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5 Essentials For Kick Starting Your Business

You've finally decided to start your own web design/development company. The years of slaving for someone else are over, you can already feel the freedom. You've created a company, registered it with your state (if required), and done all that legal stuff. So...now what do you do? What is the next step. How do you attract clients, what do you charge, and most importantly how do you do the work?

There are a lot of things you could have, but there are a few things you NEED to or SHOULD have when you start. I recommend having the following 5 things under control, in your possession, or at least in the works before trying to take on work.

1. Business Cards
2. Website
3. Preliminary Prices or Rates Established
4. Beginning Workflow Set
5. A Network of Family and Friends

Now that you have your list of what I suggest you need, let's cover them in slightly more detail.

1. Business Cards

Five keypoints about your business cards:

• Absolute Necessity
• Distribute, Distribute, Distribute
• Nice & Professional Design
• Not Overcrowded
• Get Unique

I won't say this again, you NEED business cards. You'll need them to hand out to people you know, people at church, at your day job (if you are freelancing on the side), at parties, and anywhere else you can think of. You'll want to get these out. Do not be shy about handing out your cards to everyone you can think of. The more people that have your cards equals the more chances your name will be mentioned when they have someone who needs your services.

Spend some time and design a nice card. They don't have to be fancy or spectacular (although it can't hurt). You want to present yourself in a professional way. You will want to make sure at the very minimum your card contains: company name, your name, your email, and a contact phone number. Any more information is fine, just don't clutter the card with too much information. Use the back for creative things if you don't mind spending a little extra money. I personally like business cards that have a lined back for writing notes as that is very useful in meetings, or if your potential client or contact wants to jot some information down about you or your company.

If you need a good start, Vista print offers 250 free business cards and 25% off all other products. All you'd have to do is pay for shipping and handling. If you'd prefer to use another service, I've listed a few more below.

Recommendations: Overnight Prints, Online Print House

2. Website

The four must-haves for a website:

• Domain Registration & Non-free hosting
• Showroom or Portfolio
• Services Listing
• Contact Information

You HAVE to have your own website. Do not have a website hosted at a free place. Shell out the small amount, register a domain name, pay for hosting and put your site up. First impressions are key, and you don't want your prospective client going to a Tripod, Geocities, or freewebs like hosted places. Don't get me wrong -- those sites are great for what they are designed for, but they are NOT for people looking to establish themselves as legitimate Web Designers and Developers.

Also take the time to set up an email address that has your newly registered domain in it (bob@mycompany.com). Using a Yahoo!, Hotmail, or other free email service doesn't look to good either. Unfortunately, in my opinion there is only one exception to that rule and that is GMail. I feel that GMail has set itself out as not just a free email type service, but for some reason I feel it has a more business-like connotation. I still advise that you take the time and set up an email with your hosting company to utilize your domain. Even if you have that email forward to your free email sites, it is initially way better than having one of those emails listed on your business card or spread throughout your site. When I see that anywhere it makes me cringe.

You should not forget to make sure you have a few pages within your website. You should have at the very least a portfolio or showroom of recent work, a place where the services you offer are explained, and of course a place where they can contact you. Even if you are just starting out and don't have a client, display some of your quality school work, your personal pages, start a blog, or help a friend re-design their site. Anything so you can start building your portfolio. A good services listing can be very helpful to a prospective client, someone who is looking for a branding expert, flash animation, or e-commerce would need to know if the company they are looking at does that. Most importantly is to make sure you have your contact information clearly visible or accessible from every page on your site. You want your prospect to be able to easily contact you to get a quote, hire you, or ask questions.

Recommendations for Hosting: Dreamhost, MediaTemple
Recommendations for Domain Registration: Go Daddy, Name Cheap

3. Preliminary Prices or Rates Established

Sit down and establish a few things:

• Choose Billing Basis
• Set Rate

I know you're reading this one and thinking to yourself, "Duh! Does he think I'm stupid." I certainly do not, but have a rough idea of what your rates are going to be. Have determined whether you are going to bill based on a per project basis, an hourly basis, or a residual basis. If you don't know what you can charge, like most of us when we first started. I suggest asking others with similar skill level what they charge. You certainly don't want to ask someone who has been established what they charge because in all likelihood you can't charge that yet. You could ask some of those people what they charged when they started. Another great resource is Freelance Switches Rate Calculator.

Once you've selected how you are going to charge and how much you are going to charge you're quoting process just became a little easier.

4. Workflow established

Set a good working process right from the start by:

• Charting Your Process
• Tweak & Improve Constantly

This might be a tricky one to have settled on before you have several clients/projects under your belt, but at least put some thought to it. Workflow is an important aspect of business in general, but especially important where Web Design and Development are concerned. A poor workflow can cost you valuable time and your client valuable money. Spend some time charting on paper your workflow. Yes, actually write it down - with pencil because you are likely to forget things and/or want to move the order a bit. What you do from the beginning of a project (starting from the inquiry) to the end (the handing over of deliverables)? This workflow will be the backbone of your process.

Constantly, be looking for ways to improve and tweak your workflow as your company grows. But having a good grasp of either how you are doing work or how you want to do work will help in the growing process.

5. Network of family and friends

This network is going to be your bread and butter for starting your company. When it comes to marketing, networking stands out as the single best thing you can do as a new company. Somewhere between 80-100% of your initial business will come from either a friend, family member, or a referral from such a source. Even established businesses rely on word-of-mouth advertising to generate customers. This is why you have your business cards, this is where you make sure people know that you have started your own company and what you do. This is your chance to have hundreds (hopefully) of little marketers working for you at no cost. So put them to good use. I suggest giving them a few extra business cards and instructing them to "feel free to give these to anyone you know that could use a website or improve their current one."

There are a few tips I can give you to improve this network:

• Send a thank you card to those who refer.
• Offer some kind of incentive ($) for referrals.
• Keep mingling and increasing your network.

Constantly Improve Your Skills

One final note, make sure you are constantly reading up on new technologies, new software, and new techniques. Doing so ensures that you are growing as a designer and developer, which will make you more valuable and increase your ability to charge more. You can do this by frequenting web design forums, reading blogs by other designers, and listening to podcasts from designers.

Recommendations for Web Design Forums: Web Radiance, Christian Web Masters
Recommendations for Blogs: Freelance Switch, Fadtastic, Snook.ca, All Trades, Veerle
Recommendations for Podcasts: Boag World

There are many more things to consider, but this should get you started. I'll be covering these topics and more in more depth in the future so stick around and I'll share what I know.

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