Just Three Things – February 2009

While January’s focus was on time management and productivity, February’s focus is on getting out of the feast vs famine cycle with various forms of marketing.

1. Follow-up with Prospects

The first step this month is to tap my existing sources for finding new work. I’ve sent out countless proposals to potential clients in the last 8 months of being out on my own full time.

I’ve found that while most people get back to you in a timely manner as to “Yes! When can we get started?” to “Will you check back with me in a couple months, when I’m ready to begin the project?” to “Sorry, I’ve decided to go with another designer.” – I’ve found that persistence certainly does pay off… Not to be confused with being a nuisance, though – you don’t want to go overboard!

Long story short, I’ve got a large number of pending proposals out where the prospect has essentially gone MIA. I need to round these all up and follow-up (one last time?) to see where things stand.

I basically want to better organize my prospects into groups of how likely they are to actually become a client, so I know who I should continue “courting” so to speak, and which ones I should just cut my losses on and give up on, already. This process will give me a better idea of who I should focus my energies on.

2. Setup Portfolio Sites

Perhaps the best way for any designer to get noticed is through their portfolio. There are many web sites setup for designers to post and share their portfolios. I have accounts on several of them, but have yet to post a single portfolio piece!

It’s something I’ve been putting off and realize that near the start of the new year is a great time to get my work out there in as many places as possible.

Below are my profiles on the portfolio sites, so watch these spaces soon for an update! These will contain the same projects as my portfolio on this site, but the portfolio sites serve as an additional avenue towards getting my work viewed by more people.

• Behance
• Carbonmade
• DeviantART
• Flickr

3. Re-Evaluate Site / Blog

Any successful web site is constantly building upon itself. One necessary component for this is to re-evaluate your site on a regular basis by taking a hard look at what does and doesn’t work and improving on it.

I’ve been making small adjustments to this site since it’s soft launch back in March 2008 (though technically this design has been online on my old URL “selenedesign.com” since November 2007). It’s time to give the site another once-over to see how I can make it better.

In the last year I’ve received feedback from peers in the design/development community as well as from potential (and existing) clients while going through the prospecting phase. I can take all of this information and come up with a new plan as far as additional updates that I need to make to the site.

Of course the updates themselves will be a topic for future months as far as implementation, but the planning stage must come first.

What Are Your Goals?

What three things can you accomplish this February to propel your small business? Please share in the comments below!

Did you share your goals on any of the previous “Just Three Things” posts? If so, I hope you’ll go back to the comments and update everyone with how you did!

About the Author

Selene M. Bowlby is a web designer and front-end web developer with over ten years of professional experience in the design industry. As the owner of iDesign Studios she specializes in creating custom web sites for other businesses. more »

Related Posts

• Just Three Things – Small Business Goals
• Just Three Things – January 2009
• Just Three Things – November 2008
• Elsewhere on the Web – Interview Edition
• Just Three Things – December 2008

Tags