As a freelancer, having lots of clients is not always a great thing. Making money by providing our services to many different clients is a lot harder than focusing on just a handful who pay highly.
Our time is money, and we’re limited by the number of hours in a day. The more we can earn from each client in our address book, the better.
“How to earn more money” is an age-old question that can’t be answered overnight, but in this quick guide, you’ll get 5 quick ideas to get you started.
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The text below is the transcript of the image guide you can see above. If you have anything to add to this short guide (which I am sure you do!) please post it down in the comments below.
1. Provide Printing & Delivery
Online printing services like Printing.com and VistaPrint make it easy for graphic designers to resell printing & delivery services to their clients.
The average commission on reseller printing orders is around thirty to fifty percent. This means you could be adding an extra $50 profit to every design job you complete for your clients.
Actionable Tip:
Join Printing.com or Vistaprint’s reseller program and process your client’s printing orders.
2. Upsell Additional Design Services
Your clients need a lot more than just flyer designs, but sometimes they need reminding.
Once you have completed the initial design for a client, upselling them to extra design services can be a great way to boost income.
If you’ve designed a flyer for the client, offer them a set of matching social media graphics. If you have designed a menu, offer them a matching banner stand or poster and so on.
Actionable Tip:
When you next deliver completed work to a client, ask them “Hey, would you like me to also make this as a banner?”
3. Increase Your Prices
Increasing prices is the quickest and simplest way to make more money from your design clients, but very few freelancers have the courage to do so.
Long time clients rarely take issue with small price increments and understand the need to do so.
If you don’t take the plunge and raise your rates, you’ll be stuck on the same paygrade forever with no room for career growth.
Actionable Tip:
Don’t be scared of increasing your prices, but don’t jump too high at once. Try increasing your rate by 10% every few months.
4. Use Templates to speed up design time
Websites such as FlyerHeroes.com provide hundreds of editable templates with commercial use license that you can use in your client work.
These templates speed up your design time and ultimately increase the amount of money you earn.
Whether you’re designing flyers, brochures, menus or t-shirts, there are dozens of websites with templates available to help you.
Actionable Tip:
Take advantage of subscriptions like FlyerHeroes PRO
and GraphicStock to get maximum value for your freelance business and more template choices for your projects.
5. Get rid of Low Value Clients & Time Wasters
As we all know, less can be more.
Low-value clients who can’t afford your rates or frequently waste your time should be dropped from your client list.
Yes, they may eventually pay you some money, but it’s not worth it in the end.
By removing these people from your client list, you will make way for more valuable, higher paying and frustration-free clients!
Actionable Tip:
When your income is stable from a number of clients, email those who waste your time and explain why you can no longer work together. Being civil and upfront could help prevent any bad feelings and future disputes.
Can you offer any advice in the comments?
This short guide barely covers the available opportunities for freelance graphic designers like yourself to earn more money from existing clients – can you suggest and share any other tips with us in the comments below?
Some great tips there Adam, will definitely be implementing the advise on FlyerDesignFactory.
Looking forward to seeing these tips put to work ;)
yes do get rid of cheap customers and raise your prices!!!!
Definitely! Too many freelancers are willing to accept low-ball jobs from clients who waste hours of time, just because they get a few dollars at the end of it. Throw them out and go for the high payers!
Love the tips. Definitely somethings for me to think about. Thanks for opening up some good ones and the heads up. :)
You’re welcome @disqus_ozyvUGKrcv:disqus! Just make sure you take action. It’s easy to read these tips, but the hard part is implementing them ;)
Yess I know it’s difficult Adam, you know that hey ;) I will try my best. Thank you :)
Such a well put together infographic. Nicely done mate!
Thanks @mikemoloney:disqus!
i just charge $25 per flyer to my clients, thats to cheap?
Whatever works for you, @disqus_PvTWgAXNnM:disqus, although that is pretty low priced. Have you considered increasing your prices before?
um never get rid of a client money is money even more so if they were some of your first clients. promoters or marking specialist as i call my self get more business from word of mouth from everyone company u deal with and the more businesses u a have to show a new client always looks good i don’t care if its a lemonade stand for some kids
Sorry @domshizol:disqus, but I disagree.
Businesses move forward by increasing their rates and turnover. Not by trying to hold on to every single client because “money is money”. You only have so many hours in a day.
There’s no reason to cut contact with a client, or remove their work from your portfolio – but don’t devalue your own work and time when other clients will gladly respect it.
It’s easy to read these tips, but the hard part is implementing them ;) I SAID THIS TO MY ,MANAGER THE OTHER DAY. I CAN STEAL MY NOT BOOK OR ILL JUST GIVE IT TO U I GIVE YOU THE THEORY OR BASIC UNDERSTANDING OF THE CONCEPT OR IDEA BUT U WOULDNT KNOW TO IMPLEMENT THEM
@adam_mcintyre:disqus thank you so much for the tips!!!
Did You try this new and free online design application – Createer.com? I think this is the best for online designing ads, flyers, web pages, landing pages and more dedicated for web publishing as first, for social media share as second, and to print ads. This is it: https://beta2.createer.com/IntPage/DiscoverDesign-TheCoolWay – it’s free with only some advanced features paid – but there is a coupon, however it’s enough to just like them, share some post and You will earn credits – then is always free with all the features – but mostly You will don’t need them. Official site is: https://beta2.createer.com/?cbcmnt and here directly to over 3,000 browse predesigned templates: https://beta2.createer.com/Templates?cbcmnt
How it works? Here is a video with Intro of its editor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Bl7RMQxjdA
Good Luck! https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b6f3a45aac3caf304d4cf4db96eba783fcae10104f2d9c82055bd5fc13ca9aa2.jpg