Saying no isn’t easy
When I first started freelancing I was willing to take just about any work that came my way. In the past few months though I’ve been getting more work requests than I have time for. It’s difficult to change my mindset from saying yes to anything to telling someone “No, sorry, I don’t want your money.”
Initially I felt like telling someone no was somehow arrogant - I didn’t want people to think I felt superior to them and didn’t have time to work on their website. I also didn’t want to discourage people from starting a great blog - some people have great ideas and want a great design, it’s hard saying no to someone genuinely interested in getting started off on the right foot with a great design.
It’s not personal, it’s business
Design, for me, is a business. It started out as a hobby - when it was a hobby it was easy to help people because I didn’t have client work backed up and I didn’t have people relying on me to meet deadlines. Now that I am designing for my primary income it’s necessary to tell people no because I already said yes to people who are relying on me to get their projects done on time. Saying yes to one person means saying no to five, ten, even twenty others.
I’ve reached a point that the work requests far outweigh the time I have to do work - I pick and choose who I work with. That means a lot of people get emails from me that say “Sorry, I’m too busy.” If you’re one of those people - sorry, it’s not that your project wasn’t interesting and it’s not that I didn’t want to work with you. Right now I have a few clients that give me a lot of work and it takes of all of my time.
If you’re just starting out in design and wondering how to get to this point - start networking, start saying yes to everything, and keep doing kick ass work and eventually you’ll be getting so many work requests you won’t know what to do. The best designers I know took the same path, they said yes to a lot of people at the start, produced great web sites, and ended up getting to pick and choose from “high-end” clients.
Design will be a hobby again
The next “phase” of design, for me at least, will be to turn it into more of a hobby again. I have never planned on being a full time designer, it’s always been something I enjoyed doing. It turns out, people are willing to pay pretty good money to get a good looking design. I have never been an artist - most of my designs are based on clean lines, simplicity, and as someone I recently met described it - “crispness.” I don’t know that I’ll ever be one of the “elite” designers that everyone goes to for tips and tricks, and I don’t ever want to be one of them.
My goal has always been to use design as a stepping stone to get into the world of computers, business, and marketing. I’m getting closer and closer and I feel like in the next year or two I’ll be to the point that design can once again be a hobby and I can once again help people with little projects and help new people get into blogging.
I wrote this post because I was wondering if any other designers struggle with telling people no. It’s hard to go from the “take all the money I can” mindset to realizing that I have enough work to pay the bills - I’m no longer the “starving artist” so to speak.
6 responses so far ↓
27 Nov 2006 at 12:29 pm
am i the “crispness” guy? most of the time i forget what i say as soon as i say it.
27 Nov 2006 at 8:11 pm
Hey Ben,
Long time no talk! When I first started PixelTorch I took everything I could, and now I too have to decline work as well and it’s always really hard because I’m not used to declining work. I think it’s important as a business to realize when to decline work and when to accept projects because last month I overaccepted too many projects and found myself overwhelmed which hindered my individual focus on each client. Good post!
27 Nov 2006 at 10:10 pm
I say no more often than I wish to, quite honestly - but it’s a good spot to be in, if your the designer - - not so good if you’re the customer. 5 years ago, I started as a hobbyist saying yes to everything that came my way… 2 years later I made it a full time career. Even then, I said yes to everything, because when you’re self-employed as a freelancer, you never know when the train is going to end - - so you feel compelled to say yes.
Then.. another year after that.. tired of staying up all night long on multiple nights in a week, my family tired of not seeing me as often as they used to - - and the very feeling that even having to GO to sleep was a huge inconvienence…that’s when I started to FINALLY learn how to say no.
I hope it doesn’t take you that long… it sounds like it hasn’t, which is a good thing! Saying no doesn’t make you sound arrogant.. it makes you sound in demand… which is so much better than arrogant!
Cheers
6 Dec 2006 at 6:32 pm
Ben, as I was reading your post I was wondering, do you know any good designers in the same position you were in when you were scrabbling for work?
If you do, you have the opportunity to say, ‘No, I don’t have the time, but I do know someone who does…’. That way you soften your ‘no’, help them with their projects indirectly and get interesting work for those who are looking for it. Maybe some of your readers are in the position you once were?
Oh, and congratulations on your extended contract with b5media!
6 Dec 2006 at 6:35 pm
Kathleen - that’s exactly what I do. I have a few friends trying to get started doing what I do now and I send them all the work I can
11 Dec 2006 at 7:33 pm
[…] Have an eye for design? With millions of new websites popping up everywhere, there’s never been a better time. Take this brilliant guy from Ohio State University (I refuse on moral grounds to use call it ‘The’ Ohio State University). He’s an amazing example of the Internet at work. Ben Bleikamp has an eye for design and so he designed himself a blog. And when he had an idea for another site, well, he made it. He put up a link in case you were interested in his design services. You know where this is going. This 20 year old guy is bringing in cash while attending school full-time and doing what comes easy and naturally to him. It’s beautiful: the ruthless efficiency and power of the Internet at work. Oh yeah, and business is so good that Ben is turning away work. Oh, and he designed this site. […]
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