Make a website.

Your online presence is more important than ever, considering many customers will actually look up businesses during the day at work online, to save time. While the yellow pages ads still have their value, even if you can get one page online to present your image is better than none at all. With all the free website creators, free domains and free hosting, there’s really no excuse these days. Try here for some helpful links to do this.

Get a free online listing in the yellow pages.

Go to yellowpages.com.au (or yellowpages.com, .ca) and get your free listing.

Document your processes.

Everything you do more than a few times in your business should be documented in a manual. Try writing your processes as you go, so this isn’t one big job that you’re forever putting off.

Schedule some time to do this each week. Alternatively, write notes as you go along, then you can pad them out later.

The golden rule is to photocopy everything and put everything in writing. Organise folders for your emails and if you get an agreement from a customer through email, print it out as a hardcopy and file it away. In addition, if you happen to talk to friends and relatives about your business activities through email print these out and paste them into a diary. This is a great way to diarise how you came to be successful later on in life. You could even write a book!

Designers: make ‘Actions’ for your Photoshop processes, write notes in your .PSD files so you know how to reproduce that work down the track. Try creating macros for stuff you do over and over.

Create contracts and forms.

Getting a client to sign a contract, puts expectations in writing. Everyone should be clear about their rights and obligations before a job proceeds.

Designers: try creative commons for adding copyright to your work as well. Every contract should also have a process your client can follow should they have any issues with your work.

Designers: Create a form for your customer to fill in if they have updates or little fixes. This will make it harder for them to email you every time they have a little thing they notice that needs fixing. Then print out each one and file it away. This way you have written confirmation of all the work you’ve done for that client in one place.

Customer service is everything.

We shouldn’t have to say this, but barring some really abusive and unacceptable behaviour from your customers, you pretty much have to take it all. Unfortunately, during your early start, besides being heavily underpaid, you also must take a little more bad behavior from customers. The most annoying customers will often be the most loyal, especially if you can tolerate their nuances.

Give free stuff.

If you can give it away every now and then and it doesn’t cost you much, do it. Especially for people who have shown you loyalty. In addition, show well paying customers the gold service. For example, send good customers a bottle of wine for no reason. People LOVE presents.

Ask your customers for written praise. If someone says something nice to you about your service, ask them to put it in writing. You never know when this will come in handy for you.

Free money.

Artists, writers, and arty people: I can’t say this often enough. FREE MONEY is available to you from many government/council programs. Google is your friend for finding these, and this is not limited to your own country (Try the keywords “Calls to artists”). In 2009, you can get free insulation in your home office from the government in Australia. In some states, NEIS, The new enterprise incentive scheme for long term unemployed, will pay you Newstart allowance while you grow your business.

Education is lifelong learning.

Some TAFE courses to upgrade your skills are government subsidised and HELP gives you over $100,000 per lifetime to attend university as an undergraduate or graduate (Australia only). There are scholarships available at universities worldwide for talented individuals; they have to give the money to someone right? If you are thinking of studying in the USA as a graduate, there’s some helpful information here.

Write a blog.

Newsletters are out, blogs are in. It doesn’t have to be much, but if you can keep up a few entries to a blog a few times a month, this will keep online attention on you at very little cost. It’s a good way to let customers know of your new work or new products, and you should encourage them to sign up to your RSS feed.

Get a Facebook and a twitter account.

This is dead easy. Sign up to twitter. Why? Because apart from everything else, you can keep up with – and learn from – people in your industry. Get tips, helpful information or just network. This is the new way to network. A helpful article on twittering here

While you’re there, make a Facebook page for your business and ask all your friends and relatives to join. Again, this is an online presence, another way to communicate and advertise with your customers, present and future. Ask customers to “add” you on Facebook and put your Facebook page on your stationery.

Need help? Ask a forum.

Today, there’s really no question that can’t be answered on your local forum. A forum is a place where people join an online community or group and talk about a particular industry. Try googling your dilemma keywords. For example, how to write a blog, and see what comes up. Google the industry of your issue and the word “forum”. Most of the time, someone will have created an online forum addressing these issues.

Use your local university.

Universities are a terrific way of outsourcing your work to quality people. Like going to a student dentist to get your teeth pulled, but not as painful. Write down your problem, find out what department teaches that at your local university, and ask them to advertise on their notice board. They will often do this for free to help their students get work. It’s cheap, but don’t take advantage. If you treat your university employees with respect, you’ll gain a good reputation as an employer with them.

Sell your software online.

Did you know a lot of software has more that one licence available? As long as you’re willing to sell your original CD’s, you can keep your existing licence for your own use and sell the second one online. It’s always a good idea to find out from the software publisher if you’re allowed to use your licence on a second computer, but I wouldn’t mention that you’re making copies of the CD if that’s what you end up doing. This works really well if you have also kept original packaging and manuals for the software as well.

Make friends.

I can’t tell exactly how much of my business came from word of mouth but it’s a lot. Be a nice guy, make friends with everyone, talk to people about themselves and you’ll find they become interested in talking about you. Sell your business at every opportunity but don’t be a wanker about it. It doesn’t need to be in everyone’s face but if you get the chance to sell yourself nicely then do it. I’ve found Mother’s are great for extra bragging.

Get business insurance.

Get business insurance. While you’re there, register your logo or business name as a trademark. And check if someone else has your business name before you buy a www for it.

Join a competition.

Don’t worry at all if you think your work isn’t good enough yet. This is still a great way to get experience entering competitions for your work for when it is good enough. In addition, entering competitions will motivate you to practice work and set high goals for yourself.

 

 

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