It takes him forever to be completely satisfied with the marketing pieces being created for him. Even when he is happy with it, it’s likely he’ll still want to tweak something weeks later. I’d love to fire him, but unfortunately I’m stuck with him.

The client? Me!

This scenario is actually pretty common among designers and copywriters. Working for other people is easy… working on our own marketing pieces seems to cause us to over-think things and constantly fiddle with it.

Maybe we spend so much time working for others, its harder to tap back into our individual personalities when we need to work on our own material.

I also experience this from the other side of the equation. Not only do I do design work for clients, in some cases I do consulting. Some of my clients have their own in-house designers, but want a second opinion from an objective outsider.

I’m providing that service for a new client right now. They have a really good in-house designer. But I think, as a whole, the company has not been as tuned in to really examining how their target audience is seeing their marketing material. This is really common and they’re not unique in this.

So, for them, I’m not doing any design work. I’m sent drafts of what they’re working on, and then I point out areas that I feel need improvement based on my experience and expertise not only in design, but marketing in general.

Whether they apply my advice is up to them. But it becomes a real value for them to have an outsider look at their work and either confirm that what they did was good, or tell them where they’re making some mistakes.

I’ve talked about this in the past… it’s very easy to overlook things when doing your own marketing because you know your product or service inside and out.

The most common problem I see when consulting is that something that is totally obvious to the company is not clearly explained to the reader. Internally, the client unconsciously fills in any gaps that the reader is rarely capable of doing because they don’t live and breathe it like the client does.

Here are some of the benefits to bringing in an outsider:

1. Spotting things you miss or think should be obvious.
2. Being able to apply techniques you might not know about.
3. Bouncing ideas off someone who isn’t afraid to tell you something isn’t right.

Contact me to learn how we can apply these points to your marketing projects.

But experience has shown me that some clients get a little too involved in minor aspects of their marketing material layout.

I ran across an article that Seth Godin wrote called, How to be a great client. I’ve linked to that article so you can read the whole thing if you’re interested.

One item that stood out is one that designers face a lot:

Cede all issues of irrelevant personal taste to the innovator. I don’t care if you hate the curves on the new logo. Just because you write the check doesn’t mean your personal aesthetic sense is relevant.

Personally, I never dismiss a client’s comment. However, I can tell you that some clients forget that they’re not selling to themselves, they’re selling to other people.

So, for example, the fact that you may not like blue for personal reasons doesn’t really matter unless you have data that says your target audience also dislikes blue.

Again, your marketing material isn’t designed to sell you something.

Good designers can explain why they made certain choices. And especially in direct marketing, certain techniques, colors or design choices are proven to work really well.

So if there’s a reason that something was done, even if you don’t like it on a personal level, at least consider whether your personal preference is really important.

If it’s not, go with the designer’s choice.

My answer is almost always no.

First, my schedule is usually too busy to accept last minute “need it yesterday” jobs from new clients. Second, I like to get a feel for the company by looking at past marketing material and having a conversation about aspects of their project. That’s difficult, if not impossible, to do under those “last minute” circumstances.

Because I do feel bad for people in that position, I’ve always supported the idea of talking to people you might need before you need them.

For example, I’ve contacted print brokers to talk about potential future projects that I might refer their way even though I didn’t have a specific project in mind at that moment.

I’m calling ahead for a few reasons:

1. I want to know if they’re going to be a good fit for me both professionally and personally. If not, I don’t really want to be working with them and they probably don’t want to be working with me.

2. I want to know the extent of the services they offer. Trying to gather this information at the last minute just creates more stress in my life, the broker’s, and the client’s.

3. I want to know their preferred process for getting projects done. To ensure a smooth project for all parties involved, I have to be sure that my work process can mesh with theirs.

4. I want to be on their radar as someone they know. The reality is that things can happen faster and go smoother with people you already know, even if it’s just from a prior phone conversation or some e-mails.

If you look at that list of how I look for print brokers, it’s exactly the same thing you should be doing looking for a freelance designer or even a copywriter.

Already have a freelance designer you’re happy with? Great… follow those steps to find other designers anyway.

Here’s the deal: “Stuff” happens.

Sometimes your freelancer will be busy. Sometimes you’ll want nothing more to do with him. Sometimes she’ll want nothing more to do with you. Sometimes you’ll want something outside your regular designer’s skill-set.

Finding a new freelancer to replace your old one is not something you want to be doing as a project deadline is getting close to slamming you against the wall.

I have yet to meet a professional freelancer who is offended by a potential client calling and honestly saying, “I don’t need your services now. But I do want to have some names in my rolodex of people I think I could work with if a need comes up down the road. So, I’d like us to get to know one another and see if there’s a potential working relationship.”

If they’re offended by that and feel you’re just wasting their time, congratulations! You found out something important about them before you’re in a crunch. Scratch them off your list and move on to the next name.

The sad thing is, very few business people reading this who use freelancers will bother to take my advice.

After all, they’re busy… or they’re totally happy with how things are going now and can’t imagine it will ever change.

Fair enough. But experience has shown me that things outside of our control can put us in frantic situations that can have real financial consequences for our business. That’s not the time you want to be finding a new member to add to your team.

The reason is simple: We’re often too busy working on marketing material for our clients. (No complaints… it’s a great situation to be in.)

So it’s with a great sense of relief and personal pride that I can announce I’ve finished my own magalog.

But creating a magalog only for my personal marketing seemed a bit of a wasted opportunity. So I created the magalog in more of a magazine-style layout.

Most clients I work for lean toward the sales letter style of magalog… one long sales letter broken up by a variety of sidebars. With the magazine style, you’ll usually see multiple articles, along with a few sidebars.

The magazine style lends itself to coaches, consultants and other professional service providers. The sales letter style is used most often when selling a product or single service. (As always, there are no concrete rules. We shape a magalog to our needs, not let ourselves become slaves to the format.)

So, the Successful Magalog Marketing magalog is available now at my new Resources page.

You’ll also find a FREE download of Heidi Richards Mooney’s interview with me, How to Promote Your Business Using Magalogs. This MP3 is about 40 minutes. We talk about – what else? – magalogs. Heidi is – among other things – the author of the book, Quirky Marketing Calendar.

Finally, you’ll find my FREE book, Increase Sales & Build Deeper Connections: How To Get Prospects To Pay Attention To The Story They Want And Need To Hear Before They Buy. I’ve mentioned the book here on the blog before. Much of the book is content from this blog. But the PDF packages things into something a bit easier for some people to read or pass along.

The book also contains some design-related information that, to this point, hasn’t appeared on the blog. While you may not be a designer, you should certainly know what to look for in your magalog from a design point-of-view.

So feel free to get these FREE resources at: http://www.magalogguy.com/resources/