Business Tips – Branditechture

How and When To Fire A Client Or Customer

Yusuf Odukoya — Sat, 23 Jul 2022 22:10:14 +0000

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article on how to deal with difficult clients, and it was mentioned in the concluding part of the article that if everything fails, firing the client becomes the only viable option.

As an enthusiastic and highly motivated business owner, it’s quite hard to imagine that a time would come when you would have no other choice than to walk out on a client. But it happens, and it will eventually happen to you, too. Nonetheless, it is important that you know when and how to do this professionally.

At the beginning of your journey as a small business owner, you are most likely to be less choosy, after all, every penny counts — even if the client isn’t a big spender. It is a phase when you’re more concerned about getting experience, recommendations, and building a reputation for yourself and your business. But as your business grows and you get more established, you would start to realize the need to determine whether a particular client is worth your time or whether you should show them the red card (or fire them).

Knowing whether or not a business relationship with a client would be beneficial to you and your business is a very important skill as a small business owner, but how do you know when to actually fire a client that is toxic to your business?

You’ve tolerated enough from this client already and seen other red flags, but you just chose to let it slide, perhaps for fear of losing another client, or maybe a normally happy and satisfied client had just turned into a thorn in your flesh, and impossible to please—but you can’t seem to figure out when this struggle would end. Does that sound familiar to you? Read on.

When it is best to fire a Client

Here are a few common scenarios where “firing” a customer may be inevitable if growing your business is what matters to you.

1. Working with the client results in loss of money or low-profit margins.

The fact that a certain customer or client has been with you since the earlier days of your business doesn’t mean they are still a good fit for your business today. If you find out that your less-paying client is taking more of your time and money, while the higher-paying customers are demanding way lesser, you may need to part ways. In some cases, low-budget clients cause the most problems. Can you relate to that?

What to do:

Considering the rate of inflation, growing a business would require that you raise your prices from time to time. Give the problematic client a notice prior to the rate change, stating the date on which the new rates would take effect. They might decide that, well, your new rates are too high and move on without you having to fire them or they might just accept the price increase anyways, which means you can keep working with them. But watch out for number 2 👇🏽;

2. The customer consistently makes unreasonable demands.

As your experience grows, you would be able to tell right away when a customer or client is going to be a thorn in the flesh.

A client may start mounting unnecessary pressure on you by always wanting work to be redone and on time. Such clients may never be satisfied, no matter what you do. If you find yourself in such a situation, it’s time to fix the problem once and for all. This is why it’s never a bad idea to have a cancellation clause in your Terms of Service.

Having a well-written cancellation clause in your Terms of Service (or ToS) document would allow you to legally exit any project as long as the terms highlighted in the cancellation clause are met.

What to do:

Have a sincere discussion with the client. Focus your discussion on how they want the service to be delivered and what they are looking for. Then put all those details in a written form and make the client to append their signature before commencing their project.

Make sure to have specified the scope of work and clarify that additional changes or revisions may incur additional fees. That way, the customer might just become aware of their demands and keep them in check.

If, however, the customer refuses the new terms, you can walk away from the relationship knowing fully well that you have tried your utmost best.

3. The customer needs too much attention.

First, it’s important to admit that personalized customer service is probably one of the main reasons the customer was attracted to you in the first place, so you can’t really blame the client for wanting your attention. However, as your business grows, you’ll have less time to work with every client one-on-one.

So, if an overly demanding client takes up so much of your time that it affects how you treat your other customers, then it may be time to part ways with such a client.

Here’s what to do:

Without getting too personal, suggest the customer may want to start looking for another company to handle their business. Try to be honest about it and make them understand that you’ve enjoyed your relationship with them. Your business is growing and you can no longer spend as much time with them as they need.

4. The customer pays late or does not pay at all.

There could be a variety of reasons why customers may be unable to get payments across to you on time — Personal, medical, family, or other unforeseen circumstances could cause some cash flow issues to your client. You can devise a solution to keep working with them until their financial situation improves. Such as requiring Cash On Delivery (or COD), setting up an installment payment plan, or asking for a fraction of their bill upfront as a deposit for starting their work.

What to do:

Usually, a good customer with payment issues would always wish to pay, but they might be going through a tough period financially.

On the other hand, there would be defaulters who deliberately avoid your invoice reminders, calls, and emails. These types of clients are just plain bad for business. You should immediately cease doing business with such clients and withhold any scheduled future orders or services. You can also decide whether or not to involve the small claims court.

If it involves huge amounts of money you can’t let go of, you may want to involve a debt collector. In this scenario, it will become obvious to the client that the relationship has ended.

5. The customer is consistently rude to your employees.

There are a few cases when a customer is cool working with you but the opposite is the case when working with your employees. If you let this continue, then the client may create a toxic environment for your employees.

If you’ve worked so hard to build and sustain a company culture where workers are happy and productive, why let an “ill-mannered” customer tarnish your company’s reputation as a good place to work. Reassure your employees of your support, and let them know that you know when a customer unnecessarily causes a problem.

What to do:

Have a conversation with all the parties involved to make sure your employees and the customer feel heard. Then try to come to a mutually agreeable resolution.

Sometimes, the solution is as simple as swapping the employee who works with the client. But if the customer clashes with the replacement employee too, it may be time to cut your losses and let the client understand that you do not think it is working out.

A piece of warning: Keep an eye out for online reviews (Google My Business, Yelp, Facebook Pages, Instagram, and Other Directory Listing Websites), just in case the jilted customer decides to cause more damage online.

Conclusion

Firing a client is never easy

Firing a client or customer is never easy. But by trying to resolve the situation first, you can be assured you gave the customer the benefit of doubt. If, however, they don’t adjust, then it is safe to conclude that the decision to separate is nothing but a mutual one.

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Common Internet Marketing Mistakes Business Owners Make

Yusuf Odukoya — Sat, 23 Jul 2022 22:10:10 +0000

As a consequence of the rise of the internet, businesses worldwide — both big and small, have been forced to admit that internet marketing is no longer a secondary consideration to traditional media because it provides a statistically backed and more accurate method of making their voice heard by their target audience.

In today’s highly competitive market, having an internet marketing strategy should be a key part of the entire digital marketing plan of any business. In this article, I’ll be sharing some common internet marketing mistakes small business owners make and how you can avoid them.

1. They Think Building A Website Would Do All The Magic

It is so unfortunate that many small business owners fail to acknowledge the amount of time and effort that would be required to make any meaningful impact online, thus getting frustrated along the way and not able to take full leverage of digital marketing.

Some business owners think all they need to do is build a website or open social media accounts and the orders will start rolling in. Well, I am here to break the news to you;

Expectations: Creating a website would automatically help make more sales if you haven't been making sales before.
Reality: Creating a website would put you into more problems; (Technical, SEO, Design, Content, and Marketing) and you must solve them all to make sales and break even. Your inability to solve that problem (perhaps due to lack of time, funds, or knowledge) would put you at risk of losing your initial capital.

As you may deduce from the snippet above, I have revealed the truth to let you know what many Web Design Agencies would typically hide from you.

So, never make anyone sweet-talk you into believing that building a website or opening social media accounts for your business would automatically solve your marketing issues — No, it won’t. However, if you can dedicate some of your time and money to growing your website and social media accounts, then I can guarantee that the return on investment (ROI) would be massive.

Building and abandoning your website would not give you any ROI, instead, it’ll put you at risk of losing your capital.

You can subscribe to any of our monthly website maintenance plans and we would take care of the technical side while allowing you to focus on other aspects such as generating content that is relevant to your target audience.

2. Unknowingly Targeting The Wrong Audience

It is a nice idea to pitch your product and services in front of a large audience for the purpose of gaining more exposure, but it is counter-productive when you have no targeting strategy. You must know that “more contacts” does not really translate to “more profit”. Thus, it is very important that you really know your target audience, and communicate messages that they will find attractive and relatable.

3. Always Chasing, Not Attracting

Another common internet marketing mistake small businesses make is aggressively advertising (or more informally, shoving their products/services in people’s throats). In other words, chasing their customers by continually pushing a product or service out in the faces of their audience. It shows a lack of emotional intelligence, and prospects would instinctively start to get defensive.

When you chase, what you do is that you push your prospects away because you approach them with desperate energy. Successful marketers create systems that are designed to educate and attract their prospective customers and clients.

This is why the inbound marketing or content marketing strategy exists.

According to Wikipedia, Inbound marketing is a technique for drawing customers to products and services via content marketing, social media marketing, search engine optimization (or SEO), and branding.

4. Ignoring or Disregarding Feedback

A way to demonstrate a high level of brand equity is to answer all complaints and address all feedbacks and allegations against your brand on the internet — timely and properly.

Your brand should see complaints as an opportunity to improve its products and services. Repeated removal of negative public reviews can be perceived as a desperate attempt to conceal some shortcomings in your brand’s customer experience.

5. Having No Internet Marketing Budget

You just launched a brand and you thought the catchy logo would help you sell it out. Nope! you’re most likely going to fail.

Investing small amounts of money in sponsored social media or search engine ads (e.g CPM, CPI, and PPC), can increase traffic to your website or brick and mortar store or office.

Internet marketing or online digital advertising allows small businesses to compete for market share with a much smaller advertising budget. When managed effectively, it gives them granular control over where and how they spend their ad budget.

6. Failing to Track Ad Performance

More often than not, small business owners put their sponsored ads on autopilot. In other words, they start a sponsored ad campaign in a set-and-forget manner and then hope for the best results. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.

Digital marketing campaigns thrive when tracked closely. Monitoring and making changes to your ad strategy results in the desired outcome.

Conclusion

As a small business, getting your products and/or services sold on the world wide web can prove to be a daunting task, but if you can avoid all the mistakes mentioned above, you’d be in a very good position to reap massive benefits.

If you need help or guidance in improving your digital marketing strategy, simply contact us or schedule a phone call. We’d be very happy to assist.

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How To Deal With Difficult Clients in Business

Yusuf Odukoya — Sat, 23 Jul 2022 22:10:08 +0000

If you have a growing list of customers, it is inevitable that you’re going to encounter some clients who are going to be downright difficult.

The saying, “Customers are always right”, just makes the issue of dealing with all kinds of customers even more critical. But how do you deal with them?

Every client is unique; They have their own background and philosophy, so it is very important for you to know what kind of client you are dealing with, and how to deal with them in such a way that would leave a good impression of your brand.

1. Show empathy

Show some empathy. Let the client know that you understand the source of their frustration and you are willing to work on it.

Try to put yourself in their shoes and show them that you understand the whole situation. This is a surefire way to temporarily keep your client calm while you resolve the issue.

Some gestures may help if the communication is taking place physically; For example, nodding your head to show that you agree with their feedback. Always remember that your facial expressions can either make or break your efforts to calm the client.

2. Don’t Talk Back

Some clients may resort to using profane or swear words to show their displeasure. Turn a deaf ear to those negative words as they may negatively impact your motivation to resolve their issue, instead, be focused on resolving their issue.

Talking back is a sure way to escalate the issue into something more serious, and this may attract negative attention from onlookers, which is bad for your business.

Heads up! you shouldn’t just keep mute throughout the whole rant as this may infuriate them more. Ideally, the longer it’s taking to resolve that issue, the more you’ll need to say something to soothe your client.

3. Mind Your Tone

Your tone essentially reflects the attitude or the emotions that are associated with your verbal message. Tone can also incorporate the inflections- such as raising your voice when asking a question, and things like laughter or breath. Generally speaking, when working in Customer Service, your tone must always come across as helpful and welcoming.

Do not allow work-related frustration to lure you into screaming at the client. It may come from a good place, but no client would be willing to take that.

With all that being said, it is crucial to mind your tone in order to avoid irreparable damages to a seemingly fragile relationship.

4. Be Attentive

Those rants (or complaints) can’t be taken lightly, even if you feel they are petty or unreasonable. Each complaint is an opportunity to draw yourself closer to the customer — An opportunity to close a gap, fill a void, or fill a need.

Do not try to talk over the client or argue with them. Let the client have their say, even if you already know what they are going to say next.

As you listen, take the opportunity to build rapport with the client. Maintain eye contact and demonstrate your attentiveness by standing or sitting up straight. Talking to another colleague on something irrelevant to the situation or unnecessary multitasking while a client is ranting would only make you seem inattentive or uninterested.

5. Make an attempt to resolve the problem.

Sometimes, clients erroneously direct their complaints to the wrong department. If that’s the case, instead of bluntly telling them that it’s not your job, collect all the necessary information from them and help log their complaints to the appropriate department.

6. Follow-up and give updates.

If a resolution has been agreed upon, you’ll need to start taking action immediately.

In order to help the client manage their expectations and reduce anxiety, you may need to explain every step that you’re going to take to fix the problem.

Once the situation has been resolved, follow up with your client over the next few days to make sure that they are satisfied. This may be a golden opportunity to request a nice review.

7. Fire the Client

When the worst comes to the worst, you may need to fire a client. The emotional, physical, and mental abuse caused by a bad client is enough to negatively impact the work you do for other clients. If you are a small business owner, you may sever your relationship with the client — but be sure to do it legally, i.e fulfill the contract cancellation clause. Unfortunately, there’s nothing much you can do to fire a client if you happen to be an employee unless you quit your job.

Conclusion

Difficult clients can be challenging; They can drain you of your energy, money, and scarce resources. They can even harm your brand’s equity if care is not taken.

At the end of the day, clients are just people like us – and to be sincere, learning how to deal with all types of people makes you a stronger, better business owner.

Care to share your own encounter with a difficult client? How did it play out? Share your experience with us in the comment section below. 🤓

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8 Ways Your Small Business Can Benefit From Branding

Nathaniel Ajayi — Sat, 23 Jul 2022 22:09:54 +0000

Hello there :), I’m sure you must have heard a lot about branding and brand identity by now, eh?

For ages, businesses have used branding to give their products and services a unique identification and feel.

This process may involve having a specified name, symbol or even an image or mascot that acts as a unique identifier.

You May Want To Read: Naming A Brand — Top 6 Factors To Consider

Ever wondered how investing in effective branding can turn your small business around and for the better?

Here are some ways we’ve outlined for you:

1. Branding – All About Identity

You know how people always remember what brand of soap, washing powder and chips they like best? And repeatedly purchase them afterwards?

What if those products were brandless? That would make repeated purchases extremely difficult or almost impossible.

Branding solves this problem by making you a recognized force in the market. To a large extent, branding also helps to protect your product from counterfeiting.

2. Familiarity

Branding helps you identify, target and effectively connect to your audience at a deeper level.

It helps to make your product associate itself with a particular market segment.

Keeping consistent branding techniques also fosters assurance in your standard of quality.

3. Identity

You, should not put the loyalty of your audience to test by staying brandless, as this leaves more room for others to impersonate your particular catalogue and sell off products of inferior quality by being unreasonably as close to your products as possible.

Should you decide to stay brandless, it is going to remain difficult for your customers to tell whether or not “your” product is from an authorized source.

And since counterfeit products may cause harm or bodily injuries to consumers, you could land yourself a legal problem that may cost you thousands of dollars and your entire business.

4. Attractiveness

The word ‘attractiveness’ is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “the quality of being pleasing or appealing to the senses”.

This word may have a lot of implications, but in this instance, it refers to making your target audience market not only accept your brand but also find it appealing altogether.

Some customers go to great lengths to avoid brands that look too shabby or grotesque.

A brand slogan should use unique, fancy and catchy words that are common and also colloquial to your audience.

Images and symbols should use alluring designs and colourations that not only look good but psychologically compel consumer action.

5. Uniqueness

Every human being on the face of the earth most probably have a name or means of identification to go by.

Cocacola Brands

Products and even services should have unique identifiers to enable them to be noticed as a singularity in their target market. Noticeably, manufacturers with a large catalogue of similar products e.g. Coca-Cola, still have different brands of the same product with each distinguished factors e.g. Coca-Cola Original, Coca-Cola Zero, Coca-Cola Vanilla, Diet Coke, Coca-Cola Life.

6. Information

Branding and packaging give you a means of adding personal information, notice messages and even advertisement for related products.

You can add self-service instructions and your contact information to assist customers who struggle with using your product.

7. Loyalty

When customers are used to getting quality from a particular brand and are assured of committed after-sales support, they definitely find that product reliable and this creates brand loyalty.

According to Skyword.com, brand loyalty is the tendency of consumers to continuously purchase one brand’s products over another.

Consumer behaviour patterns demonstrate that consumers will continue to buy products from a company that has fostered a trusting relationship”.

8. Revenue

I deliberately saved the best for last!

Yes, creating a recognized brand takes time, effort and a reasonable amount of resources.

Some entrepreneurs may believe that branding is unnecessary, as it ultimately doesn’t affect the overall quality of a product.

While this may be true to some extent, it is an obvious fallacy as research has proved that customers would stick with a brand they can identify and have a relationship with.

This builds up to enable more repeated and bulk purchases and depending on the niche of the brand, impulsive buying.

The post 8 Ways Your Small Business Can Benefit From Branding appeared first on Branditechture.

The 27 Common Causes Of Brand Failure

Yusuf Odukoya — Sat, 23 Jul 2022 22:09:44 +0000

“What is wrong with us?! But we’ve done everything possible!” — This is an emotional question on the lips of many business owners whose business keeps taking a nosedive.

Earlier on Branditechture Blog, we identified ways in which you can align your brand with your brand strategy in order to circumvent common brand problems. But a lot of brand owners don’t even realise that they are in danger until it is too late.

In this post, we have highlighted 27 causes of brand failure to help you detect impending danger and raise your awareness;

Overhyping and underdelivering — Not delivering as communicated in the brand promise.
Focusing too much on sales promotion at the expense of brand building.
Trying to be everything to everyone.
Loss of brand equity due to inattentive brand advertising.
When there is a disconnect between the brand strategy and the business strategy.
Confusing brand improvement with logo redesign.
Wrong partnership
Frequently changing your brands positioning and message.
Decreasing the quality of product or service in a bid to reduce operating and overhead costs.
Increasing the prices of products or services at a rate greater than inflation while still targeting the same low-end market segment.
Bringing the brand under too much pressure to produce quarter-over-quarter revenue and profit — A common problem among tech startups.
Persistently refusing a brand strategy audit and sticking fervently to a declining brand strategy with hopes of “better days.”
Failure to branch the brand into (a) new sub-brand(s) when the main brand keeps showing a decline.
Using the same brand identity in completely different categories and markets. For example, marketing a real estate business and logistics business under the same brand identity — Dilutes the efficacy of your marketing efforts and confuses your audience.
Prioritizing personal benefits over customer needs as a reason for creating new brands or sub-brands.
Launching sub-brands that inadvertently cause a poor public opinion of the parent brand instead of improving the existing brand.
Failed attempt to extend the brand up to a premium segment or down to a value segment without a fallback strategy.
Not keeping up with the industry standards on product quality.
Evading government policies.
Final decisions that adversely affect the brand are made by executives with very little to no fundamental knowledge of branding.
Senior staff do not understand the brand values and what the brand stands for.
A complete absence of a brand champion within the organization.
Licensing the brand name out to just anyone as long as they meet will pay for it.
Having no person or department responsible for brand PR, mindshare, supervision, and management.
Having no brand guidelines, manual, guide or brand book, leading to inconsistent presentation and customer confusion.
Choosing generic (non-proprietary) brand name especially when you have a very little promotional budget.
Trying to make too many points in your brand communication rather than focusing on the one or two most compelling points of difference.

Did we miss something? Please drop a comment below.

Branditechture has a strategic brand consultancy focused on Brand Naming, Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education. Shoot us a message to request an (online) appointment.

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7 Secrets To Building And Sustaining Brand Equity

Emmanuel Okoro — Sat, 23 Jul 2022 22:09:42 +0000

When people see the Nike swoosh, what makes them think, “Just Buy It!”?

When kids see Mickey Mouse’s ears, what makes them think, “Oh Disneyland!”?

When people see the Apple logo, what makes them think, “Luxury”?

All of these layouts are the effects of brand equity, which are the attachments or perception people have on some particular brand.

What is Brand Equity?

Brand equity describes the level of influence a brand has in the minds of consumers, and the perceived value of using or possessing a brand that is identifiable and well thought of.

This is why your brand needs to be hinged upon a well-structured branding strategy.

Brands like Apple, Nike, Amazon, are well recognized and are at the highest level of their own game.

With serious exertions and planning comes loyalty, and in business, you would need to be branded in other to leverage brand equity.

Returning customers are a significant requirement to today’s business because business owners wouldn’t have to re-examine every step to convince them, and the nice part? They often begin from a little first-time purchase before graduating into bulk purchases, which is characteristic of the consumer-brand loyalty process.

Every company must see the necessity to take a position in building their brand equity.

Let’s explore the 7 secrets (or strategies) to building and sustaining brand equity;

1. Engage With Your Customers

You have to build relationships with them before they can fully trust you. Trust is a crucial tool in today’s otherwise cold world of business.

If you’ve got loyal customers, then selling to them would not be an issue — They’ll even expect your ads!

The relationship with your users helps you to create a perception of belonging and community.

Share your brand’s new and exciting developments, or news and opinions in your space to keep your users enthusiastic and engaged.

2. Invest In Brand Identity Design (or Logo Design)

Am sure without writing the names of most brand logo, many people know which brands the logo belongs to and their name.

Choosing a brand logo may mean that you have to pick the most effective elements; symbols, color(s), and type design, because you want to have some degree of control over what people feel whenever they come across your logo.

Colours like red stands for passion, and blue for trust. So pick carefully or liaise with an expert brand designer or consultant.

3. Listen To Feedback And Adjust Accordingly

Your brand equity is with your customers, you need to feel their pain and make adjustments.

You need to concentrate on them in other to satisfy their needs.

Consumers are trying to find who will provide the worth they desire, so, always create space for improvement and have the habit of meeting your customers’ demands.

Feedback by Alice Undersky via Dribbble

Feedbacks may come after you have served the customer.

Correct your mistakes and improve on your strong points.

Collecting feedback from clients will facilitate your understanding and the precise feeling they need for your products.

Performing on the feedback you receive appropriately will allow you to retain clients within the future.

4. Be Consistent

Consistency matters a lot because it is one of the key element in building and sustaining brand equity.

You’ve got to always be there for your customers to relinquish them the sensation anytime they consume your products/service.

One of the key strategies is to under-promise and over deliver.

5. Give Value

The quality of service you offer to your customers will determine whether or not they will be returning or not.

It’s wise to give your customers a ‘WOW’ experience by exceeding their expectation the primary time they consume your products.

You would like to grasp what makes your customers satisfied and set standards to realize those goals.

It is hard to satisfy all customers but strive to develop a pool of happy clients if you wish to develop brand equity.

6. Target Great Customer Experiences

You have to make wise usage of available resources to deliver the simplest to your customers.

Make your customers have the enthusiasm to come back after buying.

https://branditechture.agency/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/App-Rating-Prototype.mp4

Lukáš Straňák for PLATFORM, via Dribbble.

Customer experience simply means the experience your customers go through when using or consuming your products.

It may even be on the level of communication within which a customer drops a message and he/she expects feedback from you. Your average response time, and propensity to provide a lasting solution would all influence your customers’ experience.

7. Leverage Influential Promotions

Customers tend to trust products when famous celebrities retail them.

It another perspective of achieving equity. It is safe to see it as a fast route to attain customer loyalty and brand equity. However, depending on the type of influencers used, the effects may or may not last long.

Influencers have the facility to either build or tarnish the name of your brand because of their follower base.

Get influencers who have a way of reference to your customers and allow them to assist you with your quest for solid brand equity.

Also Read: How A Brand Ambassador Can Help Grow Your Company

Conclusion

A vital part of building and sustaining brand equity is the ability to ensure that your customers will always want to return to you.

According to a 2021 report published by Statista.com, Apple is the most valuable brand in the world. This would have been impossible without the “extraordinary” loyalty of its users.

Brand Value Statistics by Statista

Loyal customers are more willing to stay around, spend more, and even more likely to become the strongest promoters of your brand on their social channels and among family and friends.

By investing in your logo design, understanding what makes your customers tick, engaging with them, and promoting their tweets and posts on your own social media channels, you’ll be ready to create a familiarity with your users, which in turn promotes brand equity.

In this cold and practical world, people are always attempting to find a way of human interaction and emotion.

Invest in your users in an exceedingly personal way, gain their trust by keeping your promises and watch your base of loyal customers grow.

The post 7 Secrets To Building And Sustaining Brand Equity appeared first on Branditechture.

6 Telltale Signs Of A Bad Graphic Designer

Yusuf Odukoya — Sat, 23 Jul 2022 22:09:25 +0000

Although the vast majority of business owners do not understand the importance of graphic design in their business, there is no denying that businesses can hardly survive without the use of compelling visual media like flyers, banners, newsletters, promo videos, and in many cases, a corporate brochure.

For those business owners who appreciate the role of great visual communication design in their marketing efforts, it’s almost always a pain when sourcing for a dependable graphic designer who will align with their business goals.

How do you save precious productive hours and avoid headaches while searching for a reliable design partner? Fortunately, I would help you identify and interpret 6 telltale signs of a bad graphic designer, and how you can avoid them.

Here are 6 Graphic Design tips for business owners who work with graphic designers;

1. They get angry or rude when criticized

A bad designer would always take criticisms personally – be it constructive or otherwise. They may also get downright rude and uncooperative with you.

2. They completely lack basic time management skills.

They are big-time procrastinators and would always find excuses to postpone deadlines that were earlier agreed upon. A repeated display of this behaviour indicates that your project might be in the wrong hands.

3. They neither ask you questions nor advise you

Business owners need graphic designers not only for their artistic abilities, but also to bring their fresh, creative contributions into the projects they work on.

For example, if you hire a graphic designer to do a logo or ad banner for your company and he accepts your first and subsequent ideas without question, chances are he does not even care about the success of your campaign.

A good designer should know when to respectfully say, “No” and make collaborative efforts to lead clients from “bad ideas” to good ones.

It’s not uncommon for a client’s initial idea to not be the best solution.

So, if he doesn’t show the good quality described above, you might be working with a fridge.

4. They try too hard to get simple things done

It is not very uncommon to encounter entry-level designers falsely boasting of having that (professional) experience your project is in dire need of, only for you to find out that they are just rookies trying to learn on the job.

Another possible reason which is not due to a lack of experience is having too many jobs than they can possibly handle at once. This makes them burn out pretty fast, thereby showing less dedication to your work.

Good designers always strive for transparency between them and their clients in order to manage expectations and avoid disappointing experiences.

5. They make too many spelling and grammatical errors

If he/she finds it difficult to send three chat bubbles without making at least, one unforgivable spelling error, you should avoid working with them, especially if the project in view is a large editorial design, proposal, or presentation.

6. They do not have a graphic design portfolio

This is perhaps one of the most prominent red flags.

How do you trust a designer who cannot furnish you with a portfolio of his/her previous works?

No social media pages and no websites? Well, in short, you shouldn’t.

Most people who ignore this red flag have had to part ways with their money in exchange for no real value.

In many cases, you may even get blocked immediately after making some part payment to such designers.

We give you results, not excuses.

If you need a reliable and experienced graphic designer for a project, click HERE to submit your brief and we will get in touch with you within a couple of hours.

Let me know in the comments if you have any questions.

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