How To Get Logo Design Clients

Ian Paget: So, I have never had guests back on the show prior to this episode.

Michael Janda: Oh, yes!

Ian Paget: It's always been a new guest, so you guys are the first to do it, but you're a duo now, so I think we need to let the audience know, what is this? Why are you two now together as BizBuds? How did that come to happen?

Tom Ross: Mike, do you want to take this one?

Michael Janda: Yeah, I'll jump into that. Tom was giving so much good content, but nobody liked him because he's just off-putting, and so he was like, "I've got to bring in somebody who's got charisma and good looks so that people will actually listen to this show," and I was like, "Okay, Tom. That's fine. That's fine." That's actually just only part of the story. Tom and I did... We have some brotherly banter that happens in our show, so bear with us on this one. Tom and I... Last year, I was growing my Instagram audience. Tom was doing the same thing at the same time, and I started doing video collaborations with people, and I had seen a couple video clips of Tom. This is back... He had 10,000 followers or something.

He was just starting to get some traction, and I reached out to him, and I said, "Hey, you want to do a video collaboration with me?" and he said, "Yeah, that'd be great," and we jumped on, and the very first question that we were going to banter on, we went for 25 minutes or 27 minutes or something like that, and we had just such a great chemistry and aligned thinking in the topic that we could've just bantered forever, and six months later or so, I had been getting pressure from my audience to start a podcast, and I was thinking, okay, do I just start my own podcast? Do I bring on guests? What do I do?

I reached out to Tom, who already had seven podcasts that he was doing with his own brand, and I said, "Hey, man, you want to do a podcast with me?" and he said yes. So, that was the start of the BizBuds. Tom, what do you have to add to that story?

Tom Ross: Yeah, I think that's pretty accurate. Mike is a very handsome man. He left out the part where he almost timidly approached me and asked for me to take him under my wing-

Michael Janda: I did.

Tom Ross: ... as a veteran podcaster, but I was happy to oblige because I saw something in this kind of plucky young guy.

Michael Janda: Yeah.

Tom Ross: No, there's a great alignment. We do things in a very similar way. We're all about looking after our audience, building relationships, trying to lead with kindness first in business, not chasing the numbers for numbers' sake, and so we definitely did hit it off, and we can talk for hours about this stuff, Ian, so you're going to have to call time on us at some point, I'm sure.

Ian Paget: Oh, no. It's all good. It's all good. I'm looking forward to it.

Tom Ross: Yeah. We're both just very passionate, and so the podcast has been a lot of fun, not just because I get to take the piss out of Mike, but because we just nerd out on this stuff, and the whole premise of the show is we said we want to make this the most actionable thing. We don't want to hold anything back. So, we try and just deliver a mini course, almost, with each episode.

Ian Paget: I would say the one thing that's come in between both of you is the advice that you're giving is very honest and actionable. There's a lot of influencers out there in the graphic design space, and the advice is not always relatable, and that-

Tom Ross: I feel like that's the nicest way you could've put that.

Ian Paget: Yeah, yeah. But both of you, all of your advice is always just true. You can take it. It's relatable. As someone that's new to the industry in particular, it's just the way it is, and I absolutely love that about both of you-

Michael Janda: Thank you.

Tom Ross: Thanks, mate.

Ian Paget: ... and that's why I want to speak about getting logo design clients, and I know both of you have created content about this before, but I think it'd be good to go into it again because it's always the thing that comes up.

Graphic designers are always like, "I need clients. I don't know where to start," and there's obviously so many different layers to this, so I think probably the first question that I'd like to talk about is getting that first client. So, imagine if there was a graphic designer out there, they don't have a website at the moment, they are just posting on Instagram, for example, and they're not getting any clients. I see lots of people like this all the time. How would you advise someone like that to get their very first client?

Tom Ross: Ooh, this is a big question to kick off what's a very big episode, I think, in terms of topic. So, for disclosure, Mike has more experience in terms of client services because he went from being a freelancer to running this huge agency and billing a lot of money for clients. I had a relatively successful freelance career when I was younger on more on the kind of customer side with my company, and now I do attract clients, I guess you could call them, in terms of coaching students and that kind of thing.

Ian Paget: Yeah, so same thing, same thing. Yeah.

Tom Ross: Yeah. So, I know Mike has a ton of tips around this. The first point I want to make before we even get into all that strategy is what you're selling has to be good, because before we jump into all the tactics of how to relationship build and land clients through various ways, if the service or product you're putting out is crappy, then no amount of sales, razzmatazz and the techniques we can delve into is really going to help you.

So, I think you need to look at things like product market fit. You need to look at things, what does the market actually want, what is valued in terms of a product or a service, and you need to educate yourself about that stuff.

This is not to say you need to be a perfectionist and never sell yourself because your work isn't perfect yet, and you're scared to put it out to anyone. I see a lot of that as well, and often, people are enormously talented, and they should be selling, and they kind of withhold from that. But I do think you need to address some of those fundamentals before you go on the offence in terms of trying to actually get money from clients. Would you agree, Mike?

Michael Janda: Yeah, absolutely. I think you got to know what you're selling, and you've got to be able to do it well enough to make it a sellable product. So, that is step one. In direct response to something you said, Ian, your first client is not on Instagram. They're not going to find you on Instagram. That's not the place. A lot of designers make this error of thinking, okay, I'm just going to go and start posting on Instagram, and then clients are going to find me, and then they're going to reach out to me. That's great and hopeful wishing, but it is a fabricated reality.

The truth is that one of the major reasons that somebody makes any purchase decision is because they trust the person who's going to do the work. They trust the person or the product. They trust. Instagram is a great place to build trust over time, but if you've got 20 logo posts on Instagram, and you're trying to sell logos, that 20-logo post and a college degree is not enough to make somebody trust you enough to reach out to you coldly and say, "You're my person. I want to hire you."

Ian, before the show you and I were talking about you're now on your own doing logo design work as your core business, and the phone is ringing off the hook. You're getting so much work, but you've been building trust over years and years of time.

You have a following on your podcast. You've got a social media channel built up. People know about you. You have built in trust so a client feels comfortable reaching out to the Logo Geek. I know the Logo Geek. That's my guy.

This doesn't happen right out of school. This isn't the thing that happens. So, you're not going to get clients that way.

The place you find your first clients are through the people you know right now who already trust you. That's the key. What I recommend to people is make a list of all of your top people that trust you and love you, and include your mom. Include your best friend. Include your best mates from university. Did you see that I used mates there because I'm talking to two Brits?

Tom Ross: How do you feel about that, Ian?

Ian Paget: Well, where I live, they don't say mate. That's a southern thing.

Michael Janda: Okay.

Ian Paget: Up here, they say Pal, which has taken a bit of time to get used to.

Michael Janda: All right. Well, I'm trying to be one of the guys on this show. So, make this list of all the people who already trust you, who already have a good relationship with you, and then define clearly what do you do.

If it's logo design, and that's just a general niche, then tell all of those core people that know you and love you and trust you already, "Hey, I'm starting as a freelancer doing logo design. I'm trying to find new clients. If you ever hear of somebody who needs a logo design, please share my name with them," and you tell those people, and then you create a little sales army out of the people who already trust you. This is how you're going to find your first clients, not by cold hope on Instagram.

Tom Ross: Mike, I'm so glad you mentioned that because that is how I got some of my early clients, where I did a website for a local restaurant. I did some menus for another local bar and restaurant, because I started telling everyone I knew. I was like, "I'm really trying to do this," and they were like, "Oh. Well, actually, I know the bar manager there," or, "I'm friends with the owners there. Maybe I could connect you." That's exactly how it worked.

Michael Janda: Yeah.

Ian Paget: It worked exactly the same way for me as well. My very first logo design clients were old school friends or ex-colleagues from a previous job or family members, and so on. You can build up a portfolio, and I think the important thing is the more people that know what you do, that's how you get clients.

Michael Janda: Yeah, and the clearer your message is... Tom brought up a great point in it was restaurants and bars, and once he did a couple restaurants and bars, then the message changes from, "Hey, pals. I do..." See how I'm doing this? I'm messing with you guys. Hi, pals.

Tom Ross: Oh, you're super adaptable, Mike, you social chameleon.

Michael Janda: "Hey, pals, I do logos for bars." What a dialed-in message. "I do logos for bars. I have three bar clients that I just finished. If you know of anybody who owns a bar and needs a logo, please tell them about me," and if you give that message out to your core network of people, then they're wandering around every bar they go in.

Because they love you, every bar they go in, they're looking around, thinking, "Man, their logo sucks. I better tell them about Ian. Ian's their guy. Ian can fix their logo," and they start to share your name around because they love you, and they have that trust built in. So, that's where you find your first clients.

Now, the beauty is over time, you don't need that as much. It still becomes a core part of your business. Ian, I'm sure you're still getting business from people who you went to university with. You have these connections. But you also get the cold leads that come through building a reputation over time, and you do that through Instagram, through YouTube, through a podcast, through whatever other channels you do to get your name out there so that these cold opportunities just drop in your lap, but that takes... Ian, you've been doing this for decades, not months.

Tom Ross: Not 20 Instagram posts.

Ian Paget: Yeah.

Michael Janda: Yeah.

Tom Ross: Yeah, and one thing we haven't touched on so much is referrals, because it's so true, that first client is the hardest because you're going from a standing start, but I totally agree with both of you. Utilise that network that you already have, that trust that you already have, and those relationships you already have.

Try and get the first few trickling in, and then your sole focus should be do such an unbelievable job that you accrue stunningly good testimonials, you have incredibly great relationships with those clients, and you have fantastic work and case studies that you can then leverage and show off to attract further clients, and there are so many designers that I know who never pitch work, and don't really have to do anything because they have built a network of referrals that's just self-perpetuating.

They never lift a finger with regard to sales, and many of them are self-professed to hate sales, and they say, "I'm so grateful that I just keep doing great work and treating my clients well, and they keep telling their friends." So, it just keeps generating work back.

Ian Paget: Something that hasn't been mentioned yet is showing your work, and I know that's really obvious, but I'm thinking of someone that I've actually spoken to recently where they were only posting on Instagram. I personally feel that you should have your own website where you're sharing examples of work that you've done before, and the reason why I feel that is important is because people need to see that you can actually do what you're saying. Mike, I know this is something that you're really keen on. If you do pick a niche, or "niche"(pronounced the American way)... I'm doing it back now.

Michael Janda: Ian's a social chameleon too. Look at us go, huh?

Tom Ross: We're niching, pal.

Ian Paget: So, when you do pick a niche, if you don't have any work in that area, or you don't have much to show, create projects for yourself so that you can show something.

Michael Janda: Yeah. I've seen a lot of designers not... They struggle because they feel like this is dishonest because it wasn't an actual client project, and I look at that, and I'm like, isn't that what you graduated with out of university?

You go to university, and you graduate, and you have a portfolio filled with made up projects, and then you shop your made up projects around to potential employers to get a job. It's exactly what you did. It's a student project from your university classes. Well, it's still okay to do that. In the future of your business, I don't believe in passing it off as if it were real client work.

I do recommend that people highlight that this is a concept case study, concept design for Joe's Pizza Restaurant, and then you design a logo, you put it on signs, you put it on shirts, you put it on all kinds of mock-ups to show the logo for Joe's Pizza Restaurant, and now you have a great case study that shows what you can do for a pizza restaurant, and now you go shop your services around to other pizza restaurants.

It doesn't matter that Joe's Pizza Restaurant was a made up business. It just matters that you can show what quality work you can do and how it can improve the business of the potential client that you're marketing yourself to. I think that it's completely okay to do that. I never cared. I employed tons and tons of designers over the years, and I never cared if the work was real client work or if it was a concept design that they invented to show their abilities to me as their potential employer. I don't think it matters.

Tom Ross: It doesn't. We've hired designers at my company, and it's all been concept work, and we've just geeked out and said, "Yeah, that's really great work." I couldn't care less about the client.

Ian Paget: Yeah. I actually think that type of thing is much better to do than... I don't know if you guys have seen it. In the logo design space in particular, for people that are practicing and trying to get into it, there are things like the 30-day logo challenge where they're churning out a logo a day for 30 days, and personally, unless you're just starting out and you really need to practice, I feel that they're a waste of time, personally, when you already have the skillsets needed to do it.

I prefer that someone invest the time to do a project really well and to make it look really slick on their website. Can I ask your guys' thoughts on charity projects? Because this is something that I tend to recommend people to do as well, is rather than doing a 30-day logo challenge, to reach out to a charity and to work on a project for them and to create a good case study around that. Is that something that you would advise to do as well?

Tom Ross: Are you talking about literally a charity, or just spec work in general?

Ian Paget: An actual charity, not spec work for a charity.

Tom Ross: Okay. Yes, I like it. What do you think, Mike? Then I wouldn't actually mind sharing a quick example after that with regards to spec work.

Michael Janda: My thinking on that is that the work that you do for anyone has... It should have value in some way. You should be compensated in some way, but the compensation is not always monetary.

Now, if I reached out to a charitable organisation because I wanted to do a case study on how I can rebrand this business and then use it in my portfolio, I would still create a contract. I would still create a scope, and I would require for payment a written testimonial from them, and maybe a video testimonial or something that I could use in my marketing, and rights to use the work in my portfolio.

So, I'm getting compensated for the work in a different way than just money, but I'm also still contracting the client and telling them exactly what I'm going to do and exactly what they're going to get. I mean, if you're going to do this as a practice project, as a charity project, well, practice your contracts and practice your scope creation, and practice getting sign-off from the client and managing the project through the flow.

Practice all of it, not just creating the work. So, that's my feeling on that. You should be compensated in some way, but the compensation is not always monetary, and still contract what you're going to get in compensation.

Ian Paget: Tom, do you want to share your example?

Tom Ross: Yeah. So, I know spec work is a hot-button topic. It's very contentious. Honestly, I do it all the time. When I'm trying to reach someone, particular someone that has a huge platform, and they might be an enormous personal brand with a lot of leverage, they don't need me. I have fairly little to offer them. They hold all the cards, and so even recently... I'm successful enough in my own right. I have an established platform and company and so on, but there's been some enormous names where I've been DMing with them in Instagram, and I always lead with value, whether it's my free consultancy time or I'm doing something for them, because it's a good in.

In a world where everyone is asking something of them, I like to try and give first. So, that's one example of spec work, but the one that sprung to mind was actually one of my coaching students who said, "I really want to do some work for free for this local..." I think it was a local national park or something like that, and I was like, "Okay. Go for it if you really want to do it." So, she did. They agreed because it was free. She did a small job for them, and then she got nine paying projects from that organisation over the next few months-

Ian Paget: Wow.

Tom Ross: ... and then got referred to one of the owners' contacts, and got further paying work from them. So, I just think it's the default mode for people to kind of... Am I allowed to swear, Ian? I can't remember.

Ian Paget: Yeah, yeah. Go for it.

Tom Ross: I think it's the default position for a lot of designers to shit on spec work out of principle, but it only offends me where it's a client trying to take advantage of me. If they're trying to twist my arm into it or just use me, it doesn't sit right. If I'm doing it on my terms, because I want to be doing it, and I'm doing it to leverage something or build a relationship or get a foot in the door, it's on my terms. That's no one taking advantage of me.

Ian Paget: Do you guys know Mark Hirons? I think you probably do.

Tom Ross: Yeah, very well. I've got incredibly drunk with Mark several times.

Ian Paget: Mark's done exactly the same thing. So, I've interviewed him on the podcast, so listeners can go and check out his story, but he's a very young guy, early twenties, and he wanted to get into the sports industry, wanted to work for a big football club, and he started doing voluntary work for local clubs, built up a portfolio, and now he has his dream job at... I think he's 22, but at the age of 22, he is working for one of the world's biggest football clubs, and I feel that is the result of him reaching out to clubs so that he could do spec work for them and include it in his portfolio, and look where that's got him.

So, it's something that I really believe in. I've done cool projects, and I've absolutely loved it, and it's created portfolio pieces, and yeah, okay, I didn't get paid for it, but I got a lot out of it, and no one took advantage of me. It was a mutually-beneficial thing.

Tom Ross: I love that, and noticed two big things that we've touched on so far. We've just touched on spec work on your terms, and we've touched on utilising your current network of people. What we haven't pushed is just post on Instagram and hope something good happens, and what we haven't pushed is go and do the unbearably uncomfortable cold calls or cold pitches to strangers, and yeah, whenever we get questions from our audience and designers, "How do I get clients?" that's the two things that they're trying to do.

They're posting on Instagram and getting frustrated, and they're considering cold pitching and just clamming up with pure nervousness at the prospect of it. That is all I see day in, day out, and I never see people doing the tips that we're actually talking about, and it's frustrating because I just think you're positioning yourself to lose by doing the wrong strategies that are just uncomfortable and horrible.

Ian Paget: That is exactly why I wanted to talk about it, again. I want to make sure that people get this into their heads, that this is how it works. Everybody I know that's been successful have done exactly the same thing. They're not cold calling. They're just doing good work, creating good case studies, and they're attracting work based on that.

I think a big part of that is reputation, and we briefly covered that, or briefly spoke about it, but I think that would be the next thing to really go into. So, hopefully, with the advice that we've given, listeners should hopefully be able to get their first client, but if you want to be able to get continuous clients, like I'm fortunate to be in the position, you need to build up that reputation. So, what advice can you guys give to establish a good reputation around your chosen area of expertise?

Michael Janda: I think you started to answer the question in your very last phrase. Your chosen area of expertise, you've got to choose what you want a reputation as, and I think a lot of people make the mistake of saying, "Oh, I want to be a logo designer," and that is tough, to build a reputation as a logo designer, because you have Aaron Draplin and James Martin out there in the world that have a logo designer reputation, and Ian building a great reputation as a logo designer and podcaster.

You're fighting a battle in that market to build a reputation like some of those people. I mean, none of those people that I just mentioned are 20 years old. They're all seasoned creatives that have been doing this for a while, and now have built up a reputation. So, choose what you want to build a reputation as, and you mentioned Mark and, what a great example. What if your Instagram was all logo designs for football clubs? Some of them are real, some of them are made up, but you're trying to build a reputation as a logo designer for football clubs.

Now you've got a much smaller pond that you're trying to become the big fish in, rather than just logo designer in the world and building a reputation around that. So, I know we were going to talk a little bit about niching, but I think niching has a lot to do with reputation. You've got to make the pond small enough that you can become the big fish in it, and then maybe in the future, after you become the big fish in the football logo pond, then you can decide, "All right, I'm the big fish in this pond.

Maybe I'm going to branch out and become the big fish in the sea of logo design, and then maybe I'll become the big fish in the world of design," or the ocean of design in general, and you can scale up over time in your career, but start somewhere small. Start in a niche that you can actually build reputation in, and there are a lot of blue ocean... Not to keep using water metaphors, but there's a lot of-

Tom Ross: I need the bathroom now, Mike.

Michael Janda: We'll have to give a legend in the comments section of this to say, "This is what this means, and this is what this means. Pond, logo, sea." Anyway, there's a lot of blue ocean opportunity in niching down, because right now, Ian, you're very logo-savvy. This is your world. This is your podcast. Who besides Mark has positioned themselves as a brand designer for football clubs? Who went all in on that niche? How many other people?

Ian Paget: That I know?

Michael Janda: Yeah, that you know, and you know more than us.

Ian Paget: I can't think of anyone.

Michael Janda: Exactly.

Ian Paget: I know people in sport, but not for football. It's quite unique.

Michael Janda: So, Mark has taken opportunity to niche down in something where he can be the person for that niche. He can build reputation in that niche, and there's not competition for him, because you would know who they were. If anybody else had reputation in it, you would know who it was because you're so well connected.

So, this is where you got to get down... You got to niche down tight enough that you can build reputation as a certain thing, and I know Tom is super passionate about niching and reputation building, so I won't take any more time on this thing until I give Tom some time to talk on that same topic.

Tom Ross: I love it.

Ian Paget: Can I just quickly butt in?

Tom Ross: Yeah, go ahead.

Ian Paget: So, you mentioned about Mark, how he's the only logo designer or graphic designer for sports that I can think of, but you know what? With logo design, there is just an open playing field for every single niche because hardly anyone is doing it, and I know that sounds ridiculous, but that is the way it is. So, you can pretty much take your pick and own that particular industry just because it is an open playing field for that at the moment.

Tom Ross: I totally agree.

Ian Paget: So, yes, I think it's an exciting time, and I just wanted to add as well, although I'm working with pretty much anyone that needs logo design at the moment, when I first started, from a search engine point of view, I focused on my location. So, originally it was Reading, and now it's Manchester, but because I'm focusing only on that from a regional point of view, with Google, people search logo designer in Manchester. I'm on page one on Google, so it's really easy to find me within Manchester, and the same with UK as well, logo designer in UK, or logo design UK.

So, from a niching down point of view, it could be location as well, and if you're optimising for Google, I think it's relatively easy at the moment, just because not many people are taking those opportunities. Sorry, Tom. I'm going to let you add some thoughts.

Tom Ross: No, it's such a great... It's a real example for people. The saying tends to be there is riches in the niches, because I know it's quite a common objection. The reason most people aren't niching down with their logo design is, surely, that's going to limit my opportunities. There's going to be less clients, and I'm already struggling to get clients, so I don't want to cut out the majority of the potential market I'm serving, or they think, "I'm not going to make enough money," or they think, "Oh, I'm going to feel really constrained creatively, and I'm going to get really bored," and all of these are valid objections and concerns, but let me tell you, I've worked with enough people that when they actually commit to niching and starting getting some success and traction, all of those concerns just disappear. They evaporate because it's so powerful.

I've literally wrote an entire guide on niching, so my head is currently bubbling over with 10 things I want to tell you at once, but I'm going to just break down a few kind of good things about it. So, one is that by niching, as Mike says, you deal with less competition, and this often leads to you being a referable soundbite.

This is one of my favourite things, because if any person that I've befriended locally, let's say, ran a football club and started telling me how they were doing their brand up or they needed someone, I would immediately in a heartbeat recommend Mark because he's the only person that springs into my mind, whereas if you were to ask me, "Oh, I need a logo designer," well, a billion people spring to mind.

Although, to be very truthful, it's people like yourself, Ian, and Jacob Cass that have really committed to being a specialist in that that do spring to mind. But you know what I mean?

Ian Paget: Yeah.

Tom Ross: All the people that are more generalised, they are just in this ocean of noise, and it's the people that have specialised, such as Mark, and have committed to a niche, they're the ones that become that referable soundbite. Any opportunity I have to say, "Oh, yeah, they do that," I do it, and that's so common. That's how you kind of build that referral network, where you give other people the confidence to refer you in that hopeful soundbite. So, another thing is realise the majority of successful people, you might not realise, but they often did niche at the start.

I'll give more business examples than logo examples, but for example, Marie Forleo, who's known for B-School, and just this quite broad mentoring of women in the entrepreneurial space, she originally found success as a dating coach and wrote books about that. She was very niched into the dating world. We've seen that with Gary V. as well. He was niched in the wine world, and then he chose to become much broader.

My friend Ian Barnard that I do my other podcast with, he talks about this like an hourglass where people, they're wide, and then they kind of go narrow as they learn to niche down. They get a lot of results from that, and that gives them platform and leverage to then go wide again and kind of bolt different bits onto their business and be a bit more explorative with what they're doing. Does that make sense?

Ian Paget: Oh, yeah, definitely.

Tom Ross: So, you go narrow, you find the success, and then that gives you options down the line to explore and go a bit broader if you want, because you've actually built something and found success at that point.

Michael Janda: I like the hourglass idea because that is... I totally agree with that. One of the things that's so beneficial, and we kind of touched on this at the start, talking about Instagram, but if you talk about reputation, you don't want just a reputation inside of your own industry, the design industry, but you want to build a reputation inside of the target industry that you're trying to design for, and take the idea of an Instagram account that is just posting logos. How fast will that grow, and who will follow that? Now, use Mark as an example. If you created an Instagram account that was just logos for football clubs, and half of them were real, and half of them were made up, it didn't matter, but you're posting images of footballers... Do you call them footballers? Because we call them soccer players. Is it football-

Tom Ross: Probably footballers, yeah.

Ian Paget: Yeah, football players. Yeah.

Michael Janda: Yeah. Okay.

So, you have pictures of football players and the logos mocked up on their jersey. I have logos that you've done that are made up for different made up teams. You're designing the uniforms and things, just showing how this brand can go through the different marketing vehicles that the football team would need. Who's going to follow that? Well, you're going to get clients, potential clients who follow that. You're going to get football people. People who love the sport in general are going to be following that.

People who are in the marketing departments and design departments of football clubs are going to be following an account like that because it speaks to the things that they're interested in, not just logo design. So, you're building reputation inside of the eyes or minds of the clients that you're trying to attract, not just a bunch of designers following you because you post cool logos.

Tom Ross: Yep.

Ian Paget: I actually think, as a logo designer, I'm at that point now where people look up to what I'm doing, and they kind of want to replicate what I'm doing, but I actually think I'm probably a bad example with my podcast because I am targeting my content towards other designers, but I think if you really want to be successful, if you clearly define who your target audience is, you should be creating content for them.

So, I'm going to use Mark as an example again, so with football, you could create a podcast around graphic design in football, and then, like you said, people that are interested in football in sport, they're going to be listening to that. I mean, other graphic designers might still be interested, but it's not made for other graphic designers. It's made for your target audience, and I think that's really important, especially if you're at a point where you don't have clients. I'm quite fortunate that I get clients in other ways, but yeah, I think if you're creating content, target your audience, not other graphic designers.

Tom Ross: Yeah.

Michael Janda: I have something to say about that. Can I just jump in, Tom, real quick.

Tom Ross: For sure.

Michael Janda: I think that some designers get themselves flustered on that topic. I agree with you 100%, Ian, but some designers get flustered thinking, "But my clients, I'm targeting plumbers, and they're not on Instagram, and I do branding for plumber companies, and how do I make content that attracts plumbers and makes them see my content?" That's a freaking good question because some niches are not viable for good content that's going to build an audience. It's just not going to happen.

Maybe somebody can get super creative, but if that was your challenge, if you were targeting plumbing companies, or let's just say home repair businesses, is Instagram really the right place for that? I don't know. Probably not, but if you build an audience on Instagram of any kind, then it's validation to those potential clients who are window shopping you.

So, they go to your website because they heard about you, and they see, "Oh, here's Sally's Design Business, specialising in home repair company rebrands. That's what we need," and then there's a module on Sally's website that says, "Follow me on Instagram with my 7,000 followers," and the potential client clicks on that, and boom, validation. It doesn't matter that the followers of Sally are not plumbers. It matters that Sally has some reputation in her marketing perception, and who cares who's following? The client all of a sudden builds a little bit more trust in Sally because other people in the world trust Sally.

So, I think it's beneficial in the window shopping world to have any kind of audience. Doesn't matter if they are designers. I get concerned that some designers are just sitting there, spinning their wheels, thinking, "How do I make valuable content for plumbers, to attract plumbers to follow me on Instagram?" and that's probably a losing battle when they could be posting something to build an audience of some kind that will have a direct impact on the bottom line of their business by validating them in the eyes of the customers that are shopping out.

Ian Paget: It's really interesting that you bring that up because although what I said about create content for your specific target audience, I built Logo Geek on the side of a full-time job, and I never planned it to be what it is now. So, in terms of creating content, I pretty much created what I wanted to create, which is primarily content for other graphic designers. But what that has done is allowed me to gain authority around the topic of logo design. So, the way that I see it is that no client anywhere is ever going to be that interested in any logo design-related content, ever. I think that's quite unlikely.

But when they do need a logo designer, what are they going to do? They're going to search somewhere. They're going to search in many of the search engines that's online, whether that's Google or whether that's through iTunes or YouTube or whatever. There's loads of search engines. On Google, because I have gained that authority in Google's eyes, and got backlinks from all these different sources, that's how I get clients now, and if I didn't create content around logo design, I wouldn't be where I am now. So, it's not a simple thing to answer, but I do think if you want that immediate, the quick win in the short period of time, then it makes sense to create content for that person if it's possible.

Tom Ross: Yep. Some great thoughts there from both of you, and I do agree. I think a lot of people overthink this, and to the invariably, if you're posting design work, you will accrue an audience partially comprised of designers, and people get quite stressed when that happens, but just realise it's normal, that it doesn't mean you're inherently doing something wrong, and it will always be the case, especially as you accrue a bigger and bigger audience, that it is the absolute minority that are going to convert to paying clients.

It doesn't matter if you're carrying some extra baggage in the form of your peers and so on because, as Mike and Ian just alluded to, this does contribute towards your social proof and your platform, and the chances of you being discovered on the back of that. That being said, I do think you can get pretty creative, and so let's run with the slightly odd plumber example here, but-

Michael Janda: I'm excited to see what Tom comes up with on plumber content.

Tom Ross: Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to think outside the box here as I was listening to you guys, and I think there's a lot to be said for making content that does connect with your intended clients or audience, and this comes down to what I like to call the disconnect, when it goes wrong.

An example I often give is The Futur, who I'm sure you know, Ian, as well, and they do a great job with this because they put out a ton free content, which teaches business for creatives, and then that funnels the people that watch that content directly back to their premium offerings, which is courses for teaching business to creatives. So, there is a very, very strong connection there between the content and the audience it attracts, which goes directly back to a high conversion rate for the premium offerings.

We have some similar stuff at my company, Design Cuts, and even if you just have a small misstep, it can break that connection and cause a disconnect. So, at one point on our YouTube channel, we were just putting out general kind of Photoshop video tutorials and that kind of thing. So, some of them got hundreds of thousands of views, and we built a pretty big audience there around that platform, but we were mainly attracting people that were into design tutorials.

We weren't really attracting people who wanted to buy our stuff. If our premium offering had been better additional premium design training, that would've been a connection. People interested in free training, some of them go and buy the premium training, but that wasn't the intention. So, that disconnect kind of didn't work, and we've since pivoted our content, so there's a direct connection back to what we're actually selling. Does that make sense?

Ian Paget: Yeah, it does. Yeah.

Tom Ross: So, that's kind of one thing. So, back to the plumbers, I think one viable strategy could be the classic be the host of the party. So, if I was trying to attract plumbers as clients, here's what I would do. I would set up a social media page, and I would start approaching plumbers and saying, "Hey, I'm trying to build out this platform to bring value to the plumbing community, and so I'm trying to collate all of the best tips from plumbers and pull it into one place so that everyone can kind of learn from each other. Have you got a great tip that you can just send me a 30-second or 60-second video? And I'm going to edit that and make it look snazzy, and I'm going to post that for other plumbers in this community to learn from.

So, I would start doing that, and I would start building out an audience of plumbers, and it could then leverage that audience to convert them into clients, and not only that, by approaching the people for content one by one, I'd be building relationships with those people, and maybe after I post the content and we chat a bit more, I say, "Hey, by the way, maybe I could do a free logo for you. I could do a free thing for you as a thank you for doing this," and then I do the work, and they're really happy, and then I can up-sell or it can lead to additional projects and work that way or something like that, and suddenly, I'm just talking to plumbers all day.

I'm collaborating on content with plumbers. I'm building an audience of more plumbers. They're recommending other plumbers to come check my content out, and I am hosting a party at my house now, metaphorically speaking, where my house is full of plumbers. So, the odds are if I'm chatting to 400 plumbers a week through this platform I'm building, I'm going to be able to convert some of them to clients. I'm going to actually have a degree of a warm relationship with them. I'm not going to be going in cold anymore because I'm just having conversations with plumbers. What do you think?

Ian Paget: Love it. Give us a couple of months. There will be a few graphic designers that have stole the idea from this and run with it. I think it's brilliant.

Tom Ross: All right.

Ian Paget: I think it's a really good idea.

Tom Ross: Just to kind of piggyback on that, in my freelance career, I actually found traction serving the entrepreneurial community and solo entrepreneurs who were earning more than six figures. That was my niche. So, if I was doing that today, I would absolutely do that approach, where I would put out a podcast, I'd put out content that was leveraging connections in that space and providing content for entrepreneurs, but I would just have that built-in up-sell and business model behind it, that I also offer design service for entrepreneurs.

Ian Paget: That's a really good idea. I like that way of thinking because that... I mean, just the idea on its own, that can easily be replicated for any other industry, and this idea of hosting it. So, it can be a topic that you don't know anything about.

You can pull in all the experts from the industry, and I know one thing that a lot of people like about my podcast is that I tend to not always know the answer, and actually, people like that, that I don't always know the answer, and I ask questions that might seem stupid sometimes. I think because you come into the industry not knowing anything, actually, you could create a very interesting platform, so blogs, videos, podcasts. You could create loads of really great content targeted specifically for the industry.

Tom Ross: You can, although normally, when people create a niche business, I advise that they should have a degree of interest or knowledge in that niche, because it would be pretty weird for someone that has zero clue or interest in plumbing to be like, "Yeah, I'm going to be the plumber designer."

So, the reason I niched on entrepreneurs was because I was one myself, and I liked them, and I understood them, and I could talk their language. So, if you're going to niche by industry, what is something outside design that you're actually super into where it would be a joy to work with like-minded people in that industry because you have a commonality between you?

Ian Paget: I think whilst we're on this topic... I'm conscious that we've probably got about 10 minutes left of this. We spoke about niching down, but a question I often see is, how do you know if that niche is going to be a success? Because, say... I know I'm quite into film, movies, science-fiction stuff. Say if I wanted to be a graphic designer for the film industry. Is that a viable option? Can I actually achieve that? Do you have any thoughts on helping people know if the niche that they've chosen is actually a viable direction for them?

Michael Janda: Yeah. Let me jump in on this because I have a lesson in my course about validating a niche. How do you validate it, validate the niche to know that this is potentially viable for you? So, the first thing to ask yourself, and you alluded to this, Ian, is do you have relationships in there, or can you have relationships inside the certain industry that you're trying to target, the entertainment industry, as an example? Is it possible for you, Ian, to leverage the relationships you have right now to get some open doors into the entertainment industry world? That's the question you got to answer first, and entertainment industry, interestingly, was the niche that my business was built on because I had relationships there.

I was working at Fox Studios in LA, and I had friends who started to work at Disney and Sony and Warner Brothers, and they started to give me work. I had an open door built on trust that I had built with these coworkers. Before I was even freelancing or trying to grow an agency, I had the open door, so it was a viable niche for me. Now, you don't have to specifically know anybody in the industry. You just have to know that you can make connections inside the industry you're targeting, and in today's world, LinkedIn is such a great place to do this. You can find where people work. You can reach out to them. You can start building relationships. You can connect with, say, Google.

In fact, we did this at my agency with Google. When we started to do work for Google, which came from a relationship we had a YouTube, who used to be a client at Disney, he moved to YouTube, we did a project for YouTube, and that made us a Google vendor because YouTube's owned by Google, and now what did we do?

We reached out to every single person we could find on LinkedIn that worked at Google as a marketing manager, and we messaged all these people and said, "Hey, we're going to be in the Bay Area. We have some meetings at Google," which was true, "and we would love to just chat with you for a few minutes. We're a Google vendor," because we had jumped through all the hoops and became a Google vendor and had all the paperwork. We were in their system.

Googlers could use us for marketing, so we started reaching out to these people as a Google vendor, and it was a viable niche for us to go and target Google as a potential customer for us. We ended up doing over a million dollars for Google just using that technique of connecting with people. So, that's step one on deciding the niche. The validation piece comes from reverse engineering the numbers, and knowing the size pool of money that you're trying to get for your business.

So, I use the example of pizza restaurants, and let's say that you're going to target rebrands for pizza restaurants. You love pizza. You love doing logos and rebranding businesses, so you're thinking to yourself, can I build a business just rebranding pizza companies?

Then you start to look and say, "How many pizza restaurants are there in this potential bucket of clients?" I know this number because I use this is my course, but there are 1,700 pizza restaurants in New York City alone, so you have to look at that and say, "Okay, if I can target pizza restaurants in New York City for rebrands or design services, and I want to make $100,000 a year," I always say, "Go with 1%. Can you get 1% market share of this 1,700-client pool?" and if you do, then that's 17 clients in a year, and if you want to make $100,000, you need to bill 17 clients $5,882, and you will make $100,000 in your business.

So, start by reverse engineering the numbers. Take this market that you are interested in serving, find out how many potential customers there are, determine how much money you want to make in a year, calculate the quantity percentage of the market that you can potentially land, and I usually say 1% is kind of the max that you would want to try and do for most markets, and then how much do you have to bill those clients, and then you can validate your niche and say, "You know what? That works for me. I do think that I can charge $5,882 in services to 17 clients in New York City that are all pizza-related businesses."

Tom Ross: That's cool, and then you can play with the parameters. So, Mike's run these examples before, and if it doesn't work, it's like, okay, well, maybe instead of pizza restaurants, I'm going to do all restaurants in New York, and that becomes viable, and something I say all the time is niching is not a life sentence. So, if it doesn't work, then iterate and adjust. Change it up. You're not locked in, and people freak out because they think, "Oh, but if I commit to this niche, that's going to be the rest of my career." Of course not. I've had stuff where I've tried it for three months, and then I'm like, that's not as viable as I realised. I'm going to adjust it, and suddenly I start seeing more traction.

Ian Paget: We've had so much incredible advice on this, but I think this is a good point to wrap up the interview, but I think there's been so much actionable, very realistic advice in this, which I totally expected from you guys, so I really hope it's been really valuable for the people listening, and I do want to say, listeners, if you want to listen to more kind of back-and-forth banter between Mike and Tom, listen to the Biz... Buds... Is it BizBuds Podcast?

Tom Ross: BizBuds, so B-I-Z-B-U-D-S, BizBuds.

Ian Paget: Yeah. So, definitely go and listen to that. I've gone through a few episodes now, but I think the show is fantastic, and-

Tom Ross: Thanks, mate.

Ian Paget: ... it's been really great to kind of get you guys on and bounce a few ideas between you both, but yeah, go and check that out. Check out Tom and Mike's content. Mike, your training course, I'm working through that at the moment. I think that's potentially the best training course out there for anyone that wants to get into freelance. I haven't seen anything better than it.

Michael Janda: Thank you.

Ian Paget: So, listeners, definitely go and check that out. But guys, thank you so much for coming on. It's been really fun.

Michael Janda: Thank you, Ian.

Tom Ross: It was super fun. Thank you so much.

Michael Janda: So fun. I just want to express my sadness that this podcast is over. I was really enjoying this conversation.