How to go from low ball clients to high rollers
Here’s a quandary many designers and other creatives face – you want to break into higher paying projects, annual reports for example, but when it’s show and tell time, you come up wanting because you’ve never done one.
What’s a creative to do?
Well, you could do what most do – sit there, fingers crossed, wishing and waiting for Mondo Big Corp. to ring you up and drop their annual report in your lap. Don’t hold your breath. Another thing you could try is showing the work you do have, lay it on thick during the sales pitch, and hope Ms. Prospect will bite. Or, you could take the route that well-known designer, writer and speaker, Ellen Shapiro took.
Shapiro started her firm, Shapiro Design, back in 1978. After a few years, she took a long, hard look at her business. She was working on too many small projects with small budgets. She needed a change in direction. One of her business plan (you have one of those, right?) objectives was to tap the report market. But, it didn’t take too much research to realize that the competition was stiff for the Fortune 500. The fact that Shapiro Design didn’t have a single report in its portfolio didn’t help things, either.
Many other designers would have stopped there. Too tough a nut to crack. Not so for Ms. Shapiro.
In a classic case of zigging while the others zagged, Ellen targeted the smaller enterprises with revenues of roughly 300 million. Big enough to be profitable for her and a small enough niche where she could make her mark.
She got a copy of Inc Magazine’s list of the fastest growing companies and started digging for some good matches. She further narrowed things down to hardware and software, biomed and consumer products. The final list was about a hundred.
Next, she created comps for an imaginary company in each industry. Shapiro created a 4-page, color mailer and targeted it to address the needs of the CEOs and CFOs within her audience. Off they went. Ellen picked up the phone and made follow up calls.
The result? In the first year she landed three reports. The following year she landed five. Not too shabby.
With some work, some savvy and creativity, she successfully turned her client base from low profit to high profit. In addition, this new market allowed her to produce exceptional, high visibility work with a lot of potential for growth.
Smart lady.
What’s a creative to do?
Well, you could do what most do – sit there, fingers crossed, wishing and waiting for Mondo Big Corp. to ring you up and drop their annual report in your lap. Don’t hold your breath. Another thing you could try is showing the work you do have, lay it on thick during the sales pitch, and hope Ms. Prospect will bite. Or, you could take the route that well-known designer, writer and speaker, Ellen Shapiro took.
Shapiro started her firm, Shapiro Design, back in 1978. After a few years, she took a long, hard look at her business. She was working on too many small projects with small budgets. She needed a change in direction. One of her business plan (you have one of those, right?) objectives was to tap the report market. But, it didn’t take too much research to realize that the competition was stiff for the Fortune 500. The fact that Shapiro Design didn’t have a single report in its portfolio didn’t help things, either.
Many other designers would have stopped there. Too tough a nut to crack. Not so for Ms. Shapiro.
In a classic case of zigging while the others zagged, Ellen targeted the smaller enterprises with revenues of roughly 300 million. Big enough to be profitable for her and a small enough niche where she could make her mark.
She got a copy of Inc Magazine’s list of the fastest growing companies and started digging for some good matches. She further narrowed things down to hardware and software, biomed and consumer products. The final list was about a hundred.
Next, she created comps for an imaginary company in each industry. Shapiro created a 4-page, color mailer and targeted it to address the needs of the CEOs and CFOs within her audience. Off they went. Ellen picked up the phone and made follow up calls.
The result? In the first year she landed three reports. The following year she landed five. Not too shabby.
With some work, some savvy and creativity, she successfully turned her client base from low profit to high profit. In addition, this new market allowed her to produce exceptional, high visibility work with a lot of potential for growth.
Smart lady.
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