How to Fail at Your Design Business

Interesting post, though I am not sure I agree with most of it. Especially the deadline part. Naturally we all have different ways of dealing with things, but I have had several people tell me that missed deadlines are a huge pet peeve of theirs, and because of this, they won’t use people they have in the past, who gave the impression through missed deadlines that the client’s timetables are inconsequential, when really it should not be looked at that way. We are being hired to perform a job, which may be time sensitive, and therefore need to pay special attention to their deadline requests. Again just my two cents.

And I assume you are not talking to freelancers with this article, because you say not to do everything yourself, but freelancers often do just that. Though here you say that is a certain recipe for failure? Then please explain to me how many freelancers stay afloat and keep their hair? Again these are just my thoughts.

Thanks again for the post.

Great points, and very well put together. I’m really happy that you put learning to say “NO” in this post, since that is probably the most important lesson to learn.

Doing freelance on the side well I was in school, I learned the hard way that it’s important to say “NO” sometimes… it’s very easy to get overloaded, stressed out, and feeling worthless because you’re putting in time that simply isn’t worth it because you said “YES” to something you really shouldn’t have.

Keep up the good work guys.

Is that a typo on “Treating design like art, not business” heading?

Awesome Post!

Gotta agree. Saying No is especially harder when it’s a client you’ve worked with before, and you know there’s absolutely no way you have the time to work on their project.

It is not a mystery that designers suck at marketing. Online and offline is full of grate designers that don’t know how to get the word out, even if there work is done by studying the market. But your article sucks so bad, that I don’t know where to start. It isn’t bad to do everything by yourself, as long as you know what you are doing. Stop generalizing and start thinking, be effective, don’t be “one from the pack”. And what is that hard of saying “NO”, ooohh the mystery, the dilemma, taboo!C’mon, if you like the project just do it, if not ,say NO, and that’s it. You may lose clients , but you can win clients. You don;t put every project in your portfolio, same thing apply to your clients/ex-clients.

I like the twist. It is easy to look at lists of what to do and try to achieve it, but not notice some of the things you are doing wrong. Follow this list and your chances of failing are increased. So rather learn from the lessons and strive for success. Though I agree with the comments that freelancers do need to be more flexible and do more themselves, but know what you can do yourself and where you need help.

Here are 2 more for your list:

DON’T INVOICE

Clients want to keep their money, so if you don’t invoice you will save them a lot of costs. Of course, you will go hungry, but if the goal is to fail, you will have succeeded.

LESSON: Invoices must be sent regularly and professionally. Clients are not going to pay you unless you invoice (and send statements).

DON’T COMMUNICATE

The less your clients hear from you the better. It saves you lots of time: no emails to write, no calls to make, no clients left, no more projects to do…

LESSON: Talk to your clients. Let them know what is happening with their project. If requests move out of scope, tell them. Clear communication prevents a lot of frustration.

The fact that most people get into design without consulting the first point is the most telling. Great list, I made this one of my three links for the day on my Design Thought blog:
http://designthoughtfortheday.blogspot.com/2010/02/02-08-web-design-mistakes-fail-at.html

All the best, Ted

Thanks for the comments on the article, guys. Glad (most) of you enjoyed it – and it’d be great to see the comments grow into a more comprehensive list of what NOT to do (a la Suki’s comment).

Wow, some real controversy over saying “NO” and not doing everything yourself.

I would echo that if you want to reach your full potential, you should not do everything yourself. I dare to say that you limit yourself, your business and your personal life by doing it all yourself.

If you are happy with your life and work doing it all by yourself, you can remain as you are but won’t grow as quickly as you would with others. That is if you grow at all.

I like this post, makes me think back to what I have done so far.
Thanks for share.

great article, supi

Great post, I am not sure about the deadline thing, though.

Hello there! Nice post and some great tips. I thing about the “do everything yourself” part, the point is that to be successful you should delegate. Obviously if you’re starting out you have no choice but to do everything yourself. However, in the long run, if you want to be truly successful, taking on help is the only way.

Also, in my experience learning to say no is essential. I have had more than one client come back to me with more work after a “no”. Good clients understand “no” and respect it.

Once of the other most valuable lessons I’ve learned is NEVER under-bill. Again, this is a mistake that some people MUST make so they can make ends meet, and start out . That said, under-billing puts you in a spiral very hard to get out of. The trick is to be competitive in quality, not price. This itself is pretty hard to achieve, but it should be the goal I think

Everything about this article is absolutely awful and completely untrue. The author is totally misinformed and just trying to get blog traffic. To say I’m surprised and furious is an understatement. I think he feels like there is too much competition and is trying to scare people away from a career in design.

What? You suck at design? There are varying levels of talent out there and there will always be someone who likes your work and wants to hire you. If your work isn’t that great, don’t worry, you’ll improve with experience. Find clients that are looking for simple designs and you’ll be fine. You aren’t destined to fail, as the author suggests!

Why NOT do everything yourself? It’s perfectly fine, and even expected, that you’re going to do accounting, bookkeeping, payroll, marketing, business development, programming, and so on. If you’re just starting out or if you plan to expand your business into a full-fledged design firm, you’ll need to know the fundamentals of all these things. You aren’t destined to fail, as the author suggests!

Treat your art like a business? Once you’re established, then you can pick and choose the projects you take. After that, whether you become a complete corporate tool or an insane, uncompromising “arteest”, someone will hire you. You aren’t destined to fail, as the author suggests!

Just say, “no”? This is probably the biggest and most often used B.S. excuse for laziness I’ve heard. What? You’re afraid to hire people to help do the things your clients want and possible make a commission on top of it? You’re too good for those $50 and $200 jobs and you’d rather say “no” than farm them out to some struggling design n00b with no portfolio in this economy? You think you know your client’s customers better than he does so you’re going to say “no”, potentially lose client trust, and stick to your guns instead of finding solutions? I’ve worked for some of the largest companies in the world and I can tell you, the last thing any of them wants to hear is “no”. If you find creative solutions to problems you create win-win scenarios, people will respect you more, and – you aren’t destined to fail, as the author suggests!

I think that if a person tries hard enough, doesn’t give up, and DOESN’T LISTEN TO JEFF ARCHIBALD AT PAPER LEAF DESIGN AND PEOPLE LIKE HIM, you’ll be fine.

Good Luck!

David

David – wow. I don’t really know where to start.

I am the last person who is trying to scare people away from design. I share my knowledge; I speak to new students; I encourage people to get into the field because I love it.

I’m sorry my tongue-in-cheek article made you so angry, but I stand by my points. Taking every job that comes your way will burn you out. Doing everything yourself forever will burn you out. Being a poor designer & not trying to better yourself will hurt your career. Art is a personal endeavour; when you’re working for someone else – ie. a client – you have to speak their language. Add all these things up, and you’ve just made your road to success a lot harder.

I appreciate your positive approach to encouraging other designers – I agree that if you work crazy hard & don’t quit, you can succeed. I just think that if you avoid some of the points I’ve made, you can succeed more easily. That’s what I’ve found.

Happy trails.

Wow Dave, easy on the coffee dude. I liked the article, especially the bit about outsourcing stuff. I can do accounting, just like I can do lots of things. But I’m not very good at it, and it keeps me at the 100 foot level, when I need to be creative. Having a competent numbers person gives me the space I need. That being said the numbers are my responsibility. No-one else is responsible.

A good book to read is the e-myth. A little campy but speaks to working in the business as opposed to on the business

See, this is what I love about guys like yourself, Jeff, no accountability and no reason to look inward and say, “Hey, maybe I was wrong and I should change.”

You apologize, but not really. Beginners look at superficial articles like these and get confused. But, hey, why be accountable, right? It all about traffic for you.

That’s why I’m here – to set the record straight.

Should a person continue to improve their design skills? Sure. And, talent is totally subjective. There is certainly a place in this world for mere adequacy. Look at Craigslist, Amazon, and the plethora of other sites that are supremely successful but have designs that suck. Personally, I think it’s more important to be confident in your abilities than to worry about criticism. You wanna be a great designer? Go to school, learn great design techniques and theory, and pray you get lucky.

However, if you want to be SUCCESSFUL (i.e. NOT FAIL), that takes a totally different set of variables and design is only one of them.

You never suggest, at all, any alternatives to avoiding burn out. You suggest that saying, “No!” is the only way. I’m saying that’s BS. Truly successful people know how to say, “Yes!” in creative ways and create win-win scenarios. Again, you think so narrowly that you can’t see that.

“Doing everything yourself forever will burn you out.”

I love how you qualify your statement, now. If you want to run a successful business, you’re GOING to have to be involved in marketing, accounting, etc., …FOREVER. Sure, you’ll have accountants, marketing pros, etc., but you’re the entrepreneur – the decision maker – and it behooves anyone wanting to truly understand the business to put themselves in the thick of it. Again, you Jeff, see no alternatives.

I love this line, “Learn the language and best practices of business and combine that with your creative skills to be successful.”

Is it me or is that completely contradicting what you just said? So on the one hand, you should stick to being a designer and let others do the rest. But on the other hand, you should know the business and talk the talk. So, Jeff, how do you suggest people do that? Osmosis? God is just going to come down and “BLAM”, you now know how to build a response to an RFP with a bid proposal? Please.

“Art is a personal endeavour; when you’re working for someone else – ie. a client – you have to speak their language.”

Art is art. Everything one does is a personal endeavor. Like I said in my response, you can be whatever kind of designer you want and people will still hire you. Hell, if you’ve got the X-factor, be a dick if you want. If you don’t know the ass-end of a mouse, be a “yes man”. There’s no shame in being agreeable. In fact, studies show that the most successful people are just that – agreeable.

Sheesh. I can sum up all the best career advice in the world with two words: be yourself.

No need for arrogant “career advice” columns like these. All these things are are op-ed pieces that present themselves as factual and with very little merit outside of anecdotal evidence.

You teach students? Boy, do I feel sorry for them.

Please, Jeff – for the love of all that is holy in the world – be accountable and take this post down.

Someone may actually read it and think you have a clue.

David

Post was a hilarious read, a nice breather from the rigid, monotone posts out there.

Okay, well, as for the comment:

I don’t agree with the “art” part. Yes, what you do is an art but when you’re hired for a design project you’re expected to bring the business results – measurable results.

A business is still a business, they are looking out for what the website will do for them, generally getting them additional sales.

You can argue all you want with them about design theory, usability and other topics but in the end, you’re at the will of your employer. It may not always be what you suggest and can be a shot in the foot for the business but they definitely expect some sort of measurable result, otherwise they wouldn’t bother hiring you for your services.

#justsaying

David,

I appreciate your input; I’m not continuing this discussion as you are much too combative, in my opinion. You make some good points – too bad you can’t see any worth in the points I make.

Have a good one.

Whatever. Next time you write about “constructive criticism” think about this conversation. In fact, don’t write anymore. Just think.

Because you don’t like my delivery, doesn’t make the message invalid.

Enjoy!

Another really easy way to go down, is to simply do nothing, or barely do anything. be lazy as much as you can be and always postpone things that could be done today

David,

Wow, you seriously love to argue don’t you fella? I see exactly where you are coming from but I also see Jeff’s point of view also. Take the article how it was intended and please give the guy a break.

May I suggest keep off the article pages and concentrate on running your own business – that will definitely ensure you don’t fail as you will have more time to put in for your clients mate.

Great article Jeff. I found it very enjoyable to read and I think you had some great pointers there.

Well done!

Russ

David,

If your advice to design students is that it’s okay to be uncompromising, untimely, not resourceful, poor at design, and to do everything themselves, then I feel sorry for anybody you mentor. This “just be yourself and the world will accept you” approach is what’s wrong with education today and the generation of children who think that they don’t need to conform in any way, shape, or form. There are no winners and losers anymore, only individuals. Problem is, that’s not the way the world works. In the real world, there are deadlines. In the real world, business are worried about profits. In the real world, there are people out there who want to take advantage of you. In the real world, only the best survive.

Thanks for the blog post Jeff. I enjoyed the sarcasm and agreed with most of your points.

Mr. David,

Please look up the meaning of “constructive criticism” again before you make comments like the two you made above.

Having read the article, your comments, and Jeff’s replies, I think that most impartial readers will agree that you weren’t as “constructive” as you’d like to think.

First off, starting a comment with this statement is not constructive at all:
“Everything about this article is absolutely awful and completely untrue. The author is totally misinformed and just trying to get blog traffic. To say I’m surprised and furious is an understatement. I think he feels like there is too much competition and is trying to scare people away from a career in design”

There must be at least three sweeping assumptions in that statement. You start off as totally argumentative and only start to explain the reason for your anger in your last sentence: “I think he feels there is too much competition and is trying to scare people away…”
— you say that Jeff is just desperate for hits, which is why he wrote this useless article and made strict NO-NO rules that don’t actually apply in real life. But what would other readers think upon reading your opening statement? Don’t you think that others might also be lead to believe that your opinion is completely true and that everything Jeff said was useless? Where is the “openness” in that?

Whether I agree with your opinion (about how Jeff’s article sucked) or not is beside the point. If you’re really trying to make a constructive criticism of the article, then please say so nicely and try to start your comment with something more open rather than “Everything about this article is absolutely awful and completely untrue.”

It seems to me that Jeff’s and your ideas combined would make a more useful article. And if you were really concerned about us newbies, then you should’ve just written a counter-article to this rather than posting an angry comment in Jeff’s article.

Now idea-wise, even if I didn’t like some things that Jeff wrote, I don’t exactly agree with you either. If I were to make a constructive criticism of Jeff’s article and your comments, then I’d write something like this:

about design
@David, I see your point. Most designers don’t really start out as l33t, design-gurus, and the best designers out there have probably learned from lots of experience rather than from being born with a pen tool in hand. Jeff’s “be good at what you do” statement seemed like a command and not an advice.
@Jeff, I think your first “how-to-fail” rule should be rewritten as: “Be contented with sucking at design”

about do-everything-yourself
@David, immersion or exposure to all aspects of running your own design firm(accounting, marketing, designing, programming) is important. But I think what Jeff meant with #2 is that you shouldn’t do everything by yourself. Note that his lesson at the end of rule#2 is: “learn to let go. Hire or subcontract to people you trust, and give them the power to make decisions”
— I think he’s advocating that you (i.e.) hire an accountant or a programmer at some point (possibly when your business is too big that you can’t do everything by yourself anymore?).
I agree that you have to know or expose yourself to all aspects of your business. But just because you know them doesn’t mean you have to keep on doing all of them. Specially when your time is better spent on focusing on one aspect. For example, overseeing the people who program and market while you yourself are focusing on the design aspect of your business.

about rule#3: design-as-art-vs-business
@David, I think what Jeff meant with rule#3 is, talk to your client in terms of how your design can help them as a business.
Some people want to mention “whitespace”, “visual distractions”, “progressive enhancement” either because they feel strongly about it (because they ARE artists) or they want to come off as real designers. However, they don’t bother to explain to clients why those things are important. (i.e.)
More whitespace => less strain to visitors eyes => easier to see the info/product they want => easier to make purchase => more purchases = more money
— this is what’s important to the businesses that hire you. They don’t really want to know the history of typography, they want to know how things like typography and semantics can help them get customers.

—- I was going to go on with rule#4 & 5 but this seems like a long comment already.

In conclusion,
@Mr. David, please take a deep breath and calm down before you comment on articles, even if you think that it might be negatively influencing someone else (misguided newbies) at this very moment. You might want to help us by clarifying things, but a fight isn’t the best medium to carry out a logical discussion.

@Mr. Jeff, even before I read David’s comments, I was already thinking that your article was too short and hasty, and might have benefited from more explanations. For example, you could have added something like this to rule#1:
“Why design things that are easy on the eyes? Bombard the reader with clashing gradients and a mixture of all the common web trends, even if they don’t fit together!”

Even if both of you seem to be stubborn mules with regards to your opinions, Mr. Jeff seems to be more civil at being stubborn, which makes me think that you, Mr. David, are actually the one who can’t take “constructive” criticism.

I love these how to fail posts, a unique and slightly sarcastic article to learn some lessons from, good post!

good thing that you didn’t have any typos because then someone would got unhinged at you … no wait that’s already happened.

Interesting and very useful subject. Thanks

Interesting article, in many ways it asks of the reader many questions, whether or not they agree with the post.
One thing on the “art” side, as any designer in any field, there are times in which you can be the artist, but many times you need to be the artisan. Knowing how to make the distinction is very important, however great your artistic skills are. And being a great artisan then makes the projects you are allowed to be the artist to flow, as you will have sharpened you techniques and work flow.