I very much liked what IA on Twitter said about The Practice of Web Design:

In my eyes, web design is neither an artistic exercise nor a scientific discipline but an economic practice…

He has a great point here as and this is a team who really excels in the niche that they belong to – WEB DESIGN.   Taking inspiration from this singular quote i’ve listed some items that might help you start developing your design work into a full time business – so you can earn the money you worked so hard for.

A little background here before you read onwards:   I started out as a freelancer taking on all sorts of projects – it took me about 3 years to understand the game and build my client base, and i registered my company in early 2009 – www.fluidnewmedia.com.  From small Flash Micro Sites, to the Joomlas and WP’s of the world we can now build our own applications from ground-up for our clients.  I couldn’t have gotten this far without concentrating on the following points:

1. Don’t Give Up Your Freelance Work: With the state of the current economy going freelance is your best bet, people these days are turning to independent freelancers for quality projects and you can charge a good amount of money – this depends on your client and the scope of the project.  For now stick to it until you position yourself as a company.  Take into consideration your day job as well and how many hours you can set aside for your freelance work.
2. Keep Your Eyes On The Money: We all have the tendency to over involve ourselves in design work – Point is to find a happy medium with your quality of work and amount you charge your clients.  Don’t let yourself get carried away with the details – concentrate on charging your client for the quality of work you bring to the table.
3. Start Thinking From  A Business Perspective: Not everyone is a business man/woman by heart but this is an area to concentrate on now.  It’s more important than design itself, chalk out a plan, meet with people – start mareketing your services and products to a targeted market;  look for your niche in the market and supply the demand.   You can do this I know, so start now!
4. Learn How To Outsource Work and Keep Your Margins: Interestingly enough most passionate web designers don’t like to outsource to Third Party’s – they get too emotional with their own work.  While i can understand this, my advice is for projects that require alot of work (coding, design, database) try and find a team or another individual that can cover the areas you can’t. This way you can manage the project, do what you best within the scope of the project and still have room for other work on the side.  This is the first step to thinking like a business person – You might not like it (I didn’t) but you’ll reap the benefits monetarily in the long run.
5. Don’t Reinvent the Wheel: This is an extremely important point.  If there is a system out there that you can use, use it – there is no sense in designing and coding up your own.  Especially when open source developers from all over the world have worked hard at one platform – use it to your benefit.
6. Concentrate on Re-Occuring Income: There are two ways of looking at this.  One is a income generated on a monthly basis from maintenance fees, or finding a good client who can give you a certain amount of work every month.  The point here is to have income in your pocket from your design business every month.
7. Learn How To Say No: Saying “No” is tough at times but extremely necessary in the design business.  If you always say yes to your clients then they will expect that each and every time they ask you to do something – then if you say no after agreeing with them time and time over you’ll look like a hard-ass.  You don’t want that to happen..
8. Learn How To Tone Down Your Ego: Even if you are a top notch designer try to be humble with clients.  Ask them what they want first, then give advice where appropriate.
9. Always Charge 30% More Than What The Project Is Worth: Simple equation here.  Most people like to bargain with the price and will bring you down off what you quoted initially.
10. Provide Bullet Proof Documentation: Show your clients where their money is going, list out the features and activities of the web design and development practice.

Try sticking to these steps for a couple of months.  You can only try, and it doesn’t matter if you fail (if you haven’t failed then you won’t be a leader; I’ve failed time and time again till i got it right).  Get up and try again till you get it down to a science.

By applying these steps i really feel you can bump yourself up to another level.  End of the day we are all passionate about our work, but it all boils down to the dollars at the end of the day – no matter how skilled or awesome we are at our job.  You could be the best designer in the world, but if you have no clients you’ll be there twiddling your thumbs asking yourself what went wrong.  Know what i mean??

As a bonus feel free to download THIS SAMPLE DOCUMENT to get an idea of the structure for a project over $3,000.  Keep in mind this is a rough draft of the final doc, but its a good start.  Feel free to use it any way you like..

If you feel you can add to this list feel free to do so, would love to hear your opinions.   What do you think will help your business grow besides whats already stated?

What i love about Gary Vaynerchuk is his ability to paint a picture for “Non Techie” people and clearly explain how they can leverage Social Media today for their benefit. In this short interview with Abc News he briefly explains how he started using the web to his advantage and how the platforms today can help us brand ourselves into the future.

An interesting phrase Gary uses in many of his speeches that caught my attention was a term called “Sweat Equity” which describes the contribution made to a project by people who contribute their time and effort. Though the term “Sweat Equity” is Entrepreneurial in nature Gary strongly believes that the Social Web these days can be used by average individuals to help build and brand their products and services.

If you are looking to get inspired and learn along the way, Gary V. has the ability to put things in perspective for you – he did just that for me!

NOTE: If you want to cash into your passion now, be sure to check out Gary’s new book entitled “Crush It”. You can find it here.

Often while working throughout the day I seek inspiration from different sources. If you watch TV, read the papers, or get your information from the web you will read about “successful” people who have made it in this world.

Success comes in all industries, and I feel that the drive to nurture your talents and never give up hope remain the most valuable lessons learned. You can be sure that these people believed in themselves, planned and worked their asses off to get to an established level.

I just wanted to share with you some people that i took inspiration from today.

KATY PERRY:

Perry was born in Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara County, California, United States. The middle child of two pastors, she grew up listening to gospel music and singing in church. She graduated from Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta, California in 2003 and immediately moved to Los Angeles at the age of eighteen. She changed her surname to Perry because “Katy Hudson” was too close to Kate Hudson. Perry is her mother’s maiden name.

If you have listened to her music ever, its not her looks who attract me (though she is awesome); its more her voice and style that gets me going.

Talk about being a natural..

SARA FROM ON-SIMPLICTY:

Here is another example of a young woman who has a great writing talent and ability to reach out to the general users out there. She blogs at ON-SIMPLICITY about about creating a happier, easier, more enjoyable life for yourselves. Well done Sara, to me the basic’s are Keeping it Simple (no matter what situation you are faced with).

THE FIVE RUNS TEAM:

FiveRuns delivers simple, elegant and affordable products for instrumenting, monitoring and managing Rails application performance.
I got to hand it to the team, their work is extremely impressive. You can see that they have cultivated their talents over the years and come together to form Five Runs as the pinnacle of achievement. True Bliss Fellas, just true bliss. Thats what dreams are made of…

ALINA POPESCU

I’m impressed with Alina’s style of writing and consistent detailing. I feel women are doing very well these days, and this is just one of them whom i think will do very well for herself in the coming years. It’s people like her who will come out considerable better than others in the year 2009+. She is starting her own company soon, and i wish her the best of luck!!

Catch her at her blog: Words of a Broken Mirror

GEOFFREY GROSENBACH

Geoffrey is a serious Rails Developer and founder of PeepCode; a site dedicated to Rails screencasts. Geoffrey has done whole hell of lot for the Rails community and blogs over at: NubyonRails

BAHT (The Reindeer Lover):

Baht is from Mongolia, and herds reindeers for a living. He lives with the reindeer in a tent on some plains near a mountain. His love for reindeer runs deep as he has dedicated his whole life to herding them; this tradition was passed on down for generations.

He trades reindeer antlers to the neighboring Chinese, just to stock up on supplies (flour, wheet, rice etc etc) for the year. Can you imagine living in the freezing cold and having to relocate somewheres away from the snow capped mountains 10 times a year.

Baht is a great example of a passionate man, untainted from the complexities this world throws upon us. Baht, dude i couldn’t find your pic so i added a reindeer one instead. Though is likely you will never see this post, rest assured that there are people who adimire your character.

JON DAHL

I wanted to mention Jon from RailsSpikes (I believe he is also a member of the Five Runs team, or collaborates with them someway.) After reading his post about Running in Packs vs. Going it alone, i was seriously impressed with the amount of intelligence and insight this man has. (he’s not just technically sound, but seems to have a thorough knowledge of the business side as well)

I’m tired of hearing people complain about their work, and or jobs. I mean you spend at least 8 hours a day (for the normal people) and 12 hours (for the ambitious) at work. Couldn’t you like it a little more? If you are tired of the game, then get out of it and try a new one, one that you can be good at!