The 8 Roles of a Freelance Creative Business Owner
Vol. 046
The 8 Roles of a Freelance Creative Business Owner.
A successful freelance creative career looks like MORE than just being creative.
A quick bite:
Running successful creative practice is FAR MORE than simply being a “good” creative. You need to have the business objectives in mind, you need to market and sell your services, you need to manage your projects, clients and timelines, you need to execute the work, and much more. Understanding these individual roles will make you better creative business owner, and enable you to more easily charge more, land better projects and clients, and run a more successful creative practice.
Continue reading below…
So, you’ve started your creative business. You’re a freelance graphic designer, illustrator, logo and brand designer, muralist, art director or something of the sorts.
Maybe you can relate to this sentiment: “I don’t really care about the business stuff.” You’re good at what you do, you work hard, you have a decent network, and the thought is that’s gonna help you rise above the noise.
Grab a shovel, you’re diggin’ your own grave with these thoughts.
Unless you’re the Lebron James of design, you’re gonna need to pick up a bit of business sense. That’s right, I said it: you, a creative, are gonna have to do business stuff.
DON’T RUN AWAY JUST YET! Let me elaborate...
Life as a freelance graphic design or creative business owner can be tough. You have to wear A LOT of hats. And, just like wearing a few fancy hat, the better you understand its intricacies, the better you’ll be at wearing it right.
After 6 years of a self-employed creative career I’ve looked back and identified 8 separate, standard roles that I regularly step into as the owner of a small graphic design studio. In acknowledging the role and it’s “normal corporate responsibilities”, you’re then able to be better at a particular role and thus better at running your business.
In running Vicarel Studios, the 8 hats that I must wear are that of the: CEO, salesman, marketing, creative director, account manager, project manager, art director/graphic designer, and production designer.
CEO
You have the vision/direction of the business in mind. As the chief executive officer, it is your job to think BIG: you need to be thinking years in into the future, outside the box, and pushing the company to scale, grow and evolve in the direction of your vision.
What do you do as the CEO in your graphic design or freelance creative business?
Consider what you’re doing currently, and what you want to be doing. Who are your ideal, superstar clients: I’m talking the Target, lululemon, and Instagram sized clients. What are the creative design services that you wish you were offering? Do you want to be doing more illustration, do you wish you were seen as a mural artist, or doing more illustration in your branding? Do you want to hire more employees or implement new software? All of these visions are that of a CEO, and are things that you’ll ultimately want to break down into more manageable, bite sizes pieces throughout a givien period of time (using SMART goals, break down yearly, quarterly, and monthly milestones.)
Salesperson:
You have to pitch and “sell” your creative services to prospective clients (whether you like it or not!) Gone is the day where you can simply create something beautiful and people will just find you and hire you. Yes, that can still happen, but to “hope for work and clients to find you” is to passively build your business. And I know that if you’re here reading this, you’re sitting in the driver seat, not the passenger seat.
What do you do as the salesperson in your graphic design and freelance creative business?
You need to learn to transcend the gap that divides the creative world and the business world. When selling a product or service to a particular audience, you need to speak the language and vernacular of your audience. You need to learn different communication styles for different people, and read the room or person and be sure you’re communicating to them in a way that they like to be. Maybe you’ll need to talk a bit more high-level to the executives, or a bit more colorfully to the senior designer. Maybe your prospect is speculative, so you need to highlight the opportunity for return on investment (ROI) of your service.
As the salesperson of your own creative practice, you need to get comfortable talking about what you do, how you do it, why you do it, and how much it costs. I know, I know — it’s awkward. But, the more you do this, the better you’ll be and the more comfortable it’ll get. Do you really think you can land a $10,000+ project if you’re not able to communicate the process and value of that creative work?
We’re not talkin’ used car salesmen for Kia, we’re talkin’ Lebron James for Nike. Sales doesn’t need to be slimy. But it does need to be intelligent, thoughtful, and persuasive. Learn to qualify your clients, and get better selling your services!
Marketer:
You need to market your business’ creative services. A marker is thinking about how to get the services and offerings of a business in front of that business’ ideal customer or consumer. Not unlike the way lululemon has a marketing department that nicely plops a leggings ad in your Instagram feed as soon as you say the word “leggings”, you are the marketer of your business and need to figure out how to let your ideal customers know about your creative, and why they need them.
What do you do as the marketer in your graphic design and freelance creative business?
Those logos you designed 3 years ago aren’t doing a damn thing for ya just sitting on your external hard drive — get started getting your work out into the world, in front of your ideal clients, and learn to succinctly convey what it is you do to the people you want to do it for. Here’s some more thoughts on how graphic designers and creatives can easily market their services.
Project manager:
You need to schedule and coordinate the timing of all steps of the projects, meetings and deliverables. At big businesses, individuals are spending their 40hr week managing projects: scheduling timelines, setting up meetings, breaking down large projects into small pieces and tracking hours, coordinating presentations, and more.
What do you do as the project manager in your graphic design and freelance creative business?
You do everything noted above! As Vicarel Studios began to grow, and I began managing multiple designers and contractors on multiple projects at the same time, I realized the imperative need for a project management process. Like anything, the sooner you start the better. After vetting my Instagram audience (thanks to those of you who are part of that crowd!) I landed on Asana. Asana is a project management app that is used to coordinate, schedule, and sign projects and break them down into smaller pieces. You can set deadlines, sign tasks, communicate, prioritize tasks, and keep an eye on what’s happening and what needs to be done for a multiple of projects at once. Additionally, I use Google Calendar, Evernote, Google Drive (did you read last weeks article on how to use Google Docs for running client notes?)
Account manager:
You need to manage the relationship and correspondence with your clients. Not only do you need to manage the client projects, but you need to manage the client relationship and expectations. The account manager handles this.
What do you do as the account manager in your graphic design and freelance creative business?
In this role you are corresponding with your client on a regular basis. You are explaining to them the what the team (or, you, as the case may be) is doing, when the client will be seeing “it”, and what “it” is.
For me, this is an opportunity to convey my personality and some of the Vicarel Studios brand values: transparency, genuity, experience and professionalism. I will always be professional, eloquent and sincere in my professional emails. This is imperative. However, that doesn’t mean that my personality can’t come through. I absolutely make an effort to laugh, send an emoji, and humanize the working experience. This builds trust, and lets my client know that I’m truly working FOR them, not against them. This process of relationship building ultimately helps position you, “the contractor” as an investment, as opposed to an expense. This means your client will be more comfortable giving you more money because they trust that you are supporting their vision and growth of their business.
Creative Director:
You need to establish, articulate and oversee the high-level creative vision of your projects. When your client comes to you with a “problem” (i.e., we want to sell this ice cream to this audience) it is your job as the creative director to understand the client’s problem, product, and audience, and then ultimately come up with an idea that you can explain to them and/or your designers (or self) and ultimately execute that creative vision in a way that connects product and consumer.
What do you do as the creative director in your freelance graphic design and creative business?
Similar to the role of the CEO, as the creative director you need to think big picture. You need to think high level. You need to think about more than graphics and colors and more about concept and feeling. The creative director is oftentimes who presents the work to the client — using the language of the client (likely “business talk”) articulating how the creative work or idea would or does solve the problem. You succinctly articulate the value of the work and how it connects the ideal audience with the product or service.
Art Director/Graphic Designer:
You need to actually execute the creative work. There’s many levels and layers of Art Directors and graphic designers: junior, mid level, senior, and executive. These are the workhorses on a creative team — this is the most fun position, in my opinion!
What do you do as the art director/graphic designer in your graphic design and freelance creative business?
In this role you are the pixel pusher, bezier curve bender, illustration maker and logo designer. Art directors are generally a bit more high level — taking the idea of the creative director and establishing an overarching “visual theme or language” comprised of color, composition, photography, typography, graphics, textures, patterns, logos… art directors are oftentimes talented graphic designers as well (fulfilling a more senior designer role). Graphic designers are the workhorse. We as graphic designers are the doers — we make shit happen! After all those big picture ideas and conversations are signed off on, we actually start makin’ the stuff that the client ultimately receives.
Production Designer:
You need to implement the creative work. Production designers often work with printers, dielines, and vendors and ensure the creative work is properly set up to the vendors specs as you go to print.
What do you do as the production designer in your graphic design and freelance creative business?
You essentially are functioning as the final filter of the creative work. Your role as the production designer is to ensure everything is in the right place, setup correctly, aligned, colors are correct, type styles are right, no typos, dielines are working, resolution is spec’d correctly and files are ready to roll. Frankly, I loathe this role. It is far too nitpicky and detail oriented for me, and it does not suit my strengths well. I prefer to hire this support (I’m currently looking for freelance production support! Email me if interested) Even though I don’t particularly like this role for myself, I acknowledge it’s utter importance throughout the creative process.
There you have it — the 8 hats worn by most freelance graphic designers and self employed creative professionals.
There’s a lot to understand and a lot to practice and get better at within each of these individual roles. As you hone each of these skills respectively you’ll get better at your creative work as well. This will lead to you being able to charge more, and you’ll get more confident in your service offerings. I’m a firm believer of the importance of getting better and running your business, not just getting better at your craft.
So, the next time your prospect tries to lowball you, and you think to yourself “I can make this work” — consider all of the roles you’ll be taking on and all of the work you’ll be doing. The better you understand and fulfill each of these roles, the better you’ll understand and convey your value — you deserve to be compensated for that work!
