When Should You Hire a Designer?

There have been so many times in my business where I thought to myself, “I wish I could just hire someone to do this the right way the first time so I don’t have to struggle through this and spend all my time on it.”

SO MANY TIMES. I know you can relate. As a business owner, you’re responsible for executing all the parts of your business whether you’re an expert or not. The pressure!

While DIY-ing your way through business is often a necessary step, DIY-ing design is extra tough. It’s not a skill most of us grew up honing (like writing), or that we’ve picked up over the years (like financial planning). If you’ve been struggling with design, here are five signs that you should think about investing in a design pro.

Your business is growing and you don’t have time

The most obvious reason for any of you thinking, “Yeah, I could DIY my way through life, but good gracious I’m tired and I hate it so please don’t make me!”

The beautiful thing about passing off design work to a professional is that not only do you get your time back, but you also get to work with someone who will work more efficiently and proficiently at designing, so it’s like a double return on investment! If your business is growing, leaving you strapped for time, it’s also highly likely that more than one of the remaining reasons to hire a designer apply to you, too. 

You’re constantly producing content on different platforms

Most online businesses are huge content producers, so it’s likely that every time you want to promote your business, you’re publishing blog posts, YouTube videos, Pinterest pins, Instagram posts, Facebook posts, and more. Whew. That’s a heck of a lot of graphics.

While it might seem simple for you to repurpose the same designs over and over, a design pro will be able to help you tweak each of your posts to each platform’s specifications, and to their audience. Not only does each platform require different dimensions, did you know that loud, bold colors and fonts perform best on YouTube and that lifestyle images perform best on Pinterest? Or do you know some of the newer design trends on Instagram that are getting more interaction? The good news — a great designer will know all of this and help you level-up your content production!

Your customers are having a hard time understanding your offer

If you’re offering a brand new product or service, or are having time getting one of your existing ones to gain traction, the problem might be design-based! A design pro can help you present your offer so that it instantly garners deeper understanding. Perhaps a product mockup will seal the deal for customers, or maybe it was your sales page or sales PDF that didn’t show them enough examples or real-life applications. All of these visual components can increase your conversion rate and — bonus! — your trustworthiness. 

You want to raise your prices for your product/course

If you’ve already got a product selling well, congratulations! So if you’re thinking about raising your prices, you’ll need to increase the product’s value. A designer can help you do this in a few ways!

• Create fun testimonial graphics, before-and-afters, or product mockups to show customers that your product is effective and powerful
• Recreate your course materials so that they’re more professional and functional so that your customers use your materials with more ease and less time.
• Recreate your sales page so that it’s well-branded, easy to read, and shows your product value more clearly.
• Design new product bonuses or additions so that you can spark more interest and conversions.

You’re running ads or planning to run ads

This is a big one! You’re planning to invest a lot of time and money in placing and tracking ads to promote your business or product. But investing in a designer before you do this means you can dramatically increase your conversion rate. Here’s why: 

1. The most obvious reason is that you can have a professional design your ads for you so that they’re clear, easy to read, and super eye-catching. A great ad design can not just stop a scroll, but it can amplify your ad copy and show off your product in a more professional and legitimate light.
2. The less obvious but just as important reason is that a designer can audit and improve your entire sales funnel. I see a lot of business owners run ads for their product that then leads to a sales page that falls flat, doesn’t even show the product, or doesn’t look remotely like the ad design. This is a great way to lose interest and even to lose trust. We want to make sure that when someone clicks on your ad, that they’ll get to a page that STILL convinces them that your product is right for them and that they should purchase it, AND that looks well-branded so that your business looks like a legitimate and trustworthy one. 

Without these two great design pieces working in conjunction, investing in ads is a bit of a gamble. Instead, we want as many things working in our favor as possible (because who needs the headache?? We’re busy running empires over here!).

We get to help our business partners and clients with each of these pain points every day and it’s so rewarding to see how design can change their businesses! If you’ve felt the pull to get your time back and increase your value, keeping a designer on retainer might be the right decision for you, too!