Lovely graphic designers, this is not a case of  “for us to know and for you to find out”…these are things you need to know to succeed in business now!

Many moons ago, we both started graphic design businesses. We were young, a little naive, full of energy and excited about the future ahead.

It has been quite a journey to get to where we are now. There were many years of struggle, confusion, dead-ends and misguided actions. On the upside, there were also many moments of celebration and aha-moments that set us up on a trajectory of success.

Like all things, the mishaps and mistakes helped us refine and hone in on our systems. Every sucky thing that happened in our business provided a learning moment—an opportunity to implement a new system, a chance to change tactics or the push we needed to pivot in a new direction. We learnt, and we responded.

Lucky for you, we’re not the type of people to keep the mysteries of running a graphic design business a closely guarded secret. We don’t want you to have to struggle for many years like we did. Let our hindsight is your foresight! We want to collapse time for you and fast-track you to success!

Even though we (Kris and Don) ran separate design businesses before we came together to form Design and Prosper, when we brainstormed this list, interestingly, we found they were almost identical. We believe these key points are universal truths for graphic designers in business.

If you can set your intention to master these eight key areas, we believe your chances of success will be very high.

Here’s a glance at what you’ll learn in this episode:

01:50—Done is better than perfect.
This powerful little statement has the ability to completely transform your business. Perfectionism is an insidious little disease that can be a destructive force within your business (and life). Perfectionism will lead to overthinking, time management problems, working ridiculously long hours, erosion of confidence…the list goes on. Done is better than perfect. Make it your mantra.

07:15—Systems, Systems, Systems
Rather than being yawn-inducing, we’re on a mission to make systems sexy. Done the right way, systems can be beautiful, empowering and liberating. Systems are essential if you want to grow your team or experience any kind of freedom within your business (holiday, anyone?).

11:30—Courage and Confidence
If you’re in business, you’re courageous. But being a successful graphic design entrepreneur means that you will need a daily intention to show up with courage—to be visible, to put yourself out there, to stretch beyond your comfort zone.

14:50—Work Less, Not More
This one sounds like a paradox, but you are more productive when you work less. We know what you’re thinking: “What? How can you expect me to work less when there is so much to do?”. Setting boundaries around the hours you work and scheduling in much-needed time for self-care will help you align with your goals and get insights and downloads that will set you up for success.

19:00—Don’t Go It Alone
Don’t underestimate the power of a support network. This can be in the form of mentorship, coaching, group masterminds, Facebook groups or even monthly catchups at a cafe with likeminded business people. Gravitate towards people who can help provide an objective viewpoint and offer strategic insights into your business. A good support network should provide an elevated version of you…perhaps the version of you that you can’t quite see for yourself yet.

20:30—You Are Right On Time
As business owners we often feel like we are 3 months, 6 months, 2 years behind schedule. No matter where you start, or where your journey has taken you so far, you are right on time. The timing is perfect. Nothing is wasted.

21.15—The Power Of Saying NO
The ability to say ‘no’ is the ability to practice self-love. If you are unable to say no, set boundaries it will lead to burnout, which is not something to be taken lightly. Saying no respectfully is a really powerful tool in your tool kit.

25:35—Laser Focus On Goals 
Goal setting is quite common, but what we find is there is a lot of enthusiasm with the initial goal setting, but then these poor goals get shoved to the back of the journal never to see the light of day again. Check in on your goals regularly and keep them visible in your daily life—we keep our goals front and centre on our weekly Trello board.

Ready to listen? Use the player below or listen on your favourite podcast player. You can also read the full transcript of this episode below.

Full transcript

Don: Hello lovely graphic designers! Today we’re sharing all the things we wish we knew before we started our graphic design businesses all those years ago.

Don: Hey, Kris!

Kris: Hey, Don, how you going?

Don: Great, thank you! Today we have a little shout out to beautiful Hilda who touched base with us via Instagram DM’s and made this great podcast topic suggestion. We love hearing from you and hearing your ideas. So make sure you DM us.

Kris: Yes, we love it. Always DM us.. we are waiting for your DM’s. Trust us.

Don: Yes! So thanks, Hilda. We hope that we’ve got lots of juicy insight into all the things that we wish we have known and that you benefit hugely from this.

Kris: Yes! Because we really don’t want you to struggle for many years like we did. And we want our hindsight to become your foresight.

Don: Yes, we want to collapse time for you guys and fast track you. So yeah, let’s do this.

Kris: The first one that we wanted to talk about was done is better than perfect. Now, for me personally, this was such a huge revelation for my business. It’s such a simple statement. It’s such a simple idea. But it really became a guidepost for every day in our business, it became our mantra. Personally, I feel perfectionism is the most insidious disease that can happen within your business, (really, for any business), not just graphic designers. But perfectionism will lead to overthinking, it’ll lead to time management problems, working ridiculously long hours, eroding of your confidence….so many things. It is insidious.

Don: Yeah, absolutely.

Kris: And it’s and it’s not possible, Don. It’s not possible to be perfect. It’s an unachievable goal. It’s never going to happen.

Don: Absolutely unachievable. Yep.

Kris: You’re just gonna set yourself up for failure.

Don: Yes. And it’s the reason it’s number one on our list. We have a little collaborative talk prior to this and it was incredible how many things Kris and I had aligned, even though I started my business, some time before Kris started her business. The pain points were the same, weren’t they? Yeah, absolutely. Perfection is something that we did the same thing we strove for that early on in our business career, and it was just absolutely unattainable. And it was debilitating. It really did do more damage than good.

Kris: We wasted so much time trying to get things perfect. And it may have been a self confidence issue, starting out our business. But let me tell you, if you can release this, if you can make this a focus and make this your mantra for all your projects— done is better than perfect. This is ticking the objectives of the brief, this is working. I’m not going to turn over every stone to figure this out. I’ve got the solution. I’m going to make it work. Done is better than perfect.

Don: Absolutely. And the other thing, this is a little bit of a different side to done is better than perfect. And it could be an ego thing, but I found that we were pushing the boundaries on things that were really important to us as graphic designers. We would be using leading to the to the absolute point and the kerning. And we’ll pushing and pushing…

Kris: These tiny details..

Don: These tiny, tiny details that were literally just consuming us. And the client couldn’t see it.

Kris: No, they don’t care.

Don: They couldn’t see it! They don’t care.

Kris: We did it with color as well. Color, leading, typography you know, all those things. We’d have four logos that to any kind of regular eye, they would not be able to see the difference. And we were sweating…absolutely sweating over it for hours.

Don: Absolutely!

Kris: Those little….’which one?’ You know, this one’s got this little gap…is the kerning you know, oh, it’s just crazy.

Don: It’s crazy. I have a completely different approach now, even presenting the concepts now…our concepts were so worked up within an inch of their lives. And now we get that it’s okay—present, the concept is a raw concept and allow it to grow and evolve and be organic. And allow room for that little bit of collaboration with the client rather than feeling like you need to control the whole thing.

Kris: And what is the objective for the client? And we would work up solutions, like you’re talking about, because we wanted everything to be groundbreaking and award winning, and just so incredible, but our clients didn’t give a shit about that.

Don: No, they didn’t care! And they just wanted to meet their own goals, which we had done and usually surpassed. And it was it was beautiful. And then you would just be push, push, pushing for, like I said, your own little ego trip at the end.

Kris: Yeah, it was an ego trip.

Don: If another graphic designer saw it, they would see your spark and your excellence and it became something that was really important for yourself rather than for client.

Kris: Designing to impress other designers. Now, where is the return on investment in that in your business?

Don: Absolutely. That’s right. And so, you know, we had to release it, we had to release that perfectionism and realize that we weren’t doing ourselves any favors, and we weren’t doing our client any favors by just really over spending time. But like I said, there are two sides to that. So there’s the, you know, that’s a different sort of perspective on it. But just be mindful. perfectionism can creep in and disguise itself in different ways. So just just keep an eye out.

Kris: Yeah. And it’s an ongoing process for somebody like me, who is a bit of a perfectionist. It’s something that I have to be mindful of through my life. I can’t let up on this. I need to make sure that I’m on top of it. Because it will sneak in just like you said.

Don: It sneaks in. And I think that as a generalization, a lot of us graphic designers are perfectionists, and I think that’s why we’re good at what we do.

Kris: Yeah! Why we’re drawn to graphic as well.

Don: Why we’re drawn to graphic design, because it’s all about that the little nuances that we’d love to make perfect, but just be mindful and be aware and release. And I think you’ll get the job done a lot quicker, and you earn more money, because you’re more focused on the client’s outcome and goals and just getting the job done. beautifully, of course.

Don: Alright, so number two system system systems.

Kris: Yeah, it is huge. This one is huge. And it might sound really boring. But it is everything.

Don: I find systems sexy, I actually have to say!

Kris: Well, okay, yeah, I do too!

Don: They can be really perceived as being boring. But if your systems are working really well for you..

Kris: …and they’re beautifully designed

Don: …and they’re beautifully designed. Absolutely, absolutely. There’s nothing more attractive than that. So systems can be sexy if you allow them to be. They’re the problem solver for everything from time management, printing stuff ups, setting boundaries with clients, there’s heaps isn’t there Kris?

Kris: Yes, even coming up with design concepts in an efficient way. You know, we were a bit slow on the uptake with this one. We didn’t realize this was a major problem for our business, we didn’t know that systems were crucial to running a business until about five years in. So five years…

Don: I feel like I need to say that it’s because you guys went straight from Uni, into setting up your own design business. So that kind of makes sense to me that you didn’t have exposure to a running design studio prior to setting it up yourself. So I feel like that would be happening a lot today as well. People would be going straight into (especially with this beautiful digital platform, and digital environment and landscape that we’re in) we are feeling confident to go straight into business. So it kind of makes sense that without exposure to a business—a running business, you wouldn’t have known that. And you had to sort of you had to make that up as you went along.

Kris: Yeah. We had some systems in place. But it wasn’t until we got a business coach, and we read the E-Myth that it all fell into place for us. And we realized how every single thing we did in the business that was a repeat task, needed to be documented. And these days, it’s so much easier to do it because you can do beautiful videos. And you know, it doesn’t matter if it’s something that you only do once a month.

Don: Yeah, they’re the ones that trip you up.

Kris: Yeah, they are….they trip you up because you’re like, ‘what, what did I do a month ago?’

Don: ‘What did I do last month?’

Kris: ‘Did I really do this?’ Yeah, putting those things on repeat and it frees you up. It’s the thing that’s going to free you up now allow you to expand your team. And it just makes everything runs smoothly. And we love systems. We have so many incredible systems that we’ve developed individually and together throughout our businesses.

Don: Yes, absolutely. It’s so exciting to have a bunch of systems that literally for anything within your business, if you have an issue and something that is on repeat, you go, ‘okay, there’s got to be something for that’. There generally is, there’ll be something for that.

Kris: We have systems for generating sales, we have systems for even selling your design concepts. We’ve got all these systems.

Don: All the juicy systems, they’re great.

Kris: And it’s all documented. And that is the key.

Don: That’s the key, so that anybody can pick it up. There’s a reason that you can have McDonald’s fries, in Australia, in Switzerland in the States, and they taste the same. There’s a system for those fries. And I’ve tried and tested that worldwide…. confession! I love McDonald’s fries! And celiacs can have McDonald’s fries. Sorry, I’m digressing….

Kris: Shout out to McDonald’s fries!

Don: I’m digressing, but there is a reason it’s a documented system and procedure so that everybody can do it. So somebody can be taught that, then somebody can step in and do it. And you can go off and do whatever you’d like to be doing, whether it’s a holiday or another project, or whatever the case may be. But you don’t have to be so hands on and do everything.

Kris: Yeah! And ensures that consistency for your clients as well from their perspective.

Don: Absolutely, they get the same experience…those fries taste the same everywhere. So yeah, it’s a great thing to do. And I feel like when I went into my business as a little bit different to Kris, I came from experience in the advertising industry before I went into my graphic design business. So I had access and exposure to a heap of different systems and procedures that were a no brainer for me to implement into the business. And it was like, this is what I used to do. This is the process I’m used to do. And we would develop and grow those systems to make sure that they were appropriate for a graphic design studio. And it was exciting. It was exciting to have a set of systems and procedures at the end of the day that were tailor made for our little business. It was really quite sweet.

Kris: Yeah, so good. Another point on our list is courage and confidence.

Don: Yes!

Kris: It was kind of outrageous to start my own business in my early 20s, like you said. So I went straight from uni, I realized it was a fairly courageous thing to do. But I didn’t quite anticipate the next level of daily courage that I was going to need, that was going to be required of me—showing up every day, stepping outside my comfort zone, making contacts, becoming visible, calling cold leads, putting myself out there. It was a real conscious commitment to courage that I needed to have that I didn’t have at the beginning. I didn’t know I had to have it.

Don: It grew. So all of you lovely designers out there, that is absolutely one thing that if you could just tap into courage from now, from today,

Kris: with intention

Don: with intention, I think that absolutely, it’s going to make a significant difference to how you approach every facet of your business. So for me, I think it was probably the single most important attribute I needed to launch into my own business. Because I was in the advertising industry, like I said, for many years. I loved my job. I actually loved the people I worked with, and I’m still really close friends with them now. And I also really loved my paycheck. And it was huge risk for me to say, ‘Okay, I will say no to all of that’. And, and I was working in Sydney at the time, and we had to relocate. And I had to say no, and be courageous enough to go out and go off on my own. And I went into business with two other partners. So for the three of us to then go, ‘Okay, we’ve got to come up with three, lots of income’.

Kris: Yeah, good income.

Don: How are we going to do that? When you’re used to getting a really good income?

Kris: Plus admin and everything else

Don: Plus admin…the whole thing. Yeah, I think for me, it was really the biggest thing that I had to tackle. But like Kris said, it was that daily courage, that knowing you have to step into that daily is something that if you could hone that skill early on, I think it would be really advantageous for everybody.

Kris: And just having those daily moments of…there is discomfort in in stretching and expanding. And we’re always saying, you know, do what makes you feel good and do what lights you up and all that sort of thing. But there is…when you’re stepping into new territory, and you’re wanting to grow your business, you will have to step outside of your comfort zone.

Don: You will.

Kris: And you need to do it with intention and know that’s part of the deal.

Don: Yes, embrace it. Okay. We’ve got another one: work less, not more. This is number four on our list.

Kris: Yes. This one is a bit of a paradox. It sounds a bit weird…to work less.

Don: It almost sounds a bit loopy, doesn’t it?

Kris: Yeah! ‘I got so much work to do, what are you talking about?’ But you were actually more productive. When you work less. Less is more with design and less is more with your business. It’s the truth. It really is. There’s, there’s a saying you got to slow down to speed up. And that definitely sounds like a paradox. But I’ve seen it work so many times in my own life. There’s a really cool quote that Abraham Lincoln said, which really speaks to this, which was, ‘Give me six hours to chop down a tree. And I’ll spend four hours sharpening the axe’. And how I see that sharpening the axe is the downtime and the spiritual work and the mental balance that you’ll need to actually achieve this work. Setting those boundaries. Stopping work when you said you would. Looking after yourself physically, spiritually, mentally.

Don: Absolutely, it is such a rich process to be able to do exactly those things. I was taught this really early in my career by a senior designer that I was learning from—she was a beacon of hope for me, I have to say, in what was a very crazy, unbalanced work environment where we were working, ridiculous hours will top and tailing the day…. it was just, it was unbelievable. And I would often catch myself observing her as she went about her day. And what she did was she would arrive at nine, (not prior), at nine. She would stop at one and go for a lunch break with a gym bag. And she would be back at two. So she would have an entire hour. She would work up until six. And she would leave The rest of us were crazy. She was the highest paid, she was the most productive. She was award winning, and sensational. And for me, she became the person that I modeled my career on after being able to observe her as a junior baby in this massive office with all of these amazing creative people running around like headless chooks. There she was in her office, just completely calm, completely balanced, healthy, spiritual, phenomenal human being. And she was achieving more than anyone else.

Kris: Well she would have been so switched on her brain would have been clear.

Don: It was incredible. Exactly, exactly.

Kris: We’re going to do another episode about time management, and really getting on top of this and really understanding the factors. But honestly, you are going to be more productive, when you work less, when you set those boundaries and when you stop when you say you’re going to stop. I know it’s hard. Sometimes you’ll feel like you’re letting people down. But you have to do it. Otherwise, you will just be spinning your wheels and getting nowhere.

Don: Yeah. And you’ll become resentful and tired and sick. So yep. It’s an important one.

Kris: Because Don, and I believe that hard work doesn’t bring abundance. It really doesn’t. We have done hard work in our lives. And it hasn’t brought abundance.

Don: Absolutely.

Kris: Hard work does not equal abundance, so you need to cancel out that idea. When you slow down with your work and really set those beautiful boundaries around it, you are going to see the results within your business.

Don: You will, because smart work creates abundance.

Kris: It does.

Don: You just need to chuck the word hard out of that sentence and pop smart into that sentence. And that’s how you create abundance.

Kris: That’s it. Mm hmm.

Don: And we couldn’t do it alone—that’s number five on our list. We we could not do it alone.

No…even with business partners (we both had business partners, as Don was saying before, and I had a business partner), we still needed a support network, we needed mentorship—a different perspective. Somebody with that objective viewpoint.

Don: Yep. Even if it’s regular catch ups with a group of like minded business people. And you could do this in person, which would be wonderful for a monthly lunch, for example, or our Facebook group, which is more what’s happening in the world at the moment, given our situation here.

Kris: Or a zoom catch up…

Don: A zoom catch up, that kind of thing. But being active in that type of community is really important so that you don’t feel like you’re doing it alone and that you can share experiences and learn from each other’s experiences. It’s really fundamental, I think, to keeping balance and allowing you to realize that you’re not the only one experiencing certain things.

Kris: You know how they say it takes a village to raise a child…I feel like it takes a village to raise a business as well.

Don: I do too! Yeah, that’s a good way to look at it.

Kris: We just need that support. We need that different perspective. And when you talk about what’s going on in your business, you’ll get ideas. So whether it’s mentors or coaches, or whoever you decide, you cannot do this alone. We wouldn’t do it alone.

Don: We wouldn’t do it alone, that’s right.

Kris: No. Okay, number six. You are right on time.

Don: Yes! Yes, you are!

Kris: You’re right on time. I think as business owners, we often feel like we might be three months or six months or even two years behind schedule. It’s like I should have started two years ago, or I’m getting too old or..

Don: …or that’ll happen when… or I’m projecting that will happen in six months, or I’m projecting that will happen in three months. We’re always feeling like we’re chasing something is ahead of us.

Kris: But no matter where you start, or where your journey has taken you so far, you are right on time. The timing is perfect. Nothing is wasted. Nothing at all.

Don: Nothing. Yep. It’s all good. It’s all perfect. You are exactly where you need to be. Okay, number seven on our list is the power of saying no. This one is a particularly important one, for me personally. I did not say no, early, early on. And as I said, I observed my beautiful co worker, and I realized that she had this amazing power over people that she was able to say, ‘No, not now. I can do it then, I can get it in here. I can do that for you. But no’. It was incredible. The ability to say no, is the ability to practice self love.

Kris: Yeah, it really is. To be unable to say no, and to not be able to set boundaries for yourself, it’s just gonna lead to burnout. And this is going to lead to depression and resentment and all those horrible emotions.

Don: Yeah, well, when you have got nothing to give, when you are spreading yourself so thin, you be in burnout. And we’ve talked about this in past podcasts…burnout is very, very real. So you need to protect yourself from that.

Kris: Saying ‘No’, respectfully, is something that you need to learn how to do. It’s not something that comes naturally to everybody. It’s a very powerful tool in your toolkit.

Don: Yeah, it is. It’s a courageous thing to say no, early on in your business.

Kris: Hard to say early on in your business.

Don: It’s really hard because we we think, ‘Oh my goodness, I just need to say yes to everything to build up my client base’.

Kris: Yeah, everything that comes my way, I’m gonna say yes.

Don: Everything that comes my way, but essentially, for your sanity and your balance, and ultimately, that business growth that you are after, saying no, is a really important thing to be able to do.

Kris: Yeah, there’s ways to do it. You can learn to say it politely, you can say it clearly, so there’s no misunderstandings. We’ve talked about this in our boundary setting podcast. It’s about saying it in a very short, concise kind of way. So that doesn’t open up room for argument and room for negotiation.

Don: Yes, that’s really important and needs to be clear, and concise. So what we would love for you to be able to do is to practice saying no, because it is a hard one to say. Say it regularly as a normal part of your approach to when you’re asked something. So instead of saying ‘Yes’, as an immediate response, try ‘No’ on or ‘Not now’, or ‘I’ll get back to you.’

Kris: ‘I’ll get back to you.’

Don: Allow yourself that little window to say, ‘I’ll get back to you’. And then that gives you the time to reflect, go to your diary. If you’re working with peers, discuss it with a team, talk about where it can fit in, if it can fit in. Reset, look at your goals. Does this request, this new client, this project fit our goals? And if it doesn’t, then you can go back and say really polite ‘No’.

Kris: Does it have high value for your business or for your life in general? You don’t want to be agreeing to do something against your will. I think Renee Brown says it beautifully. She says she will never choose comfort over the discomfort of saying no to somebodies face. So, we often will say something just because in that moment we feel too uncomfortable not to say it, so you’re choosing that comfortable road.

Don: Yeah, yeah!

And it’s a dangerous road to go down.

Don: Yeah, absolutely, so dangerous. Because if you’re saying yes to everything, like we were saying, it can lead to burnout. The other thing is you’re saying yes to clients that potentially don’t fit with where you’re wanting to take your business. They don’t fit your goals.

Kris: Often we might say yes to things that are little bit down the track, so sometime into the future. And then when they arrive in your life, two months later, or whatever it happens to be, it’s like it really slaps you in the face. It’s, it’s awful. It’s so important to say no to things… do it a little assessment, what’s the return on investment for this for my business? How is this going to impact on my time and on my life?

Don: Yeah. Perfect.

Kris: And say no.

Don: And say no. Yeah, an important one, I think, when you’re considering whether it’s a yes or no is—is it aligned with the goals of your business? Which leads us into our last point. Taking your goal setting seriously. I think this was one of the… for me, personally …in my first business, this one was tricky, because we got derailed really easily. We would get completely excited by the new shiny thing.

Kris: I think it’s really common.

Don: Yeah, I think so. So I think if you have laser focus on your goals, you know, take the time to carefully and thoughtfully articulate what they are. And whether it’s via a vision board, or spreadsheet, or just good old paper and pen—just make sure you actually are really clear on where you’re going because you know, the shiny thing can sort of get you excited. And then before you know it, you can take on a client, and it might be for financial reward. And you’re doing the type of work that you thought you’d never do, or I can’t believe I’m doing this work, but gee it pays well. And that’s not aligned with your goals. So what will happen (we’ve talked about this before) ultimately, you will attract that type of work in because that’s the type of work you’re doing. And that’s where your energy is. Yeah, really important. Set those goals and be rigid with them, you know.

Kris: But I think these days, people are a little bit more accustomed to setting goals and doing vision boards and that sort of thing. But one thing that I think people aren’t doing is revisiting them and sitting with them regularly. Doing a regular check in. And so that’s what we’re saying here—check in on your goals regularly.

Don: Yes, absolutely. And I think I just said be rigid with them…I want to sort of say, that comes with a little disclaimer—be rigid with them, maybe for a period of time, like allow your goals to breathe.

Kris: and incubate…

Don: …and incuba te that’s right for what would you say, Kris? Like, at least…

Kris: ….maybe 90 days.

Don: 90 days, at least, I would say. And then you can look at them again, and check in with them and allow them to organically grow, or evolve or whatever. But it’s really important that you don’t allow the focus to shift and flip and shift and flit over here, and then over here and over here, because that also is really quite confusing, and will sort of have you in a bit of a mess as well.

Kris: Just because of the next shiny thing that’s turned up on your doorstep. So a laser focus on your goals. Take it seriously, and revisit and reconnect with them. That’s the thing—reconnect regularly. We check in with our goals, every day, essentially…because we’ve got it on our project management board, and we see them, we’ve got our goals, and we are aligned to them. And if we were to keep checking in with them, and they didn’t feel right anymore, well then, that’s the time to change.

Don: And we have done that. We’ve shifted things on when they’ve not felt right. And we have allowed them time to breathe, though. We have allowed them time to be in the goals with the others, and allowed them to live in take on their own life. And then we go ‘You know what, that’s not feeling right. That’s not us’. And then we’ve got the courage to go, ‘Sorry, you’re out’. We’re not feeling aligned with that anymore. And that’s okay. Because we really do have the bigger picture all mapped out.

Kris: Yeah! Well, so those were the eight key points.

Don: So lovelies, we hope that these lessons can guide you and shed some light on your journey and maybe take away some of the confusion and get you laser focused on what is essential to your growth.

Kris: It’s so easy to get swept up in the minutiae of running a business—you know, those small details or the trivial things that seem so important at the time, but they aren’t really.

Don: No, I think I’d like to come back to what we said at the very beginning, which was, )I think you said it, Kris), let our hindsight be your foresight. Because you don’t need to do all of those things now. We’ve paved the path and these are the things we’re going to leave behind. These are some of the things we just wish, we either take on or leave behind whatever the case may be with our little hotlist there.

Kris: Yes, and these things, they are, in a way, our legacy. Our years of struggle, we want to share with you the things that we implemented. To stop these pains…these painful things from infiltrating our lives, and really, stuffing up our businesses at the time.

Don: And I think that that’s a really key point to make, that prior to being in business together now, we weren’t in business together. And our list is completely aligned with what we wish we had have known. So there’s lots of parallels there. So yeah, it’s going to be common. It’ll be a common thread for our graphic designers out there. So we hope we’ve helped. And yeah, let us know! Send us a DM. And again, thanks, Hilda. It was a great topic to chat about. And I hope we’ve helped you and along the way help lots of other graphic designers out there. So enjoy your week. everybody.

Kris: Have a great week. Bye!