7 Strategies to Double Your Income as a Freelance Designer
Stop leaving money on the table and scale up your design business
I stumbled blindly into the freelance world, not knowing a thing about how to talk to clients or charge for my work. Over the years, I’ve left thousands of dollars on the table without even realizing it.
Through trial and error, I’ve learned different ways to increase my freelance income to be able to support myself. If you’re currently in the freelance design business, here are 7 strategies I’ve used to double my income and scale up my practice.
1. Raise your rates
An obvious, but difficult one to implement. We often set barriers for ourselves and underestimate how much money people out there are willing to pay for our services.
Back when I was a design student, money was tight. With rising rents and insane textbook fees, I started freelancing as an alternative to traditional part-time employment.
Most retail jobs paid minimum wage, around $11 an hour where I live (Ontario, Canada). I felt pretty lucky when I landed a graphic design job at my university which paid $14 an hour. But after I received my first paycheque, I knew the wage wouldn’t cut it.
I started freelancing, charging around $25 an hour as that was how much I would have liked to make from my part-time job. It was around 80% more than I was previously making, which felt pretty good.
As I completed my first few projects, I started to get the hang of client interactions. And from my research, professional designers with years of experience were able to charge over $100 an hour. This opened my eyes to the potential earning power I could have in a few years.
With each new project, I pitched a slightly higher price and over a few months, I worked my way up to charge over $1000 for a project. For perspective, that was an entire month’s salary from my part-time job.
Being able to control my rates and make more money showed me that the sky is really the limit when it comes to running your own design business. So don’t sell yourself short. You’re worth more than you think.
2. Sell value, not time
I’ve learned so much about the business of design from The Futur. In their video “How to Charge For Design — Value Based Pricing,” Chris Do teaches us to serve clients by delivering value instead of selling our time.
Switching my mindset from hourly rates to charging based on the value to the client allowed me to accelerate my income drastically.
The concept is simple: Why should I be punished for completing work in a shorter amount of time?
By adopting a strategic approach, focus the conversation around the business. Dig deep into the client’s goals and KPIs for the project. Understand what areas need improvement and what their desired outcome looks like.
Example of value-based pricing
You determine that the client wants to increase their e-commerce sales by $100,000. If you convince them that you can build an optimized website that could result in an extra $100,000 in revenue, ask how much it would be worth for them to pay. This will get them thinking about how much they really value the work.
Suggest pricing the work at a percentage of the expected additional revenue. By then setting a price of 20% of the expected revenue, you would be able to start negotiating around $20,000 for the website.
The client decides how much they value the work in relation to their business without factoring in the time or effort it would take you to complete it.
3. Free up your time by outsourcing work
Another big mindset shift was going from freelancer to business owner. As a freelancer, I did everything myself including:
- Marketing
- Cold outreach
- Invoicing
- Negotiation
- Designing
- Follow-ups
A lot of my time was actually spent running the business rather than designing. This took a toll on me especially during periods where work was scarce.
I also would turn down projects that involved services that I wasn’t confident in providing, such as illustration or animation. In hindsight, I should have taken on these projects and outsourced some of the work to other freelancers.
This would have freed up my time to work on my business, while still taking a percentage of the fee from the other designer for the referral.
On the other hand, if you would rather work on design projects instead of find new clients, then you can outsource the administrative work to a virtual assistant. Some websites to find low-cost freelancers include Fiverr and Upwork.
By outsourcing your work, whether design or business-related, you can turn your freelance practice into a small business.
4. Build up a network of freelancers
As you outsource work to other freelancers, maintain a strong relationship with a select few that you can trust. Not all freelancers will do a good job or have strong communication, which is fine. Not everyone will make the cut.
But if you find a few freelancers can deliver quality work and are easy to communicate with, then hold on to that connection. Continuously feed them work and you will be able to take a referral fee while scaling up your business.
A good place to network with other freelancers is Facebook groups or LinkedIn. There are thousands of people out there looking for freelance projects to work on. Some might not have the resources to run their own practice full-time, which makes them perfect for outsourced work.
Your ability to network will determine how well your business will do. Not just with clients, but with other freelancers.
5. Upsell to existing clients
This strategy is simple yet effective.
Offering other services to existing clients can have massive impacts on your business. It takes time and energy to find new clients, so why not sell more to your existing ones?
When clients reached out to me for UI/UX design, I would ask them further questions to see what types of deliverables they really needed. More often than not, I would upsell extra services, such as additional web pages and interactive prototypes.
By asking the client about their business needs and really understanding the root of their problems, you may discover other services that you can upsell to them.
Clients usually don’t know what they want. It’s up to you to figure it out and sell it to them.
6. Find your niche
As a client, would you rather hire a generalist or a specialist?
A generalist may be good at a range of skills, while a specialist is an expert at few things. When I started freelancing, I offered all types of design services: logo design, brand identity, UX/UI design, packaging design, and more.
But as I worked on more projects, I decided to hone in on a niche. Part of the reason was because I simply didn’t enjoy some types of projects as much as others. I realized that I loved working on brand identities, but not so much on packaging design.
Thus, I decided to only offer logo design and brand identity services. This allowed me to work on the thing that I loved as well as build a niche portfolio to showcase to prospective clients.
Collecting referrals and testimonials from previous clients will help build momentum for your business. It will make closing new projects much easier, as clients will see you as a trusted professional.
7. Establish an online presence
Nowadays, anyone can build a following on social media, whether it’s through Medium, Instagram, YouTube or even TikTok.
People that have an online presence seem more authentic and easier to trust, as they are often providing value to the masses.
Having an online presence can showcase your expertise in your domain and signal to prospective clients that you know what you’re doing.
Your content also acts as a funnel to your portfolio and can lead to clients reaching out to you.
It can take a while to build up an online presence, especially if your time is limited. The key is to be consistent in whatever you choose to do, whether it’s uploading weekly YouTube videos, writing bi-weekly Medium articles or posting daily on LinkedIn.
The best part is that you can also monetize your online platform to create another stream of income. This can relieve a lot of stress in times where your freelance business is light on work.
It may seem like a daunting challenge, but if you’re able to build up your online presence, it can have significant impact on your freelance business and income.
Thanks for reading!
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