Graphic designers must be able to not only sell their works, but also reach clients and “sell themselves.” Clients need to not only like your work, but also also enjoy the entire experience of working with you on the design, logo, website, etc. Everyone’s heard of word-of-mouth marketing and being able to successfully sell yourself to clients will often result in many more customers and bigger and better projects in the future. Try out these great ideas to better sell yourself as a designer today!

If you get a seemingly insurmountable design request from one of your clients, don’t panic and run the other way. Compromise is vital in negotiations and being successful at this will help your reputation immensely. For this, successful communication is vital for fixing problems, smoothing out misunderstandings and clearing up “vague” (we have all experienced those!) requests. Don’t start on a project without working with the client to clear up any questions that may exists before hand. Of course, some clients may not be able to provide clear directions for a project ahead of time, but still insist on paying you for one final piece, not the many iterations of it along the way. Be able to explain, clearly, what you expect up front and the prices and time involved.

Clients love it when you can finish a project early, but can’t understand it if you are late. Be sure to always give yourself enough time to finish a project before you start. You’ll have plenty of happy clients if you do, but you can count on short relationships with potentially lucrative clients if you often are late with graphic design projects.

Be confident in your work and don’t undersell yourself. While it might be hard to be completely confidant in your work from the start as a fresh designer, still try to keep it up. You’ll rarely “scare off” clients with this approach, even though it might feel frightening at first (“they’ll see right through me!”). Remember, if you aren’t confident in your work, why should anyone else pay for it?

Finally, always be sure to have a solid portfolio. If you want to attract a wide range of clients, have a wonderful selection of different works, including website design, logo, clothing, and more. However, if you are more interested on working on just select types of graphical design, then have a large selection of work in this category. It’s hard to sell yourself to potential clients if you don’t have sample projects of a similar type available for them before hand. Entering an array of design contests is a great way to generate different type of work for your portfolio!