Beating "Feast or Famine" & Update on What's Next.
Hey Designers & Creatives,
It’s been a great break from writing and it was needed. I need to experience life, test new things, and just get away from constantly pouring myself into different cups on a daily basis.
I hope you’ve all been good, today I just want to talk about a few different things that I’ve experienced as of late you give you a quick update on things (as well as what’s to come).
Beating Feast or Famine
All of my entrepreneurial years combined I’ve probably read and heard “take my course to escape feast or famine” at least 100+ times by now. Sometimes, they actually got me to sign up for their PDF, webinar, etc. Honestly just that phrase itself is annoying to hear because they make it seem like such a dire situation. It immediately puts you in a reactive mindset, maybe that’s for a reason and why most ads use it as a hook. You gotta watch the language that’s being directed towards you though.
Being in the position I am now, with all that I know today I can confidently say that I’ve gotten way better at decision making and knowing what to do when things get slow because it’s inevitable. I know that consistently marketing ahead of your workload and connecting with people to stay relevant should be something done daily.
However, we’re people and people are going to relentlessly chase something that there’s an endless amount of — for example: money. Same thing with traffic numbers to your website, same thing with; you know what else? Clients.
Because “more clients” actually isn’t a measurable goal, you’d be running yourself and/or your team to the ground. Everyone wants more clients, but that’s not specific enough. Goals set around measurable results give you room to know just how much you need to work, so your energy is spent less on stressing to get them, but more so a matter of preparing yourself to serve at the highest level. For example my current benchmark is $20K consistently and if we make more, great! If I want to hit that each month I know that's 2 high ticket clients or couple we can still serve at a reasonable rate for the business. I'm always connecting on LinkedIn, creating content here and on Twitter, partnerships, referrals, and referral bonuses for the team -- etc. I still know I can be doing way more, and will.
Most designers, creatives in general have these rollercoaster months because they're not constantly staying relevant in the market. Even if you feel it's getting too saturated (which by the way the market is never too saturated for great - impactful services that create harmony in an organization). The second you tell yourself "it's too saturated" innovation stops. Most of these things are all mental, and reframing needs to take place to get to a place of alignment.
Internal Consistency
Internal consistency is the understanding that ups and downs are going to happen in life AND in business. It’s when you stop actually trying to make external things predictable, because let me tell you from experience, that it’s just not possible. We can’t control if someone is ready to say yes to working with us, especially if we did all we could.
You know this, because you’ve most likely told yourself “I’m going to focus on the things I can control” at some point after giving it your best in relationships, jobs, etc - because that’s all we can do. We can always learn and read more to improve in all of these areas. The same mindset applies to business, I say this all the time but your current knowledge level is going to reflect in your business.
Ups and downs happen in business, it’s just the nature of it and when you stop chasing you can think and operate more clearly. Everything changes, from your rushed potential client meetings, nervousness about money, reactive marketing, it goes on and on.
Imagine a space where despite a down in business, you operate the same. No stress, no taking projects for cheap because you need to - It’s possible!
I learned to trust my systems, my team, my upfront efforts, the value we provide. I’ve become more patient, helpful and even more understanding. I put in a hell of a lot of work, when I let go of my hungry need to hit our monthly revenue, we still hit it lmao and continue to.
With that being said, it does seem like feast or famine would be easy to overcome with this mindset right? It’s all about removing blockers, whether they’re operational or mental - to keep you generating momentum and staying relevant.
Small numbers add up!
Update, I’m working on some things for you.
Our PM is going on a break, but when he gets back I’ll be taking mine for a week so I can create some damn content! More YouTube videos, newsletters, etc. it’ll be nice to step away from the agency for a bit and I’ll be using the time to just kick it too.
I’m also working on a small group / one on one program. The goal is to help freelancers build out their studios with a strong foundation built on the following:
- Top tier leadership principles & culture
- Internal processes that free up time
- Structuring a great team that you can trust to take a week off like myself 🌴
- A strong offer, that’s attracts the right clients and ones that hire your agency instead of sourcing your team individually. Trust me, this is a thing.
- Build partnerships as an added revenue add in your agency
You’ll also get
- 1 on 1 calls so I can help you remove blockers
- Group discussions so we can all learn from one another and have Q&As
This is still evolving, but this is for sure what you’ll get and that’s a ton of value already. I’ll be honest here too, I don’t consider myself as an expert but if I can contribute my knowledge and experience to help you where you want to go, that’s what I’m going to do.
Recap
It was great catching up with y’all, I’ll be working on getting my knowledge into a curriculum and measurable outcome in the meantime. If you enjoyed today’s read or have any thoughts about the ups and downs of this design / creative business we’re in I’d love to hear it. I’d also would appreciate your thoughts on my program, I know I spoke to a handful of interested designers so I’m confident about this.
Thanks for reading & talk soon,
-Dexter