Designer Boss
Designer Boss
Ditch the small biz mentality & think global, baby!
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0:04
Welcome to the designer boss podcast, listen, learn, love and level up with the ultimate success guide for web and graphic designers.
0:17
My name is Anna Dower. I'm a cake lover and success slaying graphic design mentor.
0:23
And I'm Emma Kate your personal sensei for mastering the wonderful world of the Web.
0:30
Together, we'll show you how to harness our tried and tested experiences and hard earned lessons while you soak up everything we know about building a successful design business.
0:47
Hello, welcome to the designer, boss podcast. My name is Anna and I'm here with Em I, today we're gonna be talking about thinking locally versus globally in your business. I like to refer to it as like doing business the old way versus the new way. Because when I work with a lot of designers in my quarters, or through mentoring or my Facebook groups, it's something that I hear all the time. I hear designers say to me, but I live in a small town and I don't have many opportunities here. And yeah, blows my mind that people are still thinking that way when the internet exists, and we have access to a huge global audience. And we're going to be talking about that today. And the kinds of things that we've changed in our businesses to think globally. And the benefits you can gain from thinking globally, not locally.
1:55
Yeah,it's something I see come up quite often too. And it's, it's interesting for me, because when I first started out, I sort of thought globally from the get go, I'd, whether it was I must have heard it from other people. And that's how I thought about it. But you know, one of the first things I did was as a designer and go on to oDesk, which is now called Upwork, it was called oDesk at the time, but it's like an online, you know, place where you can hire freelancers or be a freelancer to hire. And I signed up for that. Pretty much like the beginning of my freelance career. And so I got clients from, you know, all around Australia, but also overseas, I had clients in the United States and in Canada that I worked for, and obviously never met, I don't even think we Skyped or anything like that it was just all sort of email. And it was it was fine. Like it was it was no big deal at all. And then I also have clients that I didn't find from there. But just as referrals that happen to be in Sydney or Melbourne or, you know, other places around Australia that I obviously don't live in, and I never met them, we never had in person meetings, we might have done some phone calls sometimes. But that was pretty much it. So I sort of had thought globally from the outset of my freelance career. And I also had people especially clients like Sydney and Melbourne saying how cheap I was because I was charging rates for my little Tweed Heads, Northern Rivers area, where obviously in the major cities, people can charge more. And so that sort of got brought to my attention. And I could I realize that Well, I could charge more if I'm really if I'm providing as much value as these other designers are. What's stopping me from doing that. So it was something that I'm grateful that it kind of just came to me. I'd say naturally, I don't I'm sure I didn't invent it. I'm sure people told me, but I can't really recall. But yeah, it does kind of blow my mind when I hear people in our group say that I can't charge that because no one's gonna pay that in my area. I only live in a small town of 2000 people. And it's like, you don't need to just serve those 2000 people. There's a whole world out there. And I think 2020 showed us a lot more. You know, I think 2020 really brought to the attention of previous people that previously thought oh, no, I can only work in my local area. I need to like be in a physical office and I need to have an in person meetings in order to do my job. And that's what people expect. All that stuff. We now know that sometimes that's just not possible, especially in the world we live in today. And it's not necessary. You can still deliver really quality work to clients without having those in person meetings. And they can be in the on the other side of the world in a completely Different timezone. And it's still can work out perfectly fine. So I'm excited to talk about this and hopefully motivate people to really think bigger than their local area.
5:12
Yeah, totally. I remember in my design business, I actually did some work for a Mexican restaurant in Canada. And I did their logo, their branding, all that sort of stuff. And then they were like, can you design our shopfront? I was like, Sure, take photos, email them to me, and I worked on it that way. And I remember I did some bus wraps for a bus in Hong Kong. Like totally random stuff. But it worked. And it's really important to kind of think outside the box of doing business the old way. Because in the olden days, it was all about, you know, like, in person meetings, it was about, you know, doing a letterbox drop of flyers, you know, and even business cards are kind of old school business now, because we don't actually see see anyone in person, it's all online. And when you do have those global clients, like we all zoom, now, Zoom is pretty much the standard, I think. There's also loom, which is a Chrome extension, so you can record your screen and talk on top of it and explain things to your clients. You don't necessarily have to talk on the phone, I think email is fine. I made it really clear in my design business, that email was my primary form of communication. And it's important to tell people that that's how you're going to communicate. And that's the expectation, and it works really well, you've got everything there to refer back to.
7:01
I've sort of I've had that before. But then I think I'd sort of made it really clear on my website and stuff after, you know, probably before we started working together, just reading your emails and your blogs and stuff. And you'd suggested doing that. And I was like, Oh, that's a great idea. So making it crystal clear on my contact page. But also, I have like a project inquiry form on my website might even have it as like a question in the form. This is how I like to communicate, is that going to be okay with you, essentially. And they can say yes or no. And so, like from the get go, and that's like one of the very first questions, so they don't have to keep filling out the form. If they're one of those people that likes the million phone calls, or once in person meetings or something, then they know that I'm just not the right fit for them. I'm not the right designer for them from the outset. Because there are some designers, like I know, my VA and awesome web designer Danielle green loves talking on the phone. Yes, she's a weirdo. Like, just loves it. She's quite happy to have a chat with clients on the phone. I'm the opposite. I just I just feel like I'm just wasting my time. Sometimes. I just want to have it by email, or like we'll book in certain meetings and do like a zoom chat, but then clarify everything via email, like have it in writing afterwards. Like this is what we talked about. This is what we're agreeing upon. So I'm opposite that way. But yeah, just knowing how you like to work is, I think, important if you're one of those people that really wants to work with local clients and really wants to have those in person meetings. And yeah, go for it, you know, but you don't have to just you don't have to just rely on that.
8:44
Yeah. And I feel like that's like the hard way. I feel like you, it's gonna be hard for you to scale and grow if you're stuck in the local mindset. I know, some people do want to do that. But I feel like you need more than that now. And back on like what you were saying about the phone? I do not have my phone number anywhere. If I went to another designers website, and I saw their phone number on there, I'd be like, Why do you do that? It kind of just invites clients to jump over boundaries. You don't want to start receiving text messages or you know, you send an email, you don't want them to respond with a voicemail. It's kind of just like allowing them to get out of your lane. So be really specific. And with the Zoom calls, even put a time limit on it like, Sure, let's jump on a zoom call for 15 minutes. I've allocated 15 minutes of my diary for this call. Just so it doesn't go out of control and then charge for anything more than that. We're kind of creeping into boundaries now. But it It's part of like dealing with clients on a global scale.
10:05
Yeah. And I think setting those boundaries is important. Because otherwise, if client doesn't if the client doesn't know that it's only going to take 15 minutes, and they might block out an hour in their calendar, and think that you're being slapped only saying for 15 minutes or something, so it's good to just set those expectations. So to minimize the chitchat, I guess, yeah. Yeah. Another point that I had sort of around that is when clients do request in person meetings, because that that does come up. It has for me, often, especially with local clients, like they want to meet up to do something in particular. And I got to a point in my business, where I actually would reply that saying, like, I actually haven't yet.
10:57
I have an email template that I will share with you. I'll put the link in the show notes so that you guys can see it. But essentially, I just reply back saying that I'm very happy to meet up in person to go through and gather the information we need. I do however, charge for in person meetings over capture quote for this, if you're happy to go ahead, just let me know. And we could walk in a time and place to meet Alternatively, you can book in a free video chat here. And then how Slack Yeah, blink to Calendly, or meet Fox or whatever. And then it's kind of putting the ball in their court. So they go, like your time is valuable? Do I really have to meet up in person, maybe we can just do this by email or a video chat, and makes them sort of, sort of see that you're taking your time seriously, and your time is worth money. And hey, if they want to meet up in person, I've had a bunch of clients that are like, Yeah, no worries, he's 200 bucks a month, okay? And because they just like to work that way. And if they're happy to pay that, then that's fine with me, and I'll shout them the coffee at the cafe. If that's what they want, that's fine. But you've got to make it worth your while. Because for me personally, that involves me getting into like normal people clothes, like putting makeup on and like, you know, not wearing slippers. Like it's just sorry, it's a big deal, I need to I need to charge 200 bucks for that.
12:15
And if you kind of want to soften the blow of the $200 meeting fee, you can even put a disclaimer in there that says, you know, if you end up booking a package with me over the value of say, $5,000 I'll refund that 200 dolla, you know, initial meeting, I'll take it off the total, if that's what if it makes you feel better? Like you don't have to do that. But that's just an idea.
12:40
Yeah, that's a good point.
12:40
But um, something else that we wanted to talk about was charging in a different currency. And I know that you've just started doing this.
12:51
Yeah, I just recently started doing that. In my for my Ecourses. I haven't done that for quite work just yet. But for my E courses and products they sell on, indicate Dotco. I have recently changed from Australian dollars to US dollars. And it was a sort of it was. So my reasoning behind it was I'd seen quite a few other Aussie people doing the same thing. And I was like, Oh, that's interesting. And then I'd read about it, sort of on their websites, why they charge in those currencies. And it you know, the reasoning behind it mainly was that most of their customers or clients were overseas, whether they're in America or not, it sort of didn't matter. If you had global clients, then the US dollar is just like most people know what the US dollar is in relation to their currency. When people from say England or South Africa were like buying my course, seeing Australian dollars is probably like a bit hard for them to like grasp exactly how much that would be. So charging in US just kind of made sense for everyone, except for obviously my Aussie clientele. But we all know in Australia, roughly how much US dollars is in comparison anyway. And you kind of expect it when you're buying stuff online. I know I do. As a web designer, pretty much everything I buy for my business is in US dollars, because it's all plugins and themes and apps and tools and stuff and they're all. They're all in US dollars. So that was part of the reasoning behind it. To just make it less confusing for people make it more just easier to sort of like understand, and then also like a lot of the stuff that I buy is in US dollars. So it kind of made it easier that way. And it also made it look I wanted to increase my prices, but I didn't want it to start looking really high. So now I sort of made most of my courses 890 us which actually looks like you know it looks significantly smaller than saying 1200 Australian So that's worked out. Good for me. And so I've started doing that for the last probably a couple months now. And it was exciting seeing my first like ones come through that were in US dollars. And so I think that's something to consider, too. If you are working with a lot of overseas clients, then you don't have to necessarily charge in your currency. It is a consideration, though, obviously, with what do you call it, like the currency conversion fees and things like that. So taking that into consideration, depending on what bank you're using, or how you're collecting those payments, just to make sure that you know, you're not going to lose a big chunk of your money in currency conversion. But that would be consideration anyway.
15:43
And it makes you look like you're really global. Like, I can imagine if someone who is in the United States, landed on your website, and perhaps in the past was worried about buying from an Australian, you know, entrepreneur. Now it's kind of like, oh, well, she works globally, because she's selling her courses in US dollars, you know? Yeah, I can see how that would work. Are there any kind of tricky implications with accounting or anything? Or is it pretty?
16:18
My accounting gets a bit complicated anyway, because I've got to transfer everything from like Stripe or PayPal into my bank account. And then by the time they take up these, regardless of the currency, it's always a little bit different. Like, what, what, obviously, someone pays my course isn't what I actually ended up with, because of the fees and things like that. So because I have it set up that way, it doesn't really, it doesn't make it any more complicated for me, because it's already different anyway. But I could imagine if you were sinking, you know, your shop with your accounting software. And you know, you could get a bit tricky that way. But I don't, I don't have it synced up that way, because of GST, and all these things that have to think about anyway.
17:01
Yeah, and let's like just touch on, you know, receiving payments from overseas clients. It's not hard anymore. I feel like in the past, the only option was PayPal. But now there's a whole bunch of different services that can help you get money from overseas clients, it's not as hard as it used to be. So don't feel like that's a hurdle that you have to overcome. Because there's so many things there's, I think, TransferWise, and there is PayPal, but you need to take in consideration the fees.
17:37
Yeah, you're always going to have fees from anyone who sends you money through PayPal yet. And unless it's going to be a direct deposit into your bank account, then you're going to chances that you're going to have stays like a lot of account keeping software like I use QuickBooks Online, and that can I can collect credit card payments, sync it with my PayPal account, and it will take the credit card payments, I think zero you can do that with PayPal and maybe even stripe as well. So you can still invoice your clients and they just pay that way. And they don't need to pay through TransferWise or something. Want to. So there's lots of ways you can do it. You can even have a form on your website or a product on your website that syncs with your stripe or PayPal account like yeah, it's not. It's not overly scary to set up at all. Like it's pretty simple.
18:29
Yeah, yeah, I can I totally get how, like a whole bunch of fear can come up like, oh, there's these barriers is, there's time there's, you know, getting the money. There's all that sort of stuff, but it's all easily overcome. And it's so worth it when you're actually serving globally rather than locally. Like your audience just grows massively. Yeah, so you should do it.
18:59
Especially if you're niching down like Anna, always the queen of niche says that we should do if you're niching down, if you're trying to find you know, pet groomers in your area, you're probably like three people you can like sell your services to, but if your niche is pet groomers on a global scale, maybe in like every English speaking country or something like that, that he can think, really, you know, that's 1000s of people that you can be marketing your services to. So working globally just means that you've just you can really niche down because there's so many more people that you can be.
19:39
and look at our Summit, the designer boss Summit, we have speakers that we've never Well, I don't think we've met any of them in real life, but who we've approached via email to us, you know, to participate in our summit to become a speaker and then we have people attend from all around the world as well. It's pretty amazing.
20:05
Absolutely. And also, Anna and I, if you listen to the last episode, this is the first time we've actually ever met in person. And we've been, you know, I first met Anna, probably two or three years ago, she was my mentor. And then we started doing bits of work together masterclasses for each other, and then built the summit together, I have a podcast together. And this is the first time we've actually ever met in person, even though we only live like an hour away from each other. Like, if we, you know, technically, we could just be like on the other side of the coin from each other. And it wouldn't even if matted up into this point, because we haven't had to meet in person. Zoom is all we need to do zoom and Facebook message. That's pretty much how we communicate.
20:57
And we're here sitting next to each other. And it just feels like we've known each other forever, which we have known each other for a while. But it's really easy. And yeah, don't let it be a barrier. You know, I feel like it makes everything better on the global scale. And we love that about the summit, hearing where people are watching us from and yeah,
21:20
it's awesome. Yeah. If you do think of any barriers, like if there's like, oh, wait, if there's something we didn't cover, and you're like, oh, but how do you do this? If you work with an overseas client, please reach out and let us know. Because it'd be great for us to we can cover this more if it's something that you're feeling like you've just got these sort of barriers, and you can't you don't really know how to implement it or let us know.
21:43
Yeah, yeah, that's a great idea. And if you want to stay in the loop with the designer boss Summit, with the next one happening in October, make sure you jump on the website designerboss.co and jump on the waitlist and you'll stay in the loop as to when it's happening and who's speaking. And all that jazz. Yeah. Excellent. We'll talk to you guys soon.
22:17
You've been listening to the designer boss podcast with Anna Dower and Emma Kate. If you'd like to learn more about us and our upcoming digital summit for graphic and web designers, head to our website designerboss.co