Do you have the full skill set?
Imagine hiring a gardener to clean up that mess you call a back yard. A young man arrives and you brief him on what you want.
“And if you could plant a row of dwarf camelias along that fence…”
“Sorry, I don’t do camelias.”
“What?”
“I don’t do camelias. I can plant rhodos for you. Or plum trees. but I can’t do camelias.”
How do you feel now? You thought that a ‘gardener’ was a ‘gardener’ right? That planting was planting, and there should be no problem getting your desired camelia bushes planted. But that turns out not to be the case. Apparently you need a ‘camelia gardener‘…
Does that sound stupid to you? Or farfetched? Let’s have a quick look at your own business then; you’re promoting yourself as a graphic designer, but what exactly does the great unwashed expect from a ‘graphic designer?‘ Have you ever said “sorry, I don’t do that.”
I came across a lone designer the other day who was terrible at Photoshop. She had to manipulate a photograph slightly for a brochure and she made such a hash of it that I was called in to ’straighten it out’ for the client. Not only that but this person does not do HTML or websites. It seems that she does branding and logos and brochures – so long as there’s no Photoshop involved. What’s more, this person is only in her ’20s (without the excuse of being set in her ways or unable to learn new technology).
Okay, you might say, what’s wrong with specializing? Well nothing, I answer right back. So long as you have more than enough work to keep you going! In this lady’s case, she’s short of clients and is actively promoting herself, but is alienating potential new clients by her limitations.
Take a look from the client’s point of view; you want their business, but if they give it to you, you come back with a ‘sorry but I can’t clean up your photographs‘ or ‘don’t do websites‘ or whatever.
I’m not advocating that everybody does everything, but it’s in YOUR best interests to at least have a modicum of knowledge in all peripheral knowledge areas. You don’t have to be able to create spectacular montages in Photoshop – BUT you should be able to adjust a photograph and resize it for a website. You don’t need to be a web designer – BUT you should be able to edit and replace a client’s web header, or fix up a few spelling mistakes on the site that the previous designer screwed up.
It’s all in the service you offer. And the better the service, the more likely you are to attract and retain clients.