February 22, 2022
If you haven’t had a chance to check out the first part of this series, check it out here.
It’s no secret that we are systems geeks…in fact, it was our passion for graphic design business systems that solidified our relationship all those years ago—even though we were essentially competitors in a relatively small market. Our regular coffee dates would lead to talking about ways to improve the way we ran our design studios and now we are so thrilled to share these with you!
We’ve tried and tested many approaches over the years and discovered the systems that work best—we only are scratching the surface in this podcast series, but we love nothing more than to share the big picture within the Design & Prosper Academy—our business course for graphic, brand and web designers.
The cost estimating process can be one of the most time consuming and life-sucking aspects of a design business—especially if you haven’t honed a system for it.
Having an efficient and accurate system for quoting is essential for the ongoing profitability of your business. Sustainability needs to be built into your entire business model and a cost estimating system is a critical part of that—not just from a financial perspective, but from a time and balance perspective too.
A cost estimating system is a layered process where some important underlying factors need to be considered, such as:
– What are your overall financial goals?
– What hours are you prepared to commit to each week?
– What level of offering do you have?
– How are you going to convince the market there is value in your offering?
– What is your natural pace?
– If your pace is ‘slow’, is this because of the additional value your offer?
There’s a lot of talk in the graphic design industry about whether you should be using value-based pricing or hourly rate based pricing. For more thoughts on value-based pricing vs hourly rate pricing, check out episode 40 of our podcast and go download our free guide to pricing your design projects if you haven’t already!
Start creating templates for your cost estimates and use them on repeat—this will make the process of quoting so much easier. Break down the individual tasks as much as you can and consider all the aspects you’ll need to thoroughly complete a project. We’ve noticed that underestimating and overdelivering is a common theme for many designers.
Not having a client management system can be one of the main reasons designers find clients so difficult to deal with. It can also be an underlying factor for designers to feel a loss of control with leads to resentment and “argggh why did I start a business?!’
A good client management system is about making sure that the client feels seen and heard throughout the whole design process. Clients will tend to become problematic if there are no boundaries in place and they don’t feel safe. They want to know what is expected of them, what is coming next and they want to feel involved in the process.
Our favourite system for client management involves using a client portal—we love using Trello for this because of its clarity and ease of use—not just from the designer’s perspective but from the client’s aise of things too. Using a client portal will ensure all schedules, files, progress and correspondence are gathered in one spot, and ensures everyone involved in the project is on the same page. It also makes it so much easier for designers to implement boundaries, such as limits with communication and client changes.
Having a really solid client management system can really elevate the joy and satisfaction of design projects. Portals don’t have to be complicated—one of our favourite sayings is ‘What would this look like if it was easy?’
It’s time to get your scheduling in order! If your time management is a hot mess and you’re working ridiculous hours for little money, it’s time to implement a studio time management system.
Many creatives feel like they need open-ended space in order to create. They end up ebbing and swaying to meet the demands of what is right in front of them, rather than strategically scheduling their time.
Creating structure around your workdays by scheduling client projects is a game-changer. It’s a paradox, but the structure of a beautifully planned schedule creates freedom.
Bonus points if you have a to-do list that is synced to your calendar. Think of your individual tasks as mini-milestones throughout your day (designers always work well to a deadline, right?) and by doing this you are not only honouring your commitments to your client’s projects, you are honouring your commitments to your own time and profitability too.
Let’s look back to the cost estimating system (system six) — say we make a commitment to spend 10 hours developing a logo, it’s not going to be beneficial for your business to spend 20 hours.
Challenge yourself—if you have allocated 2 hours for brainstorming a project, can you schedule in the 2 hours into your week and stick to it?
The bottom line is, if you don’t manage your time, your profitability and balance will be out the door. A time management system can be one of your most valuable systems because it will not only keep you on track with your business goals, it will keep you sane as well.
Tip: Always allocate unscheduled time in your day—space for nothing at all. We gleaned this concept from The Twelve Week Year by Brian Moran.
This essential system will streamline your workflow and allow for the potential for growth (when it’s time to hire staff or outsource).
We’ve always been a bit particular about saving files in a logical and ordered way. We assumed everybody did this! But after working with many designers over the years, we’ve found that we are the super tidy file saving weirdos.
But it’s not just about neatness, it’s about logic. Can you access files from 2 years ago within a minute? If the answer is no, you need a better system. When you have clients on repeat (our favourite kind of design business model!), you’ll find that you’ll need to access archived files regularly.
For the solopreneurs out there, if someone came along and needed to access files in your system, would they be able to easily navigate it and understand it? Or have you got a big hot mess of files saved in your downloads folder?
Whatever system you use, make it make sense, not just to you, but to others as well.
It can take time to get your folders organized, but it’s like any decluttering process, it’s important not only for workflow but for clearing stagnant energy as well (hello abundance and hello new clients!). Give it a try and see what happens.
One tip to add to your file organising system is to use lots of folders — you can never have too many! And be sure to title them logically.
How do you know if you are making more than $5 per hour on projects? You track your time!
This system is essential to tracking your productivity and assessing profitability. Tracking your time does not need to be complicated, but we recommend a method that helps you track per project AND the different categories within a project.
A good system should inform you of:
– The total time taken to complete the project
– Whether or not you were profitable on this project (did you use up all the hours you estimated in your quote?)
– Your productivity and efficiency wins or problems
– Your overall rate at the end of the project
If you’re not tracking your time, it’s essential to start doing it now to see how you work as an individual so that you can set benchmarks for yourself in the future. You need to understand and measure the value of YOUR hour because it doesn’t matter how everybody else works, you are YOU.
Sometimes we might feel we’re too slow as designers because we compare ourselves to others. Maybe your pace is slower for a valid reason — for example, you may have an extra layer of strategy or conceptual development that you adds value to your projects. But until you assess it, you won’t know and you won’t be able to communicate this value to your clients.
Or maybe there are inefficiencies in your process that need to be streamlined. Regardless, a good timesheet system will help you recognise what you’re doing right, what can be improved and then you can do something about it.
If you feel you don’t have time to do timesheeting (I don’t wanna! I didn’t go into business to do timesheets!), it only takes 30 extra seconds at the beginning and end of each session. Can you really afford not to do this? We don’t think so.
With love,
Kris & Donna xo
[00:00:00] Kris: Hey everybody.
[00:00:01] Donna: Hello,
[00:00:02] Kris: Hello, and welcome to the second installment of our design business systems series, where we talk about the essential systems that you need to have in your design business. So we’re doing this as a little mini series, and this is part two.
[00:00:19] Donna: Absolutely. And there are a lot of moving parts within all of these systems, but this will give you an overview and we’ll show you the essential systems that are needed to have a really highly functioning, beautiful graphic design business. So let’s get into it. We’re excited.
[00:00:35] Kris: yeah, yeah. Systems one to five, we discussed in podcast episode 56. So make sure you listen to that one first and then listen to this one. Alright.
[00:00:45] Donna: Yes. Okay. So system six, this is the cost estimating system. So this is where you really can dig deep and understand the full scope of a project. And create a cost estimate that is really tight, that really understands the scope of work. So this system is critical for that conversion and again, in our last podcast, we spoke to how all of the systems integrate because the systems really are an ecosystem. This is your business, they all speak to each other. So you’ll find that that sort of synergy happens all the way through the systems that we share with you.
[00:01:24] Kris: Yeah, absolutely. And with the cost estimating system, it is a layered process and it’s a process that needs to go fairly deep. It doesn’t have to be complicated. It needs to be quick, but it needs to be layered. And it’s not just about plucking figures out of the air because there’s a lot of talk about value based pricing and whether you should be using an hourly rate. And if you’ve downloaded our free pricing guide, you know we liked to use a combination of the two, but there’s lots of factors that need to be considered when pricing out a project in order to be sustainable and profitable for your business in the long run. So it is a system and it can be dangerous just plucking a figure out of the air because it feels right. Or a value-based price just out of the air or listening to what other people are charging. It needs to be based on your business model. What are your financial goals and what you hope to achieve? What is your business model in terms of how much you want to work per week? Your circumstances might be completely different to another person’s who was working like 40 hours a week. You might not have that amount of time you want to dedicate. You may, but there’s so many things to consider and it’s really important that you have it all broken down into all the different aspects that take up your time.
[00:02:41] Donna: Absolutely. And speaking of taking up time, we speak to so many designers who say the cost estimating process in their business is the most time consuming part of their business. They spend hours quoting a project and it’s something that if it doesn’t convert, it’s a waste of their time. They see it as a waste of their time. If you have a really comprehensive cost estimating system, and you have this on repeat and you really understand your business model. And like Kris was saying, outlining your process. One of the things is you might work completely differently to another designer. So the way that you quote needs to be completely different, your pace might be different to another designers you’re experience might be different to another designer. So there’s all of these factors that need to be taken into consideration when, when you are quoting and this system needs to be effective and ensure that it’s quick and it’s efficient for you for your business. That’s the key, that’s the key to this system, hone it and finesse it until such times as when you receive a request for a quote and you are like, no problem. I’ll get that out this afternoon instead of, oh no, I’m good. That’s gonna. That’s wiped out my week.
[00:03:58] Kris: It’s too complicated.
[00:04:00] Donna: thing. It’s too complicated. We want you to be in that head space of getting excited when you have an opportunity to quote a project and you can be excited when you have a system that has everything there for you to draw on and will make sure that you can quote effectively essentially.
[00:04:17] Kris: Yes.
[00:04:18] Donna: Hmm.
[00:04:18] Kris: It’s got to be easy. Right? The quoting system has to be easy. The cost estimating system. There is a formula to it. There is an art to it, and we break all that down in The Academy. We show exactly how to quote exactly how to send off a proposal.
So another essential system, this is system number seven is to have a client management system. So the proposals been approved and you’re off and running. You now have a new client. What happens next?
[00:04:53] Donna: Yay. Celebrate, celebrate, stop, and celebrate. And I don’t think that as solopreneurs and small business owners, we do that enough. I think we sort of go, oh, yay. And straight back into it. So stop and celebrate. And then let’s get onto the next system, which is the client management system. Like kris was saying.
[00:05:12] Kris: Yeah. Cause not having a client management system can be the main reason why clients are so difficult and it can be, um, the reason why designers end up really hating on their design businesses because they don’t have good client management systems. And with a client management system, it’s really about making sure that the client feels really seen and heard throughout the whole process. They feel involved in the process. It’s easy for them to know where things are up to. It’s easy for them to know what they need to do, what their responsibility is and what your responsibilities are as the designer. And it’s all very clear and in the one spot. And what’s our favorite thing Don? What’s a favorite thing in the world to use for a client management system?
[00:06:03] Donna: Well, we love Trello. That’s no secret. We love Trello. It’s all there. That that portal is just phenomenal. We love it. We use Trello with our one-to-one clients and if we were operating design businesses, like we were with our fledgling design businesses, we would absolutely introduce something like this from the get-go because I love what Kris said at the very beginning of this particular system, I would be bold enough to say it is the main reason that clients can go rogue. They can become problematic if there are no boundaries and no systems in place.
And what a really beautiful client management system does is it makes everybody feel safe. Everybody feels seen and it’s easy to see boundaries. That’s the key, the key to a beautiful client management system is, is the boundaries. So it’s essential that that happens from the minute that they’re engaged and if the system doesn’t exist and then you wanna create the system as they’re going that’s okay. It is never, ever too late, but make sure that the communication is happening the whole entire way. It’s harder once you’ve started and there’s no system and the clients had been doing whatever they want for, for however long. And you have to introduce something like this. So much easier to have this system from the get-go. So, So, much easier and exciting. Exciting for you to have it all contained.
[00:07:22] Kris: Yeah. So that’s where all your correspondence lies. That’s where your files will be uploaded. That’s where it all happens. It’s like this living, breathing hub, and it’s so beautiful and succinct and easy to use. For not only yourself, but also for the client. That’s what it needs to be because we have clients who tend to want to do their own thing and we need to make it very easy for them to feel like you’re holding their hand. It’s not hard. It’s not difficult. So that’s why we love Trello because it’s so easy from a client perspective as well.
[00:07:52] Donna: So easy, so easy for us, so easy for them and the amount of people that get so excited by it because they can see it all and understand it’s awesome user experience. Check it out, but there are so many others, there are so many other beautiful, client management systems that you could look into. But that system itself is I think, critical for balance and for harmony. And it allows you to really enjoy the process of communicating with your client and it keeps your correspondence nice and sharp. So, a really good client management system, it really elevates the joy, I think that we have around each project because it makes it easy. We want ease. That’s what we’re always after.
[00:08:31] Kris: Yeah. Don’t overcomplicate it either. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Yeah.
All right. Another one.
[00:08:37] Donna: yeah. Number eight is a studio time management system. So this is a time management system, not just a studio running operating system, but a time management and scheduling system, just to make sure that we are on track, that we are not going above the quote that we’ve quoted for projects, to make sure that we really keep it nice and tight. And we’re not just a complete hot mess all the time.
[00:09:02] Kris: Yeah. And I know this flies in the face of a lot of creatives who feel like they need open-ended space and they’re just going this way and that way, and, you know, whichever way the wind blows, that’s what they’re working on, but having some structure around your scheduling for yourself and for slotting in client projects is a game changer. It’s actually essential in getting work done, in being productive because I think a lot of us tend to fall into that last minute artist category, you know? Where we have a tendency to pull a late deadline. And once the pressure’s on that’s when everything clicks into gear, but to schedule things in and have a really good system for it. So that it’s all synced to your, your to-do list is then synced to your calendar. And then you can slot things in and clients know what’s happening and you are honoring your own commitments to time.
You are honoring what you said you were going to do in your estimates. So that behind the scenes that we go back to that other system where we’re doing our quoting system, we’re going to make sure that what you said you were going to do, you’re going to honor that. So you’re not going to spend 10 hours developing a logo when you promised five hours.
[00:10:17] Donna: Your profitability is out the door. If you don’t manage your time, that’s the bottom line. You’re honoring the time because it’s not practical for you to, to spend 10 hours on something that you’ve only quoted five hours for. So it’s essential. And, and just tapping into that last minute artist mentality. If you have all of these mini milestones in your scheduling, you can see those as mini deadlines. And it’s like, challenge yourself. I’ve only got five hours to do this logo. I’ve only got an hour to do the brainstorming and that in itself is a deadline. It’s a serious deadline and challenge yourself. See if you can meet it and you’ll find time and time again, that you’re able to do it more efficiently as you go through, as you get used to working in that sort of structure, it actually, it creates freedom. It’s a paradox, but it does, it creates freedom in that it’s beautifully scheduled and you can plan around it. And you can also have unplanned events around a really beautifully scheduled time sheet or time schedule, because you’ll be able to go, okay, this unplanned thing has happened. It’s going to eat X amount of hours out of my day. I can see where I can compartmentalize and shuffle things to make that work. So it really does lead to freedom. So it’s really interesting when you just make that little tiny paradigm shift. It’s really interesting how having a really beautiful time management system can be one of your most valuable systems, because it really does keep you on track and keep you profitable and keep you sane as well.
[00:11:52] Kris: Yeah. And as you were saying about the unscheduled things, well, that’s something that we learned from reading the 12 week year, which is scheduling every day some unscheduled time into your calendar.
[00:12:04] Donna: Absolutely. Okay. The next system we have is system number nine,
our file management system. And this is something that we took for granted that everybody did. Everybody filed their projects really beautifully and curated their files in a way that made sense. And that you could come back to at any given time. But we found that so many people don’t and they’re like, what? But really a beautiful file management system streamlines your workflow and allows for growth for hiring and outsourcing. So someone can come along and see your system and understand it. And not think, what world have I landed in here? So essentially it’s, you know, finding files later, getting somebody to come in and do the work for you. Anything that’s on repeat, being able to access it with ease. All of these things are really essential in a operating design business. And our file management system is key to that to make that happen.
[00:13:01] Kris: Yeah, it is so essential. One little tip that we can give you is use lots of folders.
[00:13:07] Donna: Yes,
[00:13:07] Kris: Don’t be in using your folders. So file management can sound to bit daunting of a task, especially if you’re in a very big desktop mess at the moment. If you’ve got files scattered all over your desktop, and you’ve got thousands of files in your downloads folder, you are not alone. It can take time to get organized, but it’s like a decluttering thing it’s really important to de-clutter. It’s an abundance thing as well. Decluttering is so essential for drawing and attracting in new projects and new money and new income into your life. So just like you would declutter in the home, you need to declutter your filing system, make sure you’ve got everything archived beautifully. Make sure there’s a system that makes sense. Not only to you, but to other people as well, because the ideal situation is you’re on a growth trajectory and other people be coming on board and you don’t want to be spending all your time, hunting through files, trying to get things organized. And, and the more that you grow as well, you have repeat clients coming back. So you might have a client from two years ago who needs something and it’s like, oh, okay. Where is that thing? Oh, dear it’s outlined. And it needs to be edited, you know? So there’s systems within this system and that’s like, with all of them, there is layers upon layers of processes and systems that make this beautiful design business ecosystem hum. And that’s what we want. We want it to be just flowing effortlessly so that a lot of the struggle just dissolves away when you have systems. That’s why we we’ll sing systems, the praises of systems to the rooftops.
[00:14:41] Donna: Well, it was, we we’ve said this about us, but it was around 2005 when Kris and I got our hands on Michael Gerber’s the E-Myth and we became system obsessed, the years that followed after that, because we could see that the systems were making a massive impact in us really owning our businesses and the businesses working for us and not us being an employee of our business. So that’s why we will sing, we will shout, we will dance about systems until the cows come home.
[00:15:14] Kris: and we, naturally had some systems in place and you will too. You will have some systems in place. But having the awareness around what is on repeat in your. What can I turn into a system? How can I record this system? How can I maintain it so that it happens regularly? How do I remind myself that there’s a system because sometimes we forget. So it’s about all those different things. There’s lots of ways you can integrate it and really ramp it up. But you probably already have some systems that are working really well in your business right now, but you might not have been aware that there are actually systems.
[00:15:49] Donna: Yeah, absolutely. All right.
[00:15:52] Kris: So system 10 is time tracking system. So this is a little bit similar to system eight, where we’re scheduling, but in this case, we are tracking our time as we go to assess our productivity, to assess our profitability, to see how each project has gone. It’s essential to track your time. And if you’re not tracking your time, it’s really essential to start doing it now to see how you as an individual works. Because it doesn’t matter how everybody else works, you are individual. And sometimes we feel that we’re too slow because what? They’re doing it in 10 hours? Why does it take me 15? Well, maybe that’s because you have another layer of finessing. Maybe you have another layer of strategy that’s going into your work and that’s valuable. So it doesn’t mean you have to try and squish everything in, but it’s important to track your time.
[00:16:50] Donna: Or miss something out that you might feel the need to squish in or take something out. You really do need to understand and measure the value of an hour with you. So it’s your value. It’s what you can do in an hour. And the only way you’ll understand it is by tracking it, it’s really powerful. It’s really, really telling. And then it really identifies as well, the offering that you offer your client, like Kris was saying, you might have another layer of conceptual work, or you might have another layer of strategy. These are things you can speak to when you are talking to a client to convert them into a sale, you can say, my work is valued at this price because this is my process. You’ll understand your process because you’ve been tracking it. Because you understand the value of an hour with you, which is really, really important.
[00:17:39] Kris: We’re all wired differently, right? So it’s like one person might need to do two hours on paper of sketches and then somebody else might just go straight to digital because their brain might be wired quite differently. So it depends on your individual process, but it’s just very important to track to make sure that you are charging accurately and that you’re not indeed, you know, making $5 per hour on every project, you will get so much awareness around time tracking. I know it’s a drag, but if you can try to look at it with a light heart and go, it’s really only a couple of seconds before and after each session, I’m just going to pop this in. You can just use a spreadsheet. You can use good old fashioned pen and paper. You don’t have to make this complicated. There’s plenty of apps out there for tracking time. So just start doing it and see exactly what is happening with the projects and how much time you’re spending on all of them. And sometimes it will go really wrong. The timing will go really pear shaped. It all be like, how did I spend so much time on that? But that’s important intel because we want to know that. We want to know, do I need to factor that in? Or the awareness of it? Oh, I see where I went wrong there. So very important.
[00:18:57] Donna: Hmm. Yeah. And things that you really don’t enjoy. They might really drag out and it will be identified when you track your time. Oh my gosh. Can you see how long that took me? It’s because I hate doing that thing. And that’s an opportunity for outsourcing or that’s an opportunity for getting a VA or something like that. So it is such important intel. It tells you so much about yourself and so much about your business.
So get to it. Start tracking your time. That’s it for this episode.
[00:19:27] Kris: Yep. So we’re up to number 10. So we’ll do 11 to 15 next episode. So listen out for the rest of the systems. All right. Have a beautiful week. Bye.
[00:19:38] Donna: Bye everyone.
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