If you are a skilled web designer, whether you realize or not, you’re in a pretty unique position as far as careers go. Flexibility, independence, huge earning potential and a wide range of work environment options – are just a few perks that come to mind for talented website designers.
Sounds amazing, right? One of the first mistakes budding entrepreneur’s make, is that they often get caught up in the dream and not the reality. So throw away your rose colored glasses, because you’re in for a long-haul before you grind your way to the top. I am speaking from experience, and I’m personally in the throws of making the big push into the web design market as a self-employed worker.
What I can say though, is that when I landed my first gig, it was far more rewarding than I could have imagined, the sense of praise I felt was one of resounding achievement, and satisfaction. Aside from anything else, passion is the silver-bullet that will get you over the line if you have aspirations of starting a web design business.
In today’s post, I’m going to online the important elements you’ll need to get started in your own web design business. I’ll be sharing my own experiences, along with helpful tips and knowledge I have absorbed throughout my own research and implementing various strategies.
Slipping on Your New Entrepreneur’s Jacket
Moving careers in itself, is a hard enough pill to swallow, so why do so many people feel the need to do it? In general, most of us like the thought of being our own boss, making loads of money and working less hours. Even though there are more millionaires today than ever before, statistics tell us that 50% of new businesses fail in the first year, with a further 40% failing within 5 years. (source: ehow.com)
Realities such as these, are something you need to know about. Trust in your gut feeling to determine whether you are prepared to risk it all? On the other hand, if you are the type of person who possess a unique raw drive and determination, you could be an ideal candidate with the ability to rise above the noise.
What to Expect
When things start moving in the right direction, it can be an overwhelming sense of achievement. Not only are you proving to yourself that you can do it, every positive step you take means that you’re inching towards the bigger picture. It’s a far greater sense of victory than if you’re working for someone else. For me, I have been running my own web design business for 9 months, and the greatest sense of satisfaction is that I get full control, am able to set my own hours, and have the ability to dictate my own prices, and can speak to clients directly about solving their problem, and delivering the solution – what a great feeling!
Overcoming Challenges
The road to developing a successful web design business is much more than having good design skills. Just to name a few challenges, there’s accounting laws, developing new business, customer service and the marketing strategy. You’ll need to broaden your set of skills if you’re to become a polished operator. You’re going to need to remain self-motivated and be able to work towards self-imposed goals and deadlines.
1. Working on your own time: This can be one of the best perks of being self-employed. The boss isn’t constantly looking over your shoulder. Even still, working without supervision has its pitfalls, it’s easy to lose focus knowing that you can put something off until later.
2. Distractions: Some days things seem to click, you can divert away from what you’re doing, perhaps to attend to emails or phone calls, and can easily return to your task without skipping a beat. Other times, little distractions can absorb all of your time leaving you feeling rather unproductive come close of business. Constant interruptions is something you’ll need to deal with, which comes down to honing in on your management skills, and ability to prioritize.
3. Managing clients: Some of your customers can be very pleasant to work with, others not so pleasant. Doing business with difficult clients can make life tough, and can also affect your bottom line. If the majority of clients you take on are hard to deal with, not only will you need to put in more hours, you’ll become more stressed as a result and probably question why you’re taking this on when you could be working for someone else.
4. Delegating: Once you start taking on multiple clients, think about steps you can take to delegate. Outsourcing the design work is one solution, another is to employ a book-keeper. If you’re going to keep tight deadlines in place, delegating is the next practical move you can explore.
Looking Into the Future
As far as flexibility goes with a business, web designing is about as flexible as it gets. Ultimately, a successful web design business can be run by other people.
The skills you’ll develop throughout this path are extremely valuable for web design management, and also has the potential to be applied to various other areas in business.
