What do you struggle most with as a creative?
Why do you think You're not earning enough?
Do you need help with pricing, or do you want to find higher paying clients?
That's unfortunate. How can I help?
Do you already have people working for you?
What creative discipline do you want to improve in?
I have tons of other free content on my YouTube channel that will help you with the business aspect of being a creative. If you’re interested, check out the YouTube playlist down below:
If you’ve seen all the videos and you want to take the next step, you might be interested in the platform I’m building. The purpose of this platform is to meet each other and to work, learn and grow together.
With an internal network of like-minded creatives, access to premium courses and assets and weekly coaching calls, this platform aims to help creatives understand the business side of the industry. The time of undervaluing yourself is over. Start to make a living doing the things that you love doing.
If you’re interested in joining the platform once it launches, drop your email address down below!
Do you want to inspire yourself right now, or do you want to join a community of professionals to inspire yourself in the long term?
Are you willing to invest money in yourself in order to get better at graphic design?
Are you willing to invest money in yourself in order to get better at animation?
Are you willing to invest money in yourself in order to get better at 3D / visual art?
Do you struggle with negotiating, or with something else?
It seems that you have your portfolio ready, but you haven’t found your ideal clients. Generally speaking, when you’ve found your first client that usually gets the ball rolling. In my personal experience word of mouth is the best marketing you can ever get.
You can either start with people you know that might have a job for you. If you’re looking get in touch with a prospect that you have no prior relationship with yet, it’s called cold outreach. You can do this digitally or physically. Physically, you can just walk right into your favorite restaurant, attend local music performances or join network events in order to meet potential clients.
My preferred digital approach is cold emailing. The thing with cold emailing is that it’s often not done very well, but if you play your cards right you will be able to get a response from 1 in every 4 emails you send out. Curious? Check out the video below.
Building your portfolio is one of the most important steps of showing potential clients you mean business. It’s important to be active on social platforms yes, but can you really showcase your work properly in an instagram post? The reason I like portfolio websites is because you can create it literally in any way you want. There’s no need to conform to a 10-slide post with a caption, or a vertical video of max 60 seconds.
When creating your portfolio, always keep in mind who it is you want to attract. If you want to work in the music industry, it probably won’t be a good idea to only showcase design work you did for restaurants. If you want to attract prospects in a field you haven’t done any work for yet, no worries. If you fill it up for the time being with some self-contained projects that might interest your prospects, you’ll do just fine.
It’s important that your portfolio is regularly updated. If clients see that your website is full of campaign work from 2021, they might think you’re not actively doing freelance work anymore.
There’s so much to take into account when designing your portfolio. Perhaps the best way to learn is from others. Check out this livestream where I review portfolios from the Dreadlabs community. This will not only help you learn about a couple of key features of a portfolio, but it might also inspire you to design yours.
The business side of being a creative can often feel overwhelming, but it is crucial for a long-lasting professional career. Whether you’re looking for clients, other freelancers to collaborate with or simply to learn new things. That’s why I’m currently creating a professional platform especially for creative entrepreneurs of any kind. The purpose of this platform is to meet each other and to work, learn and grow together.
With an internal network of like-minded creatives, access to premium courses and assets and weekly coaching calls, this platform aims to help creatives understand the business side of the industry. The time of undervaluing yourself is over. Start to make a living doing the things that you love doing.
If you’re interested in joining the platform once it launches, drop your email address down below!
Pricing your work based on the hours you put in might sound logical at first. But if you really think about it, you’ll notice that you might be selling yourself short. Let me explain.
Let’s say that a client asks you to design their logo. In scenario A we’ll approach this with hourly-based pricing, and in scenario B we’ll approach this with value-based pricing.
If the client asks how much this is going to cost:
Scenario A
You tell the client that you have an estimate, but you don’t know 100% sure yet. You tell the client that you charge $75 an hour, and that it’ll take between 10 to 20 hours.
What happens is that the client will be keeping track of how long the project is taking you, resulting in you rushing the project and delivering a lower quality output.
Scenario B
You tell the client upfront that the logo costs between $750 and $1500. If you charge $750 you offer a standard-quality logo and the client doesn’t have much room for revisions. For $1500 the client can have multiple revisions and you deliver your best possible quality.
The client decides which of the options suits them best and you can get started on the logo. They won’t rush you for the price because they already know upfront how much it’ll cost them.
Once you become a better designer, you’ll learn to work more efficiently. Let’s see the difference between the two scenarios as a result of this:
Scenario A
You start to work faster, which would result in you getting paid less. You’re now literally being financially punished for becoming better at your job.
To counter this, you could make up fake extra hours in order to make more money, but this builds distrust between you and your clients.
Scenario B
You start to work faster, but your payment stays the same. Your client will even receive the work faster than expected.
With the extra time you have left you can now search for more clients, learn a new skill or take on another project.
This is just a quick explanation on why value-based pricing is so important for a healthy freelancing career. If you’d like to learn more, check out this video:
A good way to start negotiating about price is price bracketing. If you’re telling your price to your client, there’s a chance that they start haggling immediately. Instead, give them two prices.
The first one is the bare minimum that you’d want for this project. The second price is what you’d charge if you could do your best work on this project. If you didn’t have to rely on any other projects, if you could focus your full time on this project alone, what would you charge? Give them that price.
You have now sent your clients two price brackets: a minimum and a maximum. Also elaborate what these prices mean for them. If the client prefers having a lower-quality product for a more affordable price, they can go for your minimum price. If the client wants the very best you could put out, they’d go for your maximum. It’s of course also okay to go for a middle ground.
[$1.000
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$10.000]
Are you interested in learning more about the business side of being a creative entrepreneur? I’m currently creating a professional platform especially for creative entrepreneurs of any kind. The purpose of this platform is to meet each other and to work, learn and grow together.
With an internal network of like-minded creatives, access to premium courses and assets and weekly coaching calls, this platform aims to help creatives understand the business side of the industry. The time of undervaluing yourself is over. Start to make a living doing the things that you love doing.
If you’re interested in joining the platform once it launches, drop your email address down below!
Pricing your work can be difficult. Especially if your company is just you. But it doesn’t have to be just you. I’m currently building a platform to help designers, artists and other entrepreneurs understand the business aspect of the creative industry. With weekly 1-on-1 coaching calls, a network of other entrepreneurs to collaborate with and tons of premium courses, this platform might just help you to take your game to the next level.
If you’re interested in personal coaching, let me know by dropping your email here!
I’d prefer group coaching rather than 1-on-1 coaching.
I’m currently building a platform for like-minded creatives. This platform offers to network with each other, to learn from each other with weekly group calls and to work together so that you can create awesome projects for awesome people.
Thusfar, the platform will include:
- Group coaching
- A social platform to share your work (to get feedback for example)
- A network option if you look for freelancers to work together with on larger projects
- A way to outsource jobs to each other and land eachother clients
- Premium courses and digital assets
If you’d like to receive updates on when the platform will go live, drop your email down below!
Any features you’d like to see on the platform? Let me know by sending me a message!
At this point in time, I don’t have any videos or guides yet on how to help you. However, that can change. By sending me suggestions through the form down below, I can make it happen.
No worries. Whether you’re just starting out, you’re on a budget or you just don’t feel like investing in your creative career yet, I’d still like to help out however I can.
In the past 4 years I’ve created over 500 videos that are available on my YouTube channel for free. Below, you can check out a playlist with graphic design tutorials which contains over 100 videos.
If you can’t get enough of these videos and you’d like to see higher-quality premium courses, you might be interested in signing up for the waitlist of the platform I’m working on. Drop your email down below to receive updates on the development of the platform!
I’m currently working on a platform for creatives that want to take their career to the next level. This platform will contain courses on graphic design, animation, visual art and freelancing skills such as finding clients. In addition to courses, the platform will also have networking features. This way you can connect with like-minded creatives, work on projects together, find new opportunities and grow together.
If you’re interested in joining the waitlist for the platform, you can leave your email below to receive updates on the progress.
No problem. Whether you’re just starting out, you’re on a budget or you just don’t feel like investing in your creative career yet, I’d still like to help out however I can.
In the past 4 years I’ve created over 500 videos that are available on my YouTube channel for free. Below, you can check out a playlist with animation tutorial videos.
If you can’t get enough of these videos and you’d like to see higher-quality premium courses, you might be interested in signing up for the waitlist of the platform I’m working on. Drop your email down below to receive updates on the development of the platform!
I’m currently working on a platform for creatives that want to take their career to the next level. This platform will contain courses on graphic design, animation, visual art and freelancing skills such as finding clients. In addition to courses, the platform will also have networking features. This way you can connect with like-minded creatives, work on projects together, find new opportunities and grow together.
If you’re interested in joining the waitlist for the platform, you can leave your email below to receive updates on the progress.
No worries. Whether you’re just starting out, you’re on a budget or you just don’t feel like investing in your creative career yet, I’d still like to help out however I can.
In the past 4 years I’ve created over 500 videos that are available on my YouTube channel for free. Below, you can check out a playlist with Visual Art tutorials which contains over 100 videos.
If you can’t get enough of these videos and you’d like to see higher-quality premium courses, you might be interested in signing up for the waitlist of the platform I’m working on. Drop your email down below to receive updates on the development of the platform!
I’m currently working on a platform for creatives that want to take their career to the next level. This platform will contain courses on graphic design, animation, visual art and freelancing skills such as finding clients. In addition to courses, the platform will also have networking features. This way you can connect with like-minded creatives, work on projects together, find new opportunities and grow together.
If you’re interested in joining the waitlist for the platform, you can leave your email below to receive updates on the progress.
Doing creative work for a living can be tough. Oftentimes we as creatives tend to define us as the things we create. This causes us to feel so bad when someone says something negative about our work.
Another big issue is that in this era, we tend to create for the sake of content. If we stop creating content, we won’t grow on social media. If we don’t grow on social media, we won’t make enough money to create full time.
These are just a few large mental issues that a lot of creatives cope with on a daily basis. It’s important to be aware of your mental state at all times in order to be a successful creative.
If you’re looking for help on this subject, this video might help you:
A big help in mental stability as a creative is to surround yourself with a positive, nurturing community. This is what I’m currently developing: a platform outside of these large social media platforms to help creatives grow.
If you’re interested in joining the waitlist for the platform, you can leave your email below to receive updates on the progress.
I’ve created this questionnaire in order to help answer some more commonly asked questions. Of course that doesn’t mean that each question can be answered with a website. If you’re stuck feeling unmotivated or uninspired, you can send me a message below. This message will directly go to my personal email and I’ll do my best to help you out with the problems you might encounter.
Finding inspiration in the age of the attention economy can be difficult. You’re either seeing what an algorithm wants you to see, or you might not be able to look in the right places. In the video down below I’ll explain some of my favorite methods of finding inspiration.
As mentioned in the video, it might help you to join different communities full of like-minded creatives. Dreadlabs has such a community. You can find us on Discord, where there’s over 4000 talented people sharing their work. Who knows, you might find some inspiring art there, or you might find new friends that you can collaborate with.
I’m also in the works of creating a custom platform, free from other social media platforms for like-minded creatives. If this is something you would be interested in, feel free to send me a message.
In the long term, looking at moodboards might not give you enough inspiration. If you connect with inspiring people, you’ll find that your inspiration tank gets a refuel every single day. This is why I am currently working on a platform for like-minded creators that want to connect with each other.
This platform will feature ways to share your work and receive feedback on it, collaborate on larger projects, find new work and much more. All of the features can be found here.
If you’re interested in joining the waitlist for the platform, you can leave your email below to receive updates on the progress.
Growing your business is one of the hardest challenges you have to face as an entrepreneur. Especially if you’re doing it all by yourself, you might wonder if the decisions you’re making are the right ones.
Coaching might be a solution for that. The platform I’m working on will have 1-on-1 coaching and group coaching sessions on a weekly basis. This way you can ask for advice from peers or coaches.
If you’re interested in joining the waitlist for the platform, you can leave your email below to receive updates on the progress.
What if you already found the perfect team for the job, but the job isn’t there yet? Then it’s time to focus on cold outreach and/or pricing. If you have enough prospects but they’re not paying enough for you to work on a project this size, you might want to learn how to properly negotiate pricing.
If you’re seeing a lot of great clients around you but you don’t know how to reach them, you should probably learn how to properly do cold outreach.
The way to go from freelancer to studio is to outsource your work. If you keep focussing on taking on each project yourself, you’ll find that you won’t have enough time to also reach out to new prospects. If you outsource the project or part of the project, you’ll free up some time to do more cold outreach.
But how do you sustain an income this way? Simple. If you’ll keep in touch with the client and do the art direction while the freelancer you’re outsourcing to is doing the design work, you can split the income in a way that you keep a share of the profit depending on the work you still put in.
But where do you find those freelancers?
Well, I’m currently working on a platform to do just that. One of the goals of this platform is to create a network of like-minded creatives that will be able to work together on several projects, outsource projects to each other and grow their creative businesses. Is this something you’re interested in? Then you can join our waiting list by leaving your email below!
I’m currently creating a professional platform especially for creative entrepreneurs of any kind. The purpose of this platform is to meet each other and to work, learn and grow together.
With an internal network of like-minded creatives, access to premium courses and assets and weekly coaching calls, this platform aims to help creatives understand the business side of the industry. The time of undervaluing yourself is over. Start to make a living doing the things that you love doing.
This platform will not be hosted on a social media website, as I want to declutter the minds of our members. No more distracting videos, ads or irrelevant messages. Only the things that matter remain.
At this stage, these features will be implemented in the first version of the platform:
Network
The platform will contain a way to communicate with other members, both publicly and privately. This way members can ask for feedback and look for collaborators but also discuss business without everyone reading along. The network will also offer an option for freelancers to outsource and find new work.
Learning
Courses on Adobe Software, 3D, freelancing, business and mental health will be offered on the platform as well. In addition to the courses, the platform will offer project files and guide documents.
Next to the courses, members will be available to attend weekly group- and / or personal coaching calls. Each call will be recorded, so you can relive calls or watch them if they’re unable to attend.
Working
Finally, members will get access to all sorts of assets. Graphic design assets, templates, anything to make creating easier.
Do you miss a feature on the platform? Be sure to send me a message about it down below!
Availability
Since there’s a lot of features that require personal attention, I’ve made the decision to set a maximum to the number of members of the platform. There will be different tiers which give members access to different features, and each feature will have a maximum capacity.
The capacity and features of each tier will be announced further along the development of the platform.
If you’re interested in joining the waitlist, leave your email down below!