James Dalman : Branding Dude and Freestyle Entrepreneur » Design

Pricing Your Services. Why Going Cheap Hurts Everyone.

James Dalman — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 19:24:33 +0000

Pricing always seems to be a difficult process for designers, artists, developers and others who provide some type of creative service. We all want to make money with our skills and receive fair compensation for our work, but sadly I usually find that many service businesses do one of two things that hurt themselves and others; undervaluing their services or bottom dollar pricing.

Undervalue of Services

This usually happens because a designer or developer doesn’t believe in themselves or because of inexperience. While newbies won’t often get the prices that seasoned veterans can command, they often undercharge causing financial hardship in their lives.

Bottom Dollar Pricing

Some designers or developers just focus on doing work for the lowest bid or price. They hope to undercut their competition or get more work because it’s based on how cheap they are. This is a stupid strategy.

Why Cheap Prices Hurt Everyone

Cheap pricing due to either of these situations hurt the community and yourself for a variety of reasons.

The first is you train customers to NOT VALUE what it is you are doing. I observed this in the screen-printing industry in the late 80′s. Screen printers started to give away the artwork and this in turn educated customers that the design had no value and was not worth paying for.

The second reason these situations will hurt you is that once you start charging a specific fee for your work, it will be very difficult to raise your prices substantially when you figure out that being a starving, unprofitable business is no way to go! You should be in business to make money, not loose it.

What Can You Do to Avoid This?

Research: There is no excuse to not be able to learn the right pricing structure. The Internet gives you every opportunity to learn from others or contact professionals for advice. There are training programs and books that can help you determine profitable pricing for your skill set and experience.

Educate: Teach and show your clients or potential customers the value of what you do. You can blog about the requirements or training you had to undergo to learn your skills, offer free webinars on the ROI of great design, or do a video on the power of correct SEO. Help people understand the value you provide and that the fee you charge is worth that!

Your end goal should be creating a sustainable and profitable business. Don’t fall into the trap of undervaluing your skills or low-ball pricing. In the end, you won’t win and it will damage the marketplace and industry for your future and the future of others.

Make Money in Web Design. A New Course and Coaching,

James Dalman — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 14:44:18 +0000

This September I will be launching a new course and coaching that will show people how to start, operate, and run a small profitable web design and blog business.

Over the last two years I have been asked by stay at home moms, bi-vocational pastors, students, and people ready to leave their current job on what they could do to make extra money or how to launch a business. Every time I responded by saying learn how to use WordPress and then learn how to install and modify premium WordPress themes. The biggest problem is that most people don’t know how to get started. This is what I will be teaching on.

Make Money in Web Design will walk through all the steps of setting up your business including naming your business, marketing, branding, the minor technical skills you will need to know, how to price your services, invoicing, and creating a business system to run smoothly. It covers everything that I know and more. Students will also have access to all of the business forms I use and my treasure chest of design files. There will also be group and personal coaching involved to ensure you progress through the course and hit your goals!

Please know, Make Money in Web Design is not a get rich scheme or magic bean. It is a proven business model that I have used to generate a great income and will be a business you must work and invest in.

I am currently offering people the opportunity to get on the waiting list for when I launch. Seating for this course will be limited and once the spots are filled they are gone! You can sign up for notifications for the latest details and be on the list with no obligation to enroll in the course. Visit my page with the current information by clicking this link and you can sign up from there.

Also, those who sign up and enroll in my first class will be receiving the BETA launch discount … so don’t wait to get on the list.

The WP Theme Experiment

James Dalman — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 14:53:41 +0000

The last two years I’ve had a lot of people ask me about which premium WordPress themes are the best choice for their projects and exactly how easy they are to learn and use. These questions are usually subjective based on a person’s knowledge, skill set, what they’ve heard from others, or what their desired outcome is supposed to be. Giving a first place award for “Best in Show” to a premium WP theme company is extremely difficult because of these variables. Regardless, I am going to conduct a little experiment.

The Do It Yourself (DYI) group is a huge market. There are many of us who would rather dig in and learn how to use or customize premium WP themes ourselves in addition to a group of us who will use these products to build a business for clients. My experiment is going to be based on these groups and I am going to look at how well the themes stack up in the following areas:

Ease of use for a beginner to intermediate user
Documentation or How to Videos
Support for the theme
Visual and graphical appearance “out of the box”
Level of customization or CSS knowledge required to change base design
User-friendliness for designers, developers, or neither

My end goal is to provide an accurate review and grade for each theme I test, based on how well an entry-level to intermediate level person might use that product to build a site and make money with that product. The following premium themes or frameworks are what I consider the industry leaders and ones I would like to use for this experiment.

Themes or frameworks I currently have:

Themes or frameworks I would like to take for a test drive:

I am hopeful that I will be able to test all of these premium themes and start providing individual reviews by August 18th, with a complete report ready September 1st. If you are a theme company that would like to donate or provide your theme for a BETA test experiment please let me know ASAP. I will limit the entries to eight (8) companies and will cut off any new entries August 11, 2010.

Finally, I will say that all reviews will be completely objective and not based on my involvement with Startbox or my previous employment with iThemes. Just in case you were wondering.

How to Make More Money as a Graphic Designer

James Dalman — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 23:22:54 +0000

Are you a freelance graphic designer who would like to earn more money? Are you a web designer who would like to complete your projects faster and get paid more quickly? I have an idea I want to share with you.

The need for web development continues to grow and there are plenty of opportunities to generate a very nice income stream from doing this work. The problem in the past was that for most graphic designers, you had to know how to splice websites, code them and test them – and for some right brained people, this can be a hellish nightmare! Then there are the web developers who know how to do all these special skills but may lack the speed to complete the sites quickly or the design skills to make them look great. These problems equal losing time and money.

Over the last eight years in my design business I had so many requests for websites but I lacked the ability to bring them to completion. I could “skin” them and get the branding done, but I’d have to outsource to get the coding done. I researched and tried several different platforms such as GoLive, Dreamweaver, SquareSpace, and TypePad in order to capitalize on these projects. Then I discovered WordPress.

WordPress is awesome and the easiest to use platform for website management.

It’s simple to install or you can use a hosting company like HostGator who already has it installed and all you have to do is upload the theme (or design template). WP is also the best platform on the planet and is superior as a CMS system and with SEO, plus your clients can manage their site with ease. Additionally, you can easily modify the WordPress Premium Themes with some basic CSS and design skills to create awesome websites in as little as an hour.

Now Enter The BUILDER THEME…

iThemes just released the best innovation yet called Builder Theme. You can now make any type of custom layout on top of WordPress including pages, blog layouts, squeeze pages, e-mail opt-in pages, landing pages, and portfolio pages. You can create unique pages and CSS for every page on one site! In short, you can design just about anything you wanted to with some design and basic WP knowledge. No splicing, no programming, and no waiting. This means you can make some awesome money for custom sites – quickly.

Am I promoting iThemes? Yes I am and here’s why…

It’s more than that I am part of the company — I love this product personally and use our stuff with great success! Some of the other reputable theme companies make great looking stuff, but iThemes products were created for people like me (and maybe you) who want the easiest to use options and flexibility. And if I was to start freelancing again, I would be making some killer money tomorrow by investing in Builder Theme and offering custom sites.

What can you make by investing in these products?

This is really up to you and I can’t guarantee the results as they will vary on things such as your design and business skills, portfolio, and your ability to market, but here’s a sample of what is possible.

Let’s say you invest in the Builder Theme which cost $127.00 USD for the theme, support, and upgrades for one year. The average rate a custom designed WP theme from small shops is $1,500 USD. You would make $1,353! If I could do all aspects of the job in 5 hours, that’s $270.60 per hour. This is a small initial investment compared to the revenue you could earn. Heck, Dreamweaver is $399 and you have a way steeper learning curve.

Even if you just purchase a premium theme at $79.95 and make design changes like these sites: OK Patriots, South Canadian Resource Center, Dialogue Church, and Glenstone Chapel, you can easily make $750 – $1,000 with little time involved to create these types of sites. Go ahead…do the math.

Why am I sharing this with you?

Because personally I can’t do this work anymore and I talk with struggling designers all the time. I see a huge opportunity for graphic designers and web designers to capitalize on (you don’t even have to be a designer to start a freelance web design business) and I just can’t NOT share this idea. So think about the idea and if you have questions, consider contacting me or signing up at WebDesign.com University for courses in how to make it all happen. I’m here to help!

Props to My Friend…Becky at Cottage Design

James Dalman — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 03:53:29 +0000

I have to give a shout out and props to my great friend, Becky Martin of Cottage Design, on her new WordPress website. Becky is a very talented designer who has worked with me on several projects and does outstanding work for churches and non-profits. She’s also been an awesome friend – listening to my dreams, schemes, and complaints at times. If you are a church needing design help, please don’t hesitate to contact her.

Keep up the awesome work Becky!!!

Advice for Being Successful as a Freelance Designer

James Dalman — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:04:49 +0000

I began my freelance design gig back in 1986 as a teenager when I launched my first company called *Dogman Designs. I customized Chuck Taylor tennis shoes and Levi 501′s with an airbrush and Sharpie pens, in addition to doing illustration work. My art was totally off the wall but I hit a niche and built a very solid customer base. Later on I switched to graphic design and developed logos and print media for advertising firms and local clients. It’s been an amazing ride and I have no regrets, but do wish I could have known many of the challenges of being a freelance designer upfront, which would have saved me a lot of pain later.

I’ve always been more than willing to share my experiences with designers and entrepreneurs in the effort to keep them from making some of the same mistakes I did … like NOT getting paid and being taken advantage of for being a rookie. A while back I proposed the idea to Cory Miller that we offer a course through WebDesign.com University on “How to Be Successful in Freelance Design” and let 20 years of learning the hard way be made available to others. The idea is now a reality.

I would like to be the first to officially announce that the STARTING A SUCCESSFUL FREELANCE WEB DESIGN BUSINESS course is now available and you can sign up today!

I firmly believe this course will be worth every penny to print and web designers and anyone else who wants to be successful in the freelance design business. It’s filled with two decades of business experience and it will help you build your business, avoid costly mistakes, and help you command the fees you deserve.

WebDesign.com University will also offer an Annual Premium Membership which will include ALL of our WDU courses (stuff you don’t want to miss out on) in addition to killer bonus features such as exclusive content and a Member’s Only Forum.

If you are interested in creating a successful freelance design business and would like to get signed up, please visit WDU site or keep in the loop by following @jamesdalman on Twitter, or by subscribing to my RSS feed. Thanks!!!

*Dogman Designs was named after my nickname and had a very witty branding campaign. Nuff said.

Free Twitter Background

James Dalman — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 20:23:07 +0000

I just posted a new free Twitter background for download on my Free Stuff for Download page. The design is simple and professional and can easily be changed in Photoshop with the layered PSD file that is provided. This is the same design pattern I used for my own Twitter background that you can see by clicking here.

New Theme for James Dalman.com

James Dalman — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 02:33:14 +0000

Last weekend I thought it would be great to inject some new creativity into my website (I don’t think anyone changes their site as much as I do) so I changed from the iThemes Flexx Professional theme (which I really love) to the new Yukon theme we released. I totally dig this new WordPress theme…especially since we named it after the town I live in. The Yukon theme is perfect because you can showcase your work on the homepage, plug-in your social media icons with ease, and have a very clean, professional look. If you need a new design for your WordPress blog or website, check out Yukon theme.

Awesome Website of the Week: IconDock.com

James Dalman — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 21:49:19 +0000

This week I was digging through my favorite bookmarks when I noticed the one for IconDock.com from N.Design Studio. Icon Dock offers some totally rockin’ stock art icons but I totally love the simplicity of their site. They have a drag-n-drop feature for checking out that is very cool and a brand identity that’s nothing short of professional and Web 2.0! Nick La uses an awesome display of colors to make the design pop and ties in all of the elements for the Awesome Website of the Week Award. Excellent design Nick!

Awesome Website of the Week

James Dalman — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 14:00:08 +0000

I am starting a new idea this month and will begin highlighting websites that I really dig from a branding, design, or topic point of view. Of course I could just link to the websites, but I also want to write a little bit about why I chose them. None of my Awesome Websites of the Month are paid sponsors or people who have asked for any props – they are simply sites that I find, bookmark, and read or look at for inspiration.

MINISTRY MARKETING COACH

My friend Chris Forbes did a great job building his Ministry Marketing Coach blog and had excellent content for churches. A few months ago he passed the torch on to Kerry Bural of The Resonate Group, and Kerry gave the site a brand overhaul that I think is awesome! I love the new colors, simplicity of layout, and the Web 2.0 feel that was injected into the design. Props to Kerry Bural and The Resonate Group for being the Awesome Website of Week!