No matter where you are in your design career, creative business coach Sean Low has wisdom worth heeding. Low’s biweekly Business Advice column—going strong for six years and counting—offers designers strategies and solutions delivered in his inimitable voice: a blend of empathy and tough love, philosophy and practicality.

From the 25 columns published over the last 12 months, we plucked 10 gems to reread and reflect on as the calendar page turns.

Want to catch up on Low’s columns? Start here. Got a question of your own? Drop us a line.

CHALLENGES OF THE DAY
On going big in a stalled economy: “Double down on value paid for value delivered, and know that it is your lane of absurd. That is where true transformation lives. It means you have to live in the purity of what you do, and there cannot be even a whiff of desperation in your work itself (even if you might feel it as a business owner behind closed doors).”
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On weathering dry spells: “The thing about mindset is that it tends to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Both deprivation and abundance are fueled by expectation. Do not let the cycle of scarcity continue to dominate your design business. Instead, why not let this lull afford you the opportunity to redefine your voice and attitude? It is incredibly scary to put yourself out there in a wholly new light, so doing this is remarkable in itself. Scarier still is the idea of staying true to your initiative and giving it the best chance to thrive when the inevitable roadblocks come your way.”
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On managing price hikes: “Ask your vendors to extend the duration of their pricing—and guarantee that quote for a specific period. It will likely mean higher prices for your clients, but it will also offer certainty, which is what you seek on their behalf. That, of course, leads to the age-old question as to what your true purpose is—to provide amazing, transformative design given a certain spend, or to be a value engineer trying to ‘save’ your clients money wherever you can? You might have gotten away with the latter before today’s chaos, but no longer.”
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UNCONVENTIONAL WISDOM
On the pursuit of a design degree: “Your education can clue you in to what it will feel like when you get there, but in no way will it teach you how to actually be there. … My advice: Go get an education, put out your shingle no matter what you want to call yourself and then set about doing the work of becoming a designer, one room at a time. Yours is to learn to see what your clients cannot but so wish they could. It takes emotional intelligence, courage of commitment and a never-ending yearning to be curious.”
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On quality versus quantity of referrals: “If referrals are what you seek, then you are going to have to get more comfortable alienating potential clients that are not for you. You simply cannot be a chameleon any longer, no matter how fleetingly fulfilling it might feel to see a client delighted at the end of a project. Your true clientele will resonate with many parts of your process, not simply the final result. Your firm can only be for those you seek to serve—those who give you permission to create true transformative change in their lives. Once you change your perspective and start to prioritize this dynamic, clients talking about you to others will be a matter of course.”
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On turning down design refreshes from former clients: “Please do not play into the sunk-cost fallacy: The past is the past and you owe nothing to it. Great work begets great work, and if this small project cannot be that for you, then it is not yours to undertake—especially not if the only reason you’re doing so is to avoid upsetting a former client.”
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NUTS AND BOLTS
On dealing with damaged product: “The way to manage [client] expectations going forward is straightforward: Define your role as agent. Lose the Groucho glasses and quit pretending to be a retailer when you are not. Start with the term ‘markup.’ Unless you are retailing, call it a ‘commission’ and explain what that means. Not only does it mean that you are not responsible for the quality of product or delivery, you are also not responsible for what it takes to fix it, other than in the role of agent.”
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On setting hourly billing boundaries: “To solve the problem [of clients constantly adding more work], estimate hours and then create a buffer. If you believe that hourly billing for a project will be approximately 100 hours of total team time per month, billed $150 per hour, that comes to $15,000 in fees. But rather than charge the full $15,000, you will charge, say, $13,500 per month—to be paid upfront to cover your risk. If billable hours end up totaling $200 per month, your rates will double, thereby incentivizing clients to stay within their allotted hours and compensate you for the inconvenience if they do not.”
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On downsizing your team: “It is up to your team to transcend the straightforward role of carrying out your orders and join you in manifesting a deeper vision. For any who do not wish this quality to be their guiding light, speak with your accountant and financial advisor(s) and decide appropriate severance. At the same time, decide on the work that will shine given the quality. Let the rest go.”
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On creating a staff succession plan: “The transition you want to make requires preserving the core culture, but allowing it to evolve to reflect how your right-hand person operates. This transition takes time and commitment. Perhaps you were fine with markups, but they want to be fee-based, or vice versa. Maybe you are old-school with watercolors, but they love offering renderings, or vice versa. Committing to the transition while maintaining culture is paramount. Simply, what are your core promises to clients, and how do you keep them? The promises never change; how you keep them can.”
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