Ten secrets to attract clients and increase your income

When it comes to small businesses and freelancing, there’s no shortage of business books on the market. They cover all the traditional, important stuff about business plans and tried-and-true marketing campaigns. That’s not what this article is about. Instead, this is a collection of key ideas about street-smart marketing and good ways to make money. And even though these ideas were intended for designers and photographers, they should work for all kinds of small businesses.

As the Executive Director of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP), I talk to lots of freelance photographers and designers who are just getting started or who are having tough times. Many of them ask for advice. This article is based on some of the things I share with these folks, and I know these things work because I’ve been there and I’ve tried them.

On the surface, you may have heard of some, if not all, of the following ideas, but make sure you read beyond the titles because there are secrets hidden in each of the ten that people often miss.

1. Decide where you want to be in the marketplace: And then design your materials, packages, and your attitude to fit that image. Also consider basing your image on the kind of clients you’d like to have.

The obvious, easiest place to position yourself in the marketplace is to compete on price, but this introduces a couple of major problems. The first and biggest problem is that you have to do a lot more work to match the income of someone working at higher prices. And when you’re not working on a paid project, you’re usually scrambling to find more work. You simply won’t have the luxury of time to ever give your clients an extra photo treatment they didn’t ask for, or one or two additional logo options. Those extras make clients happy and loyal.

The other big problem is that it’s hard to ever raise your prices. If your clients view you as the low-price provider (because that’s how you’ve marketed yourself) then anyone with a lower price is going to take your business. There’s very little loyalty when a client makes decisions based primarily on price. And there’s no shortage of people willing to do what you do for less money.

2. Offer something truly unique: Special services, unique products, and cutting-edge design will help you stand out from the crowd. The added bonus is that if you’re doing something no one else is doing, you set the price for it. Maybe your special something is a type of graphic border you do on your work. Maybe it’s one of your output offerings (like photo books, wall clings, canvas wraps, printing on crystal, etc.). The point here isn’t what you should be offering, but that you should make yourself fully aware of all the latest looks and trends, and stay ahead of the pack. And you’ll need to constantly research your industry to stay in the lead, because your competition is sure to start copying what you do as soon as they learn how.

For example, if you’re a photographer, there are some popular “looks” that can put you out in front of your competition. One of those looks (though it’s coming to the end of its cutting-edge status these days) is high dynamic range (HDR) photography or even simulated HDR. Most people buying photography think HDR looks amazing. They’re even willing to pay a premium for it. If you’re a photographer or designer who uses photography, and you don’t offer HDR or simulated HDR, do it today while there’s still time!

3. Be seen as an expert and get out there: Make presentations at the chamber of commerce, Kiwanis and Rotary lunches, business clubs, the local library, or wherever you can find an audience.

This should not be a sales pitch. In fact, many clubs even prohibit or strongly discourage sales pitches at their meetings, so don’t talk price or packages. Your presentation should be an informative overview that tells people what you do and gives them some insight into your craft. Try to make it interesting. Funny and self-deprecating is good too. Your primary goal is to be seen as an expert so that anybody who might be looking for your services will think of you. And if you’re shy about public speaking, start by joining a local Toastmasters to get used to being in front of people, and then do some presentations at middle schools until you’re comfortable talking to a crowd.
Next, make sure you’ve got a compelling topic and title. Something like, “The Secrets of Good Design” is kind of lame and folks will fall asleep just reading the title. But if your program is “The Top Five Things Designers Never Tell their Clients,” you’ll hook them. The added bonus of having a list of five or ten things is it’s unlikely that the host will cut you off because the meeting is running over a couple of minutes.
And if you want to add that extra punch to your presentation, hand out a nice, professionally designed card that has the main points of your presentation, along with blank lines for them to take notes during your talk. People who follow along and write things down on the card are much more likely to take that card when they leave than if you just passed out business cards. And, of course, you have all your contact information strategically on your lecture card.

4. Do some charitable work, both strategically and altruistically: Most people understand right away why they should do strategic charitable work. Everybody wants to be seen giving to charity and lots of corporate folks who make purchase decisions also participate in charitable work as volunteers. If your charitable gift is a designed poster or a large, meaningful framed photograph you shot, you have strategically given in a way that your gift is potentially both a tax write-off and an advertisement.

But you should give altruistically as well. Pick a charity you believe in and give monetarily, volunteer time, or donate your professional work—or all of these. In my decades in business I’ve discovered that almost everyone prefers to do business with people they like. There are exceptions, but they’re rare. Truly giving, when you expect nothing in return, can quite possibly open some doors you never expected to walk through. And the worst that could happen is that you’ll actually help someone in need.

5. Work really hard, work really smart, get really busy, then dump some clients: Okay, you don’t really dump them but hand them off to someone else.
If you pick up almost any book on business, you’ll find a reference to the “80/20 Rule.” Essentially, it says that 80% of your income will come from 20% of your clients. This means that you should work extra hard to keep those special clients happy and well served. One of the best ways to do this is to pass some of your least income-producing, most time-intensive clients off to others in your industry. If you do the handoff right, both your former clients and your competitors (who now have new clients, thanks to you) now like you, and you have more free time to chase and serve better income-producing clients.
And it usually turns out that most of the clients who pay a little more for professional work tend to treat you more like a professional. In my experience, 80% of my headaches and complaints came from the bottom 20% of my clients, and all too often, those were the clients I got as a result of being a low-price bidder. It’s good to put those clients behind you whenever you can.

6. Have a great website (but remember, not everyone sees your site the way you do): These days, if you’re a freelance designer or photographer and you don’t have a great Web-based portfolio, you’re immediately cutting your potential market in half, or worse. No excuses, you’ve got to have a great portfolio online. All your competition does.

The problem with an online presence is that everybody has one (so you’re not unique) and an even bigger issue is that the computer your prospective client is using to view your website, often stinks. Most cool portfolios are Flash-based and I have yet to see a Flash-based portfolio that runs as fast as a busy ad agency exec would like to flip through the images.

Remember that thing earlier about offering something extra or unique? It applies here too. Imagine that the typical ad agency exec in charge of hiring photographers has just a few minutes to look at your work. Sure, they’re used to looking at websites, and if that’s what they prefer, you should have something for them to view. But if you also had a coffee-table-style hardback book of your images to give to your possible client, now you stand head-and-shoulders above the crowd. Not just a portfolio with prints shoved in sheet protectors; I’m talking about a thoughtfully designed book with subtle marketing messages and all your contact information on the cover. The book will sit on their desk after you leave, even when they’re reviewing other portfolios online. It might even go home with them one evening.
These books can be created affordably at Mpix, Apple, Blurb, or any of a dozen places online, and they add a dimension and presence to your work that a website alone can’t touch. This might just be the extra advantage you need.

7. Enter contests so you can be an award-winning designer or photographer: Don’t enter for the prizes, because the goal is to win awards; the prizes are just a little bonus.

People want to hire proven experts. Ironically, it doesn’t matter if your awards are local or from some industry-related magazine or website. The point is that you’ve won awards for your work. This puts clients at ease because they know your work has been recognized by industry experts. Do you think clients would rather hire Angela Harrison, Designer, or Award-Winning Designer, Angela Harrison?

And if you want to take this a step further, join a national association, take a couple of classes and some tests, and then add some abbreviated credentials to your business card and marketing materials.

8. Hang out with professionals (in other industries): Sure, if you’re a designer, you might join the local advertising or PR club. If you’re a photographer you’ll probably find yourself attending some rubber-chicken dinners at the local photography club. That’s almost a given. But there’s an equally large benefit to joining a group or two of local professionals outside your industry. They might become prospects, or they might not. But if you have a couple of business-smart friends, you can ask them for their views on things happening outside of your industry—a lot of times you can use this information to get ahead of people that have become “stuck” in your industry. There’s definitely value to these professional meetings, as they keep your finger on the pulse of more than just your industry.

9. Use templates, actions, and any other tools you can get your hands on to streamline your workflow: The key is getting the maximum possible work done in the least amount of time.

I often talk to people who want to learn how to do various effects directly in Photoshop without using any plug-in software. That’s fine if your goal is the knowledge itself. But if the goal is to save money so you don’t have to buy the plug-ins in the first place, let’s consider the time saving of the plug-in vs. the investment cost.

For instance, there’s a great plug-in on the market for softening and smoothing skin called Portraiture from Imagenomic (www.imagenomic.com). I found a setting that does exactly what I want and it does it consistently in just 10 to 20 seconds. I know how to do this in Photoshop but it takes me about 10–15 minutes, depending on the image. Even if you’re really fast at something like this in Photoshop and this plug-in only saves you around four or five minutes per image, it can still pay for itself in no time at all.

And it’s not just plug-ins. There are full-blown design templates, special effects, and collections of actions that can all speed up your workflow. Consider what you spend most of your time doing repetitively, and then see if there’s a template or an action that can do it for you.

10. When it comes to business advice, take what you want and leave the rest: This is one of the best pieces of advice I was ever given. If some of the advice you just read doesn’t make sense to you, ignore it. Do what works for you.
The important thing to remember is that very few people actually have an entrepreneurial mind. I can’t tell you how many times I shared business ideas with friends and family and they responded with all the reasons it wouldn’t work, only to discover later that I was right and my ideas actually did work.

Don’t get me wrong, your friends and family are the people who really want you to succeed. They have your best interests at heart and they don’t want to see you get hurt or be disappointed. They’re just telling you that they wouldn’t do what you have in mind because they don’t understand it. Don’t be discouraged and don’t get angry. In fact, it’s not always a good idea to try to explain things fully and try to convince them. Sometimes you just have to go ahead and show them that you can do it.

PHOTORECOVERY for Digital Media is an easy-to-use application to recover images from digital camera memory cards. While we didn’t have any damaged cards, we tested several formatted CF cards that the camera and computer indicated were empty. The software (we tested the Mac OS X version) installs easily—you don’t need an instruction manual. Then just mount your memory card (CF, SD, etc.), select the type of card, and click Scan. That’s all. The software reads every sector of your media’s memory and rebuilds your image files—even if the directory is damaged or deleted. All of the recovered images are then placed in a Recovered folder.

This application can do its magic because when memory cards are formatted, they erase only the directory—not all of the images. Taking more pictures (which are written over the old data) or intentionally writing blank data over old images, will erase memory cards.

PHOTORECOVERY also has a Wipe function that writes blank data onto your card. Your card is then empty so images cannot be recovered. If you use a wiped card, you’ll need to format your card in-camera before you can use it.

This software is more powerful than you might think because every card is different and every camera brand records images in a proprietary manner. So, if you own a newer model camera or have a newer type of card, ensure that you download the absolute latest version of PHOTORECOVERY from the Web.

Even if you never have a corrupt card or damaged files, you may accidentally erase a card; then PHOTORECOVERY for Digital Media is a safety net to bring those images back.—Larry Becker

PRICE: $39.95
FROM: LC Technology, Inc.
PHONE: 866-603-2195
WEB: www.lc-tech.com
FOR: Mac and Windows
RATING: 4.5

LAYERS VERDICT
HOT Easy to install and use
NOT Interface could be more intuitive

Nikon’s D70 and D70s cameras don’t include shutter release connectivity inside the battery bay because Nikon never intended them to be used with a vertical battery grip. Fortunately, some aftermarket inventors came up with workarounds and my favorite is the Harbortronics VG-D70. The unit comes with everything you’d expect from a good vertical battery grip, including a place for two batteries, a place to store the battery door (which is easily removed to make the grip fit properly), an extra fiber optic cable, and a separate shutter button.

The Harbortronics VG-D70 can fire the shutter using a fiber optic cable that runs from the battery pack up to the IR receiver panel on the camera. Simply put your D70 in IR shutter mode, and the button on the grip releases the shutter. If you hold both sides of the camera when shooting in landscape orientation, the cable can get in the way. My D70s didn’t miss a shot in IR mode—even in direct sunlight.

Because the trigger uses the IR mode, the shutter button doesn’t use the “half-press” position to autofocus and meter the light; however, Harbortronics offers the option to modify your D70 (for $135) and add a port so you can connect the grip with a short, electronic cable instead of using the fiber optic cable. On the D70s, Nikon added a port for a wired remote, so no modification is necessary. You simply need to buy a custom cable ($70) from Harbortronics.

The texture, weight, the feel of the shutter release, and the overall functionality of the VG-D70 are all first-class. My only concern was the strap that connects the base to the vertically installed battery seemed a little flimsy during assembly but it was fine once I screwed the base onto the camera.—Larry Becker

PRICE $165
FROM Harbortronics LLC
PHONE 253-858-7769
WEB www.harbortronics.com
FOR Nikon D70 and D70s

LAYERS VERDICT
HOT Professional feel and functionality
NOT Flimsy strap; fiber optic cable can get in the way
RATING 4

If You’re New To Tablets
A mouse is great for computer users wanting to get around on their Mac or PC, and the really experienced users learn as many shortcut keys as possible so they can make their computers perform even more quickly. But when it comes to certain kinds of work, like photo editing in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, or sketching and painting with ‘natural media’ software like Corel Painter, nothing beats a Wacom graphics tablet.

New Tablet Details
Wacom has just announced the introduction of their new line of Graphire4 consumer-targeted graphics tablets. Available in silver, white, and metallic blue, the Graphire4 line incorporates two ExpressKeys, which can be programmed as additional shortcut keys, and they also have a scroll wheel for quickly navigating web pages (and other scrolling related duties).

Graphire4 tablets come with a 3-button wheel mouse and an electronic, 2-button pen (with an electronic eraser). Both the mouse and the pen are battery-free and you can easily switch between them whenever you like. The tablets have an especially long USB cord to allow you to sit back and work on your computer from a short distance. The two CDs in the package contain the software necessary to run the tablet and optional image-related software such as a lite version of Corel Painter, Color Efex Pro 2 GE, and the full version of Photoshop Elements 3 as well as a couple of other programs.

Graphire Models Available
Wacom’s Graphire4 line of tablets is available in 4″ x 5″ or 6″ x 8″ at $99 and $199 respectively. (If you’re new to the idea of a graphics tablet, the size refers to the ‘live’ working area of a tablet yet the overall size will be larger, so you won’t find yourself working out to the very edge of the tablet itself.)

Though it has been on the market slightly longer, another new Graphire tablet option is the Wacom’s Graphire Bluetooth 6″ x 8″ tablet, which sells for $249. It also comes with a very similar cordless mouse and pen but once the tablet battery is charged, the tablet itself communicates with your Mac or PC via Bluetooth. The whole tablet is cordless! The companion software is similar, though the copy of Photoshop Elements bundled with the cordless tablet is version 2.

Installation and Setup
Tablet driver software installation is a breeze and if you follow the brief instructions in the booklet, you’ll be able to set up your wireless tablet in minutes (though you’ll need to wait a few hours for the battery to fill up before you can be truly cordless). By the way, setting up the Graphire4 tablets is even easier because you don’t need to install and charge a battery or initialize a Bluetooth wireless connection.

Tablet Usability
After working with the Graphire Bluetooth tablet for a while, I’ll never go back to using just a plain old mouse again. Any time you need the functionality of a 3-button wheel mouse, it’s instantly available and the Wacom driver software allows the mouse to be every bit as functional as any similarly equipped, cordless mouse. If you’ve used a mouse of any kind, there’s zero learning curve.

The real strength of the tablet is apparent when you’re working in graphics software, such as Photoshop Elements, and you want to have the kind of control you get with a pen or pencil. For most people it only takes a little while to get used to hovering the pen slightly over the surface of the tablet to move the cursor on screen. Then a simple tap of the pen is the same as clicking the mouse button. But because the cordless pen recognizes 512 levels of pressure sensitivity, software like Photoshop Elements can be programmed to use pressure to make painted or drawn strokes appear bolder for heavy pressure and light when you press lightly with the pen. (It’s far easier to do than it is to explain).

The thing that takes some people a bit longer to get used to is that the mouse moves the cursor like a regular mouse does. The pen, however, moves the cursor relative to where the pen is on the working area. In other words, if you hover the pen above the top left of the tablet’s working area, the cursor will be in the top left of your screen. If you hover the pen above the bottom right of the tablet’s live area, the cursor will appear at the bottom right of your screen. As a result, a larger tablet allows you to be more precise with your pen movements.

The Graphire line of tablets is amazingly helpful to practically everyone wanting to work more comfortably and intuitively in almost any graphics program. The price is right for beginners and the payoff in programs like Photoshop Elements is apparent almost immediately. The controls are more than adequate for most casual users. Artists and designers requiring greater control over their tablet tools, or anyone who wants a working area larger than 6″ x 8″, should look at Wacom’s Intuos line of tablets.