February 7, 2024
Don: Welcome to Design and Prosper episode 122. This is an Ask Kris and Don Quickie episode where we answer a question from a designer who is wondering if they need to learn web design in order to get high end projects.
[Intro Music]
Don: Hello
Kris: Hi! So before we get into the question, we wanted to let you know about something that is happening for designers, a very exciting something….it’s the designer boss summit. It’s happening on the 14th, 15th and 16th of February, 2024.
So if you’re listening around that time, you can still get a free ticket. It’s an awesome event. There are 20 plus guest speakers all talking about design business, design business systems and operations, and we’re talking about. The most important thing you need to stop your clients from being horrible
it is the client portal and it’s a game changer.
So we’ll have the link for you to sign up in the show notes and we really appreciate it if you could sign up using our link because yes, because what will happen is once you sign up, you’ll have the opportunity to upgrade your free ticket. You can stay on the free tier. That is totally fine, but you have the option to upgrade to the designer boss bundle, which we highly, highly recommend.
Don: It’s cramp packed with goodness.
Kris: It really is. It’s over $2,000 value. And inside that, you’ll get our nicely said client scripts kit.
Don: It’s such a sensational tool to have in your toolkit. It’s for all of those tricky situations that pop up. Inevitably, in every design business, in one way, shape or form, these problems pop up.
We have the perfectly articulated response for ensuring that your boundary, it’s a beautiful boundary that you’re setting via these scripts lands with respect, love, and kindness every single time.
Kris: Yeah, it’s so good. And our offering that we’ve contributed to the Designer Boss Bundle is $100 USD. And that’s for sale in our shop right now. So, you know, this is a small upgrade price to get the Designer Boss Bundle.
We highly recommend it, so go check it out. But sign up to the event anyway. It’s three days. It’s going to be great.
Don: Yeah, the speaker lineup is insanely good.
Kris: It really is.
Don: We can’t wait to be a part of it.
Kris: Yes. Alright, on to the question!
Don: Let’s dive in. So, this question comes from a beautiful designer out there called Cassandra.
Thank you Cassandra for sending this question in to us. The question is, I don’t offer website design in my branding service because it’s just not in my zone of genius. So how can I offer value in high price range without web design included. Is it possible to not offer web design or should I be collaborating with a web designer? Thanks in advance.
Kris: Okay. All right. So there’s some clues in this question. One is Cassandra says zone of genius. It’s not in my zone of genius. There’s another thing. I think that Cassandra, you’re worried that you’re just not going to be able to, you know, be in that higher price range bracket without doing this. So if I was building a graphic design business right now, if I was in your position, Cassandra, I would not want to be turning down.
A really juicy project. I would be nervous to turn down a really good opportunity to work on a brand that also has a website or just if somebody reaches out to me with a beautiful brand and they want a website, I would want to grow my business as much as possible. I would want to grow my network. So if I were you, I would be collaborating with other designers to make this happen.
Don: Yeah, absolutely. I agree. I’m in 100 percent agreement. I would not want to turn it away and in fact I didn’t. This is really one of the things that I would do a lot in my business. If I had a project arise that had a component that didn’t have my skill set inside the scope of works. So it could have been anything. It could have been environmental design. I’ve never done that before. So I got someone on board to help me with that. If it was website design, I got a website designer. Collaboration was a really big part of my business offerings as a part of my business processes to collaborate with people who had that in their zone of genius because It made every project really exciting because you’re working with extremely lit up individuals because they’re like, I love this.
I love this. And you’re like, well, thank goodness you’re doing that. I, you’re speaking another language, but we were working toward the one goal for this client. So I’m with Kris. Don’t. Don’t turn away work just because you don’t have that skill set. Find out who has that skill set, who you are in alignment with.
There’s a little bit to it. You have to find people who are on the same page as you with their business ethics, who have similar values or shared values even, who, have the same process you do in terms of managing a project so that it’s not two worlds colliding, you know, and it’s like, oh my gosh, you know, we’re running two businesses here and, and I would always be the lead.
I would always be the project manager and have everything run through my business. So it’s a definite yes from, from us to collaborate and yeah, get excited about things that are outside of your zone of genius.
Kris: Yeah, get excited about that is very telling. If you had been interested in web design, web developing, you would have probably gone down that rabbit hole already.
And you don’t have to. You do not have to become a skilled web designer to have a successful design business. And there are people out there who just want to do web design. We’ve got people like that who we work with one to one. We’ve got people like that in the Academy who actually discovered that about themselves as they went through the process of the Academy and were like, Hey, I can do this.
I can do this. Oh my goodness, I’m actually not enjoying branding. I just really enjoy web Now that may seem like, what? How on earth is that possible? Because it’s not interesting to me. Like it’s, we’re all so different. We’re all, we’ve all got different strengths. We’ve all got different things that, that light us up and that are our zone of genius.
And so definitely collaboration is the key here. But like Don said, There’s a bit of work to do. This is the work that you have to do right now. You have to get out ahead of this and get ready for collaboration before the need for collaboration arises. So that you don’t have to send somebody away, a potential client away, or be in a mad panic to pull this off.
Don: Scrambling to try and find the perfect collaborator. Yeah. We get out ahead of it. That’s exactly right. And we start right now having a look around and seeing web designers that you’re excited by. Check out their websites, go stalking, look at their Instagram, look at their work.
And then reach out. And actually start a conversation with them and ask them, would they be interested in working with you in future projects? And then they’ll say yes, they’ll say no, whatever. Usually they’ll say yes. And then you can start to talk about process. Okay, so my process would be, this is how I take a brief.
What would be missing in your process? We need that to be completely in alignment. So I’m capturing all the information that you need. for the work that we’re going to be doing together, or is it a matter of your process would be that they would be included in that briefing session with your client because they then will make sure we get all of the information that we need.
So, really starting to work out, okay, if I was to collaborate, who do I want to collaborate with? If they say yes, they would like to collaborate with me, what are my processes? What is the system that I am going to put in place to work with this beautiful person?
So that it’s seamless for them. We want it to be seamless. We don’t want them to think they’re working with two separate people. So, get out ahead of it and get all of that figured out. And then you are sitting pretty ready for that inquiry and to be able to charge those high end prices.
Kris: Yeah. For example, are you going to be the main point of contact? Like Donna said, she always liked to be the creative lead and the client liaison point. Are you going to be billing the whole project in its entirety and so that the client only. Has one invoice to pay or will the web designer bill the client separately? These are decisions, business decisions that you need to make.
And either way has benefits and pitfalls. You know, like it really does depend on your business model and what you would like to do. And just to start jotting down all the steps along the way of what would need to happen to make this a seamless process.
Don: Yeah, yeah, I really love that, Kris, you’ve brought that point up about whether or not you include the total fee and you charge that out or whether you then say, this is out of my zone of genius and so I partner with business B and they are geniuses in the web world and so all invoices will go through them for the web So it, it’s a big decision and I think we should just unpack the pros and cons a little bit around that because it’s a really good point that you’ve brought up, Kris, and so for me, one of the The pros for having complete control over that is that I could get my web designer to quote me on a project basis, there was a fee, and it wasn’t hourly rate, and there was a definite number that we were invoicing. The client’s process was seamless because they only saw one invoice, and then I would pay the website designer, for example, as a contractor, and then that was fairly seamless as well. I would include their 50 percent up front, and we always get, so, backtrack actually, we always get 50 percent up front for every project, right?
So their part would be included in that. They would get paid their 50 percent up front, I would have my 50 percent up front, and we would start the project. And it just felt less discombobulating for the client. now having said that, from the tax perspective, there’s a whole stack of money coming into your business, right?
So, that means there’s lots of tax implications, there’s lots of extra dancing with the tax powers that be, right? Whereas, when you say, we’re separate Then the tax implications and all of those things, they’re all for that business to carry, the responsibilities there for that business to carry.
So that might feel like a bit of a pro if you’re starting out, you don’t want to carry the burden of having to pay a supplier such a big amount of money and also having to jump through those extra tax hoops. When all is said and done, it’s all fine, but there is that extra layer, and what that equates to is that it takes your bookkeeper or yourself that little bit of extra time at tax time to work it out, it’s seamless if it’s with, you know, everybody’s getting paid and they’re sorting themselves out.
Kris: Yeah, it would inflate your revenue but not necessarily your profit, so it’s something you would need to work out with your accountant or bookkeeper, like is this beneficial for my business or not. So, another con is that you would be liaising with the client on something you may not be necessarily familiar with at this stage. So you need to be really comfortable with being the project manager
Don: Yeah, and the conduit between the two worlds. And if you’re, if you’re not across it, and let’s Let’s face it, it was never my zone of genius and therefore I wasn’t completely across it. But as a CEO, business owner, you’ll make it your business to understand the fundamentals of it.
But those really tricky conversations, you will be sort of like, drowning. So it is important to make sure that you actually have, if you decide to go full project management, that you have access to your zone of genius brain over here in the right hand corner, so that you can actually answer those questions with with accuracy.
Kris: So that would be a pro for getting the client to just liaise with the web developer directly. So you say, this is who we partner with. I recommend you use them. It’s really a recommendation. And the reality is in that situation, when they’re not contracting to you, when the client just goes off to them and is their one to one client, you really don’t have a lot of control anymore. And that, that is the downfall of that.
But if you are in a really good, mutually respectful, trustful kind of relationship with that kind of supplier, it could work out really well.
Don: Yeah,
Kris: And, and it could be really a win win kind of situation where they’re referring work to you. Maybe they don’t want to do branding
Don: We have people they that don’t wanna do branding. Yeah.
Kris: Which may sound crazy to some people, like it sounds crazy to me because I love branding, but it’s like, yeah, there’s people who don’t want to do it.
Don: Yeah, a hundred percent.
Kris: So it could be that they’re referring work to you and you’re referring work to them and it’s this lovely thing.
Don: yeah.
Kris: Yeah, so there’s lots of things to consider there, but it’s so doable. And it is a bit of an up level for you and it’s exciting. But I think with so much I think as we enter 2024, you know, like 2023 was gosh, I say that we’re recording this on the 1st of February. I just cannot believe that January has already gone. But 2023 was the year where AI really swept the world. And now 2024, it’s really entrenched. And I think that with so much automation, so much tech connection with humans is such a beautiful thing. And this a good thing for your business. Collaboration, connection, our word of the year. If you didn’t listen to that episode, we had an episode about it is together. And it’s all about that. It’s all about collaboration and doing things together.
So maybe that’s part of your mission moving forward to reach out and finding people to do things together. And human to human stuff is really lovely and it’s expansive as well. I think it’ll be really good for your business.
Don: Yeah, I think so too. And one other thing that could really help with collaboration, in fact, it does is using a client portal. And we talked about that at the top of the episode where we are a part of the designer boss summit.
If you’re listening to this around, or just before the 14th to the 16th of February, 2024, we are a part of the designer boss summit where we talk about our client portal and we share it with you. And the client portal is the perfect platform for collaboration because you invite your client, you invite your website designer, everybody is in the same space and all of those tricky questions that we were talking about before, you don’t have to be the expert on those because your website designer can go in there and answer those and can be across that, or boundaried of course.
We like to have boundaries around this. But it’s all there for everyone to see. So everyone is a part of the whole journey, you know? So the beautiful client portal has made collaboration so much easier than, you know, back in the nineties when Kris and I started out with our businesses and collaborating with people where we really had to rely on, you know, that connection and bringing people into the same room and things like that.
It is so much easier now to collaborate. So, yeah. Collaboration all the way.
Kris: Yeah, oh gosh, you wouldn’t want to do it without a portal.
Don: No.
Kris: Yeah, it would be a big mess. All right. So Cassandra, thank you so much for asking that question. It was a great one. And just to reiterate, you definitely do not need to become skilled in web design and you know, the fact that you haven’t already done so is very telling.
Don: Yes. Love that.
Kris: Trust that you can still have a very successful business where you can charge high end prices and have a really thriving design business.
Don: So be brave, start building that collaborators list, get your dance card all full, ready to go with all beautiful people who can, you know, inspire you and, and offer the type of work that you can’t, and you just don’t know the doors that will open.
Kris: So if you have a question for us. I actually, I just was looking through our questions list and it’s getting low. It’s getting low people. So we need your questions.
Don: Yes, please.
Kris: So just head to designandprosper.co/podcast and you can submit a question there. You can type it in or you can leave an audio message for us. You can listen back to it to make sure you’re happy with it, but Gosh, we’d love to feature some of your voices on these Ask Kris and Don episodes as well. So get your questions in, we’d love to answer them.
Don: And just before we go, we have a favor to ask. If you’re loving the podcast, and we hope you are, we love it. It would mean so much to us if you could subscribe and leave us a positive review.
Kris: So, if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, you just need to press the little plus button at the top of the episode, just top right, or if you’re in Spotify, you press follow. And that really makes a difference to getting our podcast out to the world further. I don’t know why, I don’t understand why, bit it’s very important.
Don: It’s really is important for the growth of our, our podcast and, and you know, we’re so grateful when people subscribe and follow us, it’s, it means the world. So thank you in advance.
Kris: Yeah. Alright. Sending lots of love. Be brave. And until next time.
Don: Yeah, be brave.
Kris: Bye!
© Copyright 2024 Design & Prosper Pty Ltd