Finding your first paying clients

DABB 2 - The (almost) not scary guide to finding your first clients

Welcome to no.2 in the draw a better business (DABB) series for the graphic recorder club. This article is for paid members.

Draw a better business posts are here to help you start, evolve and sustain your graphic recording or illustration business. I’ve been running Graphic Change for almost 20 years and in that time I’ve been to Business School, written a visual business book and learned a lot of business lessons, so I’ve got some thoughts on what works, most of which you won’t find in traditional business books.

As always each post comes with some practical advice and steps you can follow to help your business grow.

Finding your early clients when you are starting out or trying to get established can be scary stuff. I can still remember the nerves I felt having those first business conversations, and the shock when people started paying me to draw.

It’s easy to think you have to perfect your website, or design your logo, or get your business cards before you can find clients, but I’m here to tell you that is not so. All of those things are useful, but at the beginning of your journey you are far more likely to find your early clients closer to home. In fact I bet you already know them.

My first paying client, in fact the reason I started Graphic Change at all, was someone I’d already met. Part of my job at the time involved delivering training to teams in other organisations. For my last training session, for a locality youth service team, I’d ditched the presentation and instead created a big visual template, I taped it to the wall, and during the session the team filled it in. They were left with a big visual record of the training and their participation and they loved it.

Weeks later I was in town and I bumped into the manager of that team. He asked me if I could come and draw at an event they were having to consult the young people who lived on an estate. Of course I said yes. I went home, registered my business and Graphic Change was born.

In this month’s DABB post I want to share with you some simple steps you can take to help you find your first clients. These are really valuable actions to take if you’re early in your graphiking career, but honestly it’s worth being reminded of them whatever stage you’re at. If you’re feeling stuck, or are starting to feel that panic about needing to attract more clients then come back to these exercises any time.

Finding clients is a big topic, and we’ll come back to it more than once in the coming months. For now though let’s get started. In today’s DABB post you’ll find some solid actions to help you begin finding your very own clients, some of which might be with you for years to come.

Get started - the quick step

First things first. Before we get into the action list, here are a couple of quick things you can do to get the ball rolling.

Remember in last month’s DABB post the final exercise was to come up with your clarifying statement?