1. Face Reality

Sometimes, truth hurts, but, it’s best to face it head on. The fact is, crowdsourcing is not going away anytime soon. From the business side of things I can see why it is gaining steam: low cost & choice. This is very appealing to small businesses with tight budgets, especially in lean times. For this reason, I think that this segment of the industry is going to be around for a long time. That’s the reality. Accepting this, I think, is the first step to readjusting to the new reality marketplace. Whining about it wont help anything.

2. Focus on Your Value Proposition

We all know that this is important in any kind of business. It’s what sets you apart from the rest of your competitors. It is what keeps your clients coming to you again, and again. Now, more than ever, it’s time to refine and refocus your value proposition. What makes your business unique? What value can you bring that the crowdsourcing sites cannot bring? Why is that worth the cost? These are questions that I am currently sorting out again in my own business. It can be a difficult task, but well worth it in the end.

3. Focus on Client Relationships

One of the huge negatives of croudsourcing is the lack of relationship between the designer and the client. As you probably already know, business is ALL about relationship. Why do I go pay double to get my haircut by my hairdresser rather than go to supercuts? Because I like my hairdresser, she’s nice. She gets me a cup of coffee (good coffee, not some instant crap) when I go to get my haircut. She asks me about what’s going on in my personal life and takes an interest. This is all pretty basic stuff. But it keeps me going back. Why would I go somewhere else? Even if she raised her rates, I wouldn’t even think of not going to her. Focusing on building quality relationships with clients that go beyond just the work that’s being done can add tremendous value to your services. Raise the bar. Care more. Remember the little things. This crowdsourcing cannot compete with.

4. Expand Your Skill Set

You’ve heard the term “Jack of all trades, master of none” before I’m sure. In this day and age, however, I think it’s to the designer’s advantage to know a bit of everything. Specialize in something, for sure, but don’t plateau. Expand your skill set to accommodate your client’s future needs. It may mean branching out into UX design, or learning a new scripting language. These things can make you more valuable to clients. If you’ve already formed a strong relationship with them they will be coming to you to solve their problem. It would be a shame to turn them away because what they need is not in your skill set.

5. Don’t Give Up

There will always be Walmart, and there will always be Neiman Marcus, and there will always be a market for both. I see this time as an opportunity to contrast my strengths with crowdsourcing’s weaknesses. I’m embracing the market reality, telling people about the real value of my services, taking excellent care of my clients, and adding more skills to my skill set. This is how I plan to compete.

How about you? Do you have plans on how you are going to compete? Or is crowdsourcing a non-issue to you? I’d love to hear what you think.

What’s so bad about the artist?

An artist creates works of art that are expressions of his thoughts and feelings. He is attached to his work emotionally as it is essentially part of him. While most designers are artists at some level, and artistic sensibilities play a huge role in crafting effective design, the artist must not be allowed to rule when it comes to work for clients. Why? Because the artist is too emotionally attached to the work. When a client, or colleague, criticizes the work, the artist takes it as a criticism of himself. And it’s understandable that he would. To the artist, this piece of design is representing his thoughts and feelings expressed in color, layout and type. He thought to himself during the process of designing, “Man wait until people see this, they’re going to be blown away!”. What he should have been thinking is, “Man, this is going to do exactly what the client wants to get done, in a creative way.”This mentality is focused on client needs and the solution to their problem and not a focus on self-gratification.

Killing my own artist

I have had to come to grips with this personally. And it wasn’t easy. There was a client that was great from the get go. They seemed flexible, they liked the work in my portfolio, they pointed out some sites that they liked and colors that they were looking to use. All good. So I got to work. I was pumped. The design was looking awesome. One of my personal best, in my opinion. I was so excited to show the client the first mockup and to hear them say “Wow, that is so incredible! Thanks for going the extra mile.” Boy was I surprised when I heard “I don’t get how you got the idea that this is what we were looking for. It looks nothing like the sites we showed you that we liked.” My heart sank. I couldn’t understand it. I put so much of myself into the design. And that was the problem. I was designing for me, not the client and their problem. In the end I had to start over and I got the job done for them in a way that pleased them and solved their problem. In my opinion the end product wasn’t as nice artistically than the first design, but that is irrelevant. What matters is that the client got what they paid for.

Conclusion

Now I’m not saying that you should not try to push yourself to create the best work you can, or that we shouldn’t use our artistic sensibilities in what we do. I’m just saying that maybe we need to redefine what “best” means to us as individuals. Is it great work if it solves the problem for the client but dosen’t get praise from your peers. I think so. Sometimes we have to bite the bullet and do things that we may not be fully on board with just to please our clients, because that is why we are in business.

Legitimate Uses

Templates serve a need, to be sure. The need, usually, is to quickly get a decent looking site/blog whatever up with minimal thought,planning, or budget. For people on a short timeline and a shoestring budget I can see how using a template can be an attractive option. For these website owners templates serve an immediate need and I think that this use is completely valid.

Another valid use of templates, in my opinion, is the time when a web developer who is lacking in design skills, or is working on a project that has no budget for design, buys and uses a template. This use of a template makes sense as long as the client knows that they are getting a template site that is being developed further for them.

Not so great uses of templates

Ok, I’m all for free enterprise, and you can run your business however you like. But I’m just going to say it: designers should not call themselves designers if they use templates.They should call themselves template installers, or something like that. I’m not talking about frameworks like Starkers or Thematic. I’m talking about marketing yourself as a designer, saying that you provide custom design work for your clients, and then charge them whatever thousands of dollars to instal whatever CMS your into and skin it with a template you just bought. At this point you are not a designer. You have just entered the world of glorified data entry.

I have a problem with this because, in my opinion, it doesn’t serve the client well, and it devalues the design industry as a whole. If a template is used on a client project and only changed slightly, chances are that there is that same template out there on another business’ site. I have actually seen a web design company use one template several times for drastically different businesses. Now, can you tell me that the needs of each of these businesses are being served by this practice? Is the integrity and power of their brand identity being reinforced, or watered down by the use of a generic template?

If a business claims to provide custom web solutions for clients and then serves them up with recycled template designs, that is misleading at best, and deceptive at worst. The truth is that most clients don’t have an understanding of the web industry. They don’t know what goes into building a site. They can’t tell weather or not what you have presented them is a template, not created by you, or an original design. This is not their fault, they shouldn’t need to be aware of these things. The web designer should be trustworthy enough to let them know that they are receiving a website that uses a template that was not tailored to their specific need. They should know that you did not design it and that you are merely changing a few things, like popping their logo into the header.

Transparency

I have to be completely honest here: I have used templates. A handful of times because the client specifically requested that I come in and do some development/design work to their existing site. This, in my opinion, is a legitimate use of a template, because both parties were aware that one was being used for this particular job. I always advise clients to avoid using templates for obvious reasons. A custom design can drive home a message and meet goals much better than a one-size-fits-most template.

Conclusion

I think that a designer with modest of design skill is better off creating their own original designs. For themselves and their clients. In the long run they will develop a stronger skill set and know that they haven’t deceived their clients into believing that they have given them a custom solution. They will stand out from their competition and be reliant on their own natural ability.

So you have a brand spankin’ new website. You’re pumped. You think to yourself, “Wow, now I’m feeling really good about people visiting my site. I’m so glad I had it re-designed!”.

Now how to get people to visit the site?

This is a key question. A website is no good if people don’t go see it. I’m not going to go into deep SEO techniques or anything, so don’t worry. These are just a few practical things that anyone should do to get people to go to your website.

1. Start Talking

Simple, yes? Really a website is like any other component of business, you have to get the word out so people know to check it out. Start chatting it up with everyone you know and mention that you’ve just got a killer new site up and that they should check it out. It seems simple, and it is. Sometimes it’s easy to forget to do the most obvious things. So get talking!

2. Put your URL on everything (That’s yours)

Business cards, letterhead, envelopes, email signatures, your car, pens, you name it! Just like a phone number or email it is key to have the address to your site on all physical marketing materials and identity pieces.

3. Send out an email to your clients

This is a great way to generate interest in your site. Just pop a link to your website in a nice little email and send it off to your client list. This makes it  effortless for the reader to go straight to the site that you want them to go to.

4. Facebook & Twitter

Facebook has something around 350 million users, and Twitter has millions of users as well. These social networking tools are a great way to get the word out about almost anything. Using them to update people in your social networking circle about your new website is a no-brainer. Facebook has a nice feature where people can comment on your link to your site – giving you instant feedback.

5.Run an Ad.

Some people are saying that all forms of traditional marketing are dying, but I think they are still hanging on and very useful. Online marketing tools will greatly enhance any other marketing you are doing. That said, running an ad in your local newspaper or an industry related magazine about your new site would also help drive traffic.

6. Start an AdWords Campaign

Search Engine Optimazation (SEO) is essential to gain high rank in search engines like Google or Yahoo!, but it takes time. To get exposure on Google quickly you can pay for ads to run that come up when people search for the keywords you specify. This is called Google AdWords You can also set a geographical area to your campaign. This way only people searching within that area will see your ads, narrowing your focus. You also have the ability to set daily caps on how much you are willing to spend, making it easy to budget.

Well, there are a few ways you can direct people to your website. With a little time an dilligence you can get the word out and get people visiting. The fun part is, you don’t have to be a technical genius to do these things!