a format convenient to them.

FOLLOW-UP/SERVICES
OFFLINE: Follow-up/Service is where you keep your clients happy and build your referral base. Performing any necessary service to make sure your product is working correctly or being there to answer questions or concerns.
ONLINE: Follow-up/Service online includes detailed updates on current project progress. Having them subscribe to your blog, connecting with them on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, etc. and having them subscribe to your monthly newsletter where you can share promotions, design advice and request referrals.
The truth is, you have a small window to close the deal. Just like selling offline, you have a small window in which to get your client's attention. Guide them carefully through the sales process, manage their objections and get them to contact you either by a phone call, filling out a contact form or requesting a project quote.

I've decided to do a series of video reviews of design portfolios from the Styleapple Network.  There is no science to who I'll select for review, simply that the designer's internal portfolio (on Styleapple)  and external portfolio (Own website) is built with the potential client in mind.  Meaning that the design portfolio is an effective marketing tool, keeping the visitor engaged from the minute they enter the website to the end where they are either filling out a conversion form or picking up the phone to inquire about your design services.  The goal of this series is to showcase designers that are effectively using their design portfolios to get leads and ultimately acquire new clients. 

The hope is that this will allow designers and design firms to see what tools they can implement to improve their marketing effectiveness online. 

The first installation of the series is a review of Industrial Designer, Jonathan Smith.  Please leave your feedback and comments below.

Increase your chances of being featured on Styleapple 5 Minute Portfolio review by creating a design or brand portfolio here.