Potential Clients and Quote Requests
I get quote requests every week and try best to answer every one as as personally as I can (though I copy paste a little). Unfortunately some of them seem to get no response from potential clients. I can understand that I (as well as most other designers) will not pick up every client that submits a quote but I would love to hear back from all of these potential clients with comments so that I can better service future potential clients. I wouldn’t even mind a “thanks for taking the time to respond but since you have no photos of yourself on your website, I can only assume that you are ugly and I can’t work with ugly people” or “you seem to be beyond my budget, thanks but no thanks”.
That would at least give me the opportunity to respond like, “I’m not THAT ugly but a little overweight if that helps (and there is a link to a photo of me if you look hard enough 😉 )” or “during these bad economic times I understand that budgets are lower and I am more than willing to work with clients to help meet their needs”.
If you are shopping designers, and I DO think that it is a good idea to shop designers before jumping into a contract with the first designer you find, do yourself and them a favor and respond to them. Who knows, maybe your response to them will tell you if that person is the one that you REALLY want to work with. Even if they are beyond your budget, tell them your budget… I would bet that they would be willing to negotiate their rates.
Working with a designer that “gets you” is MUCH better than finding someone to draw you a pretty picture for $50 on their pirated copy of Photoshop. As with all things, you get what you pay for!
Other stuff
Over the next few days/weeks, I am going to be working on my website to include a postcard design page, a business card design page and brochure design page with examples of my work. I know I’ve made it obvious that my specialty is logo design but (as an FYI) I design pretty much everything that can/will be printed.
Also, I have submitted logo designs to two books which are both in the judging process. Since these are the only two books that I’ve ever submitted to, my fingers and toes are crossed!
Until next time (which I’m already working on my next blog post)…
Really informative post.