Okay designers, I know the market is saturated and you’re finding yourself competing with 12 year old’s willing to work for pennies, but there is a guaranteed way to crush those little turds; build an army.
Photo Credit: United States Marine Corps
I could tell you why it’s so great to have referrals pouring in and customers loving your business but you already know that. All you really want to know is how to build the biggest damn referral army ever and crush your competition.
So without further ado:
1) Package Pricing For First Time Buyers
Take your hourly pricing model and trash it for first time buyers. Now take your hourly rate and make prepackaged hour bundles. Make sure to give a small hourly discount for the larger packages.
Example:
These hourly rates may seem low or high to you but they are my example rates.
5 Hours: $200 ($40/hr)
10 Hours: $385 ($38.50/hr)
20 Hours: $750 ($40/hr)
Do it If you haven’t already. It protects your ass from getting burned by flaky clients and will make the referral process a lot easier. Clients also love the discount component of the packaged pricing structure.
2) Referral Program AKA Affiliate Program
Create an affiliate program and give affiliates a percentage of first time package purchases. Provide a personal link and plenty of graphics to promote your services. Consider giving affiliates 50% of the new clients initial order. How does this benefit you? It motivates affiliates to drive more clients your way and you can easily make up for it by offering clients a special offer on more minutes immediately after signing up.
For example:
New client purchases 10 hour package through affiliate link for $385 ($38.50/hr)
$192.50 (50%) goes to affiliate, leaving you $192.50 ($19.25/hr) of the initial purchase.
I know, I’m nuts…
After the above new client completes their purchase, they are directed to a “Thank You” page that has a one time offer. The offer is 5 more hours for $175, a $25 discount. You never know when you might need a few more design hours 
BOOM! They purchase and that puts you back up to about $24.5/hr. It’s not your regular $40/hr but remember that you are shooting for quantity with your affiliate referrals so you can build a bigger client base.
Note: Make sure to build in some padding in your price packages so that you feel comfortable with the initial lower hourly earnings. Trust me though, this could easily double your clients. Also, not every first time client will purchase through an affiliate link which will allow you to keep the full package amount on non affiliate orders.
3) Client Back End
When a first time client purchases a package give them a username and password for your client back end. The back end can be very simple. They can order more bundled hours, switch to hourly billing, or sign up to be your affiliate.
Here is a skeleton to get you started (click to enlarge)
4) Finding Affiliates
Okay, now that you have the infrastructure in place you need to fill the back end with affiliates. Here is a list of places to find them:
www.WarriorForum.com
www.WickedFire.com
www..ABestWeb.com
www.Facebook.com
www.Twitter.com
www.LinkedIn.com
Affiliate Summit Conference
Tip: Offer affiliates discounted or free work in exchange for promotion.
That is obviously just the basic run down, and while it may seem a bit confusing, I can tell you this basic formula works if you put some action behind it and incorporate your own ideas. I used to use this system and I literally just set this up for a friend using ONLY WordPress, Paypal, and couple of plugins.
Hot Tips & Notes:
- Offer clients the option to switch to hourly billing ($40/hr) after their initial purchase(s) but make sure clients know they can continue to purchase hour packages and get the discounts that go along with them.
- Allow clients to easily sign up for “low hour” text alerts using a service like Tatango.
- Give out business cards with new client coupon codes to new contacts.
- Make sure to list an estimated time for your services on a dedicated service offerings page.
- Consider allowing anyone to become an affiliate. This will allow your referrals to come from people that have never even worked with you. Maybe give current clients who are affiliates a higher percentage than non client affiliates (ex. 50% for current clients VS 25% for non clients).
- Remember to use social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to recruit clients and affiliates.
Recommended Software:
WordPress
Paypal
Freshbooks
Magic Members Plugin
Magic Affiliate Plugin
Feel free to ask questions in the comments below and I will do my best to answer =)
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