How has the economy affected your design business?
Monday October 26, 2009
Chances are, the economy has affected the way you do business. Some clients may have reduced their budgets for design work, requiring you to come up with clever solutions to keep their business, while others may have cut out their design budgets completely. You may also have come up with ways to reduce your own costs, from minimizing personal promotion to changing office spaces. There are of course many ways you may have been affected beyond the answers here, so please share your experience.
I don’t believe these options are sufficient. I have found lots of new customers *because* of the poor economy. New customers are currently interested in new ways to promote their businesses, as well as having a new image that tells the world their company is still alive and thriving in these times. I have had double the business due to this sort of “face lift” graphic design approach, and consequently increased my rate from $35 to $50 per hour.
Hi Loryn… agreed! There are so many ways we can be affected, including positive ones like you mention. So I thank you for sharing!
Thanks for the uplifting thoughts. I have been unable to tap that “reinvention” market as many potential clients are seeking out recent grads who still “do” design as an adjunct to an unrelated day job.
The other trend I have seen is people poaching work from each other—a marketing manager started doing ads herself, directing periodicals to make them up for her, taking the business away from me and then getting a higher salary for the extra work she was doing. Another custom print shop started doing design and photography, essentially as a service to print clients. The result is they can charge a little more for keeping everything under one roof, but I lose the work putting the whole project together.
I would like to hear what others have to say about ways to be a marketing predator and not prey.
JT