What I found is to go after specific niches — like dentists, or automotive repair/pimpers/customizers, etc. and sell it as a perpetual advertisement, an electronic brochure to be used in tandem with traditional mailers, postcards, biz cards, and such.

This is something they understand, and actually want.

At least in my neck of the woods…

Actually, I’d always put that amount of work into something, as long as my name would be associated with it. Of course no one ever wanted to work with us. Most people in Tampa have the idea that websites are useless. They figure that their storefront is enough. Maybe you could pen an article about getting clients (other than the usual here’s how to freelance article) which would be helpful.

I’m not sure why we failed, but I’m ready for another go. We tried everything from calling companies in the area that should have websites and don’t, going to places that we’d like to work with in person, and randomly driving to places. We even went to one business in Ybor with a working site and shopping cart to show them (in their current version you can order things for the price of free). We were going to put out a mailer but weren’t sure if that would even work judging by the poor success we already had. We even attempted to create a site with free listings for local business that we’d like to be able to find on the web so that we could get our name out. Even then we found some resistance.

People always talk about marketing yourself as a designer and whatnot. How?

people dont know what to look for because there is no accreditation. the defacto basis for “success” and “qualified” for a designer is his client list. do an ad for a fortune 500 company and you are instantly qualified.

there are wal-mart clients and macy’s clients. walmart clients don’t have money. they even buy cheap products to save money. macy’s clients have money and they want the best. the challenge comes in getting macy clients and tolerating wal-mart clients until you do.

personally, when my 70 yr old grandmother and my 12 yr old neighbor printed business cards claiming to be web designers I quit and went into mowing yards.

At the moment, my team’s biggest challenge is coming up with a method so easy that the message gets to the client who’s never heard of this thing but can understand and see the point which we’re trying to come from.

Difficult but not impossible. :)

In this article (even if it is a repeat cause I missed it the first time) you hit the nail on the head Scrivs. Thanks for sharing.

I also wanted to mention that is is our responbility as web designers to know and use standards. Whether this be the default or on a project basis. This IS the industry now. Just as a Flash developer should know Actionscript 2.0, or a print deisgner should be up on InDesign as well as Quark, and so on and so on. Only the strong survive. This industry like most is dog eat dog. The client should not have to feel your special for using standards more than the next guy. They should only know they hired someone who is right for the job at hand and will get it done as they see fit with the latest and most efficent technolgy possible.
No rewards, just hard work from a proclaimed professional. Knowing standards does not make one a professional. There are drag and drop applications than can create vailid sites now a days. Hell, now a days you can sign up for hosting like Dreamhost, install WordPress with one click, download one of the many tmeplates, and have a blog running in less than 20 minutes. That is all besides the point.

It is our responsiblity to know them and to use them. It is our responsibility to put our skill and work into every job we aquire. If we don’t think one is “worth it” as much as the next then all that happens is… we faded.. dog eat dog..

At the same time, back to the bragging part, caring about you work and giving 100% does not make you an ethical hero. You are being hired to do so. It’s nice that you like to pat yourself on the back thinking you “care” more than the next guy but none of that really matters. Your idea of “care” does not necessary mean your work is best suited for the job at hand. Yes we have to pay the bills. At the same time, so do McDonald workers. I do this for a living too but I’ll be the first to admit that web design is not back breaking work. Especially now a days there is so much info and tools available. I have built standard compliant sites for friends for like $250.00 – it might ahve taken me a day or two. Nothing magical about it. I rarely felt I deserved $90 a hour because I knew the difference between DIVs ID and CLASSES. Of course for some clients with higher profiles and higher budgets and higher concentration on my part I charge more.

Not to pick on you in any way, but what would you consider THIS site design to be worth? I should I pat myself on the back for looking at the code here, realizing it is a basic WordPress template slightly modified, and proclaiming I could have made this in a few hours? Would you expect to GIVE someone like me or whoever $1600 and up for this design if you were not a designer? To me, it’s all about the details of the project. The firends site for $250 I mentioned above is a lot more detailed than this site here yet I still felt like I got paid enough for my efforts. I agree that most of the time a designers work is not truely appreciated but it is my opinion that has equal to do with the designers attitude as it does with the clients. We are not a high and mighty group of magical web workers. We are just a bunch of people with a concentration in a field that knows, cares, and loves our work (most of the time). I could say the same for my plumber. I could equally say I have a hard time justifying that he wants $60 an hour to fix a leaky pipe because he “has bills to pay” the same way I can understand how clients expect more for our industry rates.

“Actually I don’t, because whenever a page does not validate I can usually find the error quickly and change it. It seems the only hassle to getting pages to validate is going to the W3C site and typing in the url.”

Well put! Validating really isn’t hard at all, and definitely not something to lose sleep over. Whenever I see those little “XHTML” and “CSS” buttons on client sites I chuckle… who cares?