Section 1: Mastering Client Interactions
- Confidence: How to Build It and How to Develop It if You Don’t have Any
- Qualifying Your Clients: How to Choose the Right Clients for Your Business
- 10 Things You Must Absolutely, Unequivocally Avoid When Meeting a Potential Client
- Gain the Advantage by Taking the Initiative with Your Clients
- Designing a Logo for a Client? How to Determine Whether It’s Logo Design or Concept Design
- Managing Clients & Projects: What to Do & What to Say When Things Get Out of Hand
- Keeping Your Clients Happy and Coming Back for More
- Quickly & Easily Diffuse a Client that’s an Angry, Ticking Time Bomb
- How Trying to Catch a Squirrel Can Teach You How to Get More Clients
- Top Twenty Reasons Good Artists Become Starving Freelancers
- Breaking Up Can Be Hard to Do: Not After You Read This Quick & Easy Way to Get Rid of a Client
- What Your Clients Are Looking for but Don’t Tell You
- Snatching Victory from the Claws of Defeat: What to Do When Your Prospect Goes in Another Direction
Section 2: Running an Effective Design Business
- It’s Not Just Show and Tell: Using Your Portfolio to Turn Prospects into Clients
- Collaboration, Not Competition: Bring in More Clients & More Sales by Working with Fellow Designers
- Ten Critical Concepts That, When Forgotten, Can Ruin Your Freelancing Business
- Grow Your Design Business and NEVER Work with Another Customer Again
- Making Sure that You Get Yours: Billing Strategies that Get You Paid Fast and Easily
- Forget Hiring Vinny and Knuckles to Crack Skulls: What to do with a Client that’s Slow or Reluctant to Pay
- Animals Have It Right – Go After the Fruit that’s Easiest to Pick First: Call on Your Existing Clients to Drum Up Business Today
- Setting Up Your Accounting System: How Could Anything be So Boring Yet So Important to a Freelancer?
- No More Feast or Famine: How to Smooth Out Those Frustrating Income Peaks and Valleys
- Avoiding the Beginner’s Trade Trap: When and How to Leverage Trade Clients When You’re Starting Out
- Essential, “Can’t Live Without It” Survival Gear for the Beginner Graphic Designer
- Playing “Nice” In the Sandbox: Working Effectively with Other Designers
- You Have Two Years to Go from Starving to Successful: Use Your Time Wisely
- Anatomy of a “Damn Good” Contract: How to Write the Right Contract with the Right Information
- What Good’s a Contract If You Can’t Get it Signed? How to Get Your Clients to Sign on the Dotted Line
Section 3: Marketing & Promoting Your Design Business
- Where to Find Business When You Don’t Know Where to Look: 15 Business Building Approaches You’ve Never Considered
- Are Your Logo and Business Name Hurting Your Chances for Success? Creating a Business Identity that Attracts the Clients You Want
- Proven, Can’t Miss Networking Strategies for the Not So Slick, Not So Fast Talking Rest of Us
- Big Judgments on Little Info: Understanding How Your Prospects / Potential Clients Think
- Do You Always Feel like Prospects are Sharking for the Best Deal? Maybe There is a Reason Why Your Prospect’s Wearing a Dorsal Fin
- Do You Make the Risk or Do You Take the Risk From Your Prospects?
- You Might Hate Worms, But if You’re Fishing You Can’t Beat ‘Em
- See Jane Network: If You’re an Introvert, Confused or Scared About Networking, This Chapter Will Give You Hope
- Think Only Kids Tell Stories? Designers Who Make $100,000+ Do It, Too. If You Want the BIG Bucks, Learn to Tell Little Stories
- Never Waste Time or Money on Marketing and Advertising for Your Design Firm Again!
- You’re Probably Not Getting the Money You Deserve Because You Don’t Know What You Truly Sell
- Designers that Market to Everyone End Up Working for No One: Finding Your Unique Niche
- Attract More Prospects and Get Paid More by Answering the “So what do you do?” Question the Right Way
- 4 Quick Steps to Delivering a Can’t Miss, Easy to Deliver 30 or 60 Second Networking Introduction
- 10 Tried and True Approaches New Designers Use to Get Business... That Never Work
Section 4: Negotiating, Pricing & Protecting Your Work
- When the Client Can’t Afford You:
- How to Turn “Bye-Bye” to “Buy, Buy”!
- You Are Not a Commodity: How to Stop Competing on Price and Get What You Are Worth
- Let’s Not Make a Deal: What to Do When Prospects Want Business Partners
- It’s Your Artwork, Here’s How You Protect It
- Flat Rate or Hourly Rate: Which is the Better Fit for You and Your Clients?
- When to Take a Gamble on a Client That Can’t Pay Your Full Rate
- Some Clients Can Rob You Blind if You Let Them: Are you Giving Away Free Services?
Section 5: Real Stories, Real Clients and Some Really Hard Lessons
This is a collection of 16 good, bad and ugly personal stories I've experienced with clients. These are real life examples that either every freelancer has experienced - or will experience. At the end of each story there is a synopsis and pointers on what you should do to handle the situation better than I did.
Section 6: Workbook Exercises for the Success-Driven Designer
Here you'll find a compilation of 21 easy to use, exercises that will immediately help you bring in more business and avoid the huge mistakes other designers make, and make you look and feel more confident and professional. These are quick exercises designed to help you as soon as you complete them.
- Keeping the Best and Forgetting the Rest: How to Determine Who Your Best Clients Are and How to Find More of Them
- Do’s and Don’ts of Meeting a Client for the First Time
- Identifying Client Challenges: What are the Warning Signs that Tell You this Client Might be Tough to Work with?
- Know When to Hold ‘em , Know When to Fold ‘em: When to Part Ways with a Client
- Following Up and Following Through to Get More Business
- Interviewing is a Two-way Street - Both You and Your Prospect Ask the Questions
- Looking for a Printer to Work with? Here’s Everything You’ll Want to Ask Before Signing Their Contract
- Qualifying Your Clients Over the Telephone: How to Spot and Keep the Best – and Throw Out the Rest
- Do You Have the Right Stuff to Be a Freelance Designer?
- What Type of Professionals Should You Look to Team Up with?
- How Well is Your Design Business Doing? 25 Indicators that You Can Analyze to Evaluate It Right Now
- Are You Sending Your Artwork to a Digital Printer? Ensure Everything Goes Smoothly By Using This Trusty Checklist
- Is Your Logo Design More “Go” or “No”? This Quick Quiz Will Help You Decide if You have a Winner
- Managing Project Bumps, Bruises and Other Time Wasters
- 50+ Marketing Tools that You Should Have or At Least Consider
- Your Credibility Checklist: See How Professional You Look through Your Client’s Eyes
- Make More Money By Expanding Your Service/Product Offerings
- How Much are You Really Wasting on Travel Time?
- Uncle Sam Isn’t Going to Tell You that You’ve Paid too Much
- How to Establish Fair Initial Prices and Not Feel Like You Just Pulled a Number Out of Thin Air
- Knowing When it’s Time to Raise Your Rates
